I waited to read this issue until I had read "Avengers vs. X-Men" #12, because it seemed to go after it, chronologically. Gage manages not to spoil the end, obviously, but, at least emotionally, it's an issue set in the time after the fight with Cyclops, so I'm glad I waited to read it.
Gage has put Rogue front and center of this series, so much so that it has really read more like a "Rogue" series than a team book. He has focused a significant portion of his run on examining Rogue as she steps into a leadership role; in fact, she was often the "Third Way," to quote Tony Blair, stepping into the breach between Cyclops and Wolverine. Whereas Storm served as Cyclops' moral conscious and Havok seemed to go with X-Factor to avoid taking a side, Rogue was the only leader -- past or present -- to agree and disagree with Cyclops and Wolverine. She staked out the middle ground and often served as the only one willing to put mutantkind's welfare above internal squabbling.
As such, Rogue's assertion here that she's Julia Roberts in "The Runaway Bride" seems remarkably unfair and totally incorrect. She claims that she can't be around Magneto because she's not an instinctively confident leader; she's afraid that she would just adopt whatever opinion that he has, because he would believe in it more strongly. The problem is that she confuses confidence with insight. She holds up Cyclops and Magneto as examples of confident leaders, but fails to see that they're also impulsive leaders who often undermine their preferred position because they refuse to secure their teammates' support. After the events of "Avengers vs. X-Men," I'm surprised that Rogue couldn't make that connection herself. After all, I'm not sure that anyone actually living in the world that these characters inhabit would look to Cyclops or Magneto as examples of leadership these days.
It makes for a disappointing penultimate issues of this series, given that it somewhat undermines the story that Gage has been telling all along, one that shows how Rogue's emotional grounding makes her the leader that the X-Men often need. The good news is that Rogue appears to be on Cap's "Uncanny Avengers" roster and I'm excited to see where Remender goes with her. In the meantime, I'm still hopeful that Gage will bring Rogue to a more secure place in the last issue. We shall see.
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