King of the space-thieves.
Gambit is sent on a mission to help correct the timeline and prevent the immortal villain Apocalypse from conquering Earth.
In the Age of Apocalypse reality, Gambit joined the X-Men much earlier than he did in the normal continuity. He was raised by the Thieves Guild, as in the main stories, but their leader, Candra, was also one of Apocalypse's Horsemen; but when she was killed by Holocaust in a war of succession, Gambit went looking for a new home, and found Magneto's X-Men. Again, as in the real world, he fell in love with Rogue and even planned to propose to her, but she chose Magneto over him. Heartbroken and destroyed, he left the team. And since Rogue and Magneto have a toddler at this point, all that has to have happened way in the past.
Gambit was intended to get a figure in ToyBiz's 1996 Age of Apocalypse
line, but when ToyBiz did what the ToyBiz do (namely: reduce the size of the line from six to five), Gambit was the one who got dropped. They eventually released the mold in a Famous Couples two-pack with Rogue, which had to feel like salt in the wound for the poor guy - the 616 versions may have been a couple, but the 295 versions were specifically not! Anyway, that figure was rough, even by the standards of the mid-90s, but it's the only toy he's ever had until now.
A shocking amount of this figure's sculpt is new. Sure, the trunk comes from an existing source, but the arms and legs are new. There's an odd, wrinkled texture on the outside of his sleeves, and then it transitions smoothly into wraps around his forearms
and cuffs for his short gloves. Like Fabian Cortez, his gloves have sculpted seams, though we'd have recognized the hands as new regardless, thanks to their unusal poses. His legs are softer in detail than plain superhero legs, with less muscle definition, but the cloth on his hips bunches up, and then he's got weird layered knee pads, and asymmetrical wraps around his thick-soled boots. The head doesn't have a particularly strong "Tony Daniel" look to it, but... eh, let's be honest, that's to its benefit. The floppy hair's nice, though.
Gambit tops off his alternate-reality ensemble with a thick red cape, which just hangs around his neck. Like all plastic capes,
it looks a little weird if you're really putting his articulation to use, but what can we say? Hasbro's just not as good as McFarlane Toys when it comes to making capes. This chest is one of the ones with pectoral hinges in addition to all the usual joints, it's just that the cape means you'll be more often moving them forward than back. And of course, because the legs are new, we don't get shin swivels. What a waste. The ToyBiz figure had an action feature: you could turn his waist and a spring would snap it back, allowing him to throw a little blue energy ball or smack people with his staff. Obviously a Marvel Legend isn't going to have the same thing, but could we not at least have gotten an energy affect for him?
AoA Gambit didn't use playing cards, but rather little throwing knives - kind of like Moon Knight and his little crescents, so it's a shame the figure doesn't include anything like that. Even ToyBiz sculpted some into their figure's hand! And we know Hasbro knows how to do that. All this one gets is the same segmented staff as always,
so look forward to that getting bent if you ever have to put the figure in storage instead of on display. The ToyBiz staff had a blade on the tip, but that wasn't anything from the comics, so it's not surprising Hasbro didn't do the same. In addition to a pair of closed fists, the figure has a gesturing right hand, and a left with two fingers extended; considering that the fingers on those are spread apart slightly, you have to wonder if they were planning to give him knives at one point, but just dropped it.
The figure also includes a Build-A-Figure piece: Nemesis' right leg.
The definition of "tragedy," in its original, classic meaning, was a play in which that the hero is undone by their own flaws, rather than external forces. So here's Gambit, who left the X-Men because the woman he loved chose someone else, and now his little group of thieves ends up falling apart for the same reason - except this time he was the other man, gaining a woman's love over someone he considered a friend. Does that count? I don't know, I'm not a theatrologist, find somebody smarter than me and ask them. All I know is this is another good figure, and it's nice to add to the Age of Apocalyse ranks without it needing to fill up an entire series by itself.
-- 08/18/25
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