ROGUE

 

ROGUE

Real Name: Anna Marie LeBeau

First Appearance: Avengers Annual (Vol. 1) #10, October 1981

Powers: Rogue's mutant ability is to absorb the bio-essence of other people upon skin-to-skin contact, processing it to give her access to various aspects of their being. This includes special powers, knowledge, and memories. The absorption process strips a victim of some of their living essence, sending them into shock. They originally would tend to remain unconscious for the entire length of time Rogue possessed their template, and if they did awaken they would be weakened, partially amnesiac, and powerless. Rogue's power originally worked on a 1:60 time ratio: If Rogue was in contact with her victim for 1 second the transfer would be sustained for 60 seconds, 1 minute would sustain it for 60 minutes, and so on. Many factors were known to interfere with the standard operating procedure, though, such as magic, aliens, or strong emotional reactions during the transfer. This interference could take the form of Rogue maintaining active residue of her victim's minds or powers for weeks after the initial contact. During a battle with Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers), this ended with Rogue permanently absorbing her, gaining a half-Kree genetic code, Class 50 superhuman strength, superhuman endurance, reflexes, and durability, increased tolerance for disease and poison, and the ability to fly at superhuman speeds. She only occasionally manifested Carol's “Seventh Sense”, allowing her to instinctively predict and move to counterattack an opponent's moves in combat.

After touching the telepathic Skrull Deviant known as Z'Cann, Rogue was transformed for a time into a Skrull. This altered her powers for a brief period so that touching someone not only gave her their powers, it also caused her to duplicate their appearance. Soon, the active Skrull genes faded and her features returned to normal, but now Rogue's powers fluctuated: The residual traces of her past victims were now spontaneously and unexpectedly activating themselves again, suddenly giving her powers like claws, organic metal skin, optic blasts, healing factors, and more. With the help of Sage's jump-start power, Rogue gained control and became capable of summoning up any set of powers from her past that she wished. Unfortunately, major wound trauma suffered at the hands of Vargas stretched her abilities to the limit and she burnt herself out, losing all of her power templates and her absorption power as well for a time.

Her abilities later returned, but her Ms. Marvel powers were gone permanently and her absorption power was working a bit differently. She seemed to be able to prioritize memories when she tapped them now, such as touching a pilot and maintaining his flight skills, while pushing the rest of it to the back of her mind. The effects of her power on other people seemed to be far less intense as well, as victims of a brief touch would only experience a brief dizziness instead of being knocked out for a few minutes. The 1:60 time ratio may still apply to Rogue's ability to maintain an imprint, but not for the effect on her victim. Put simply, originally it was a 1-second contact which gives Rogue their essence for 1 minute and knocking the victim unconscious for the same period of time. At this point, Rogue's victims recovered fast enough that she could absorb a fellow X-Man's powers and the two of them could use those powers together at the same time. She absorbed the powers of Sunfire permanently for a period of time, but never learned to use his abilities much beyond flame-blasting and flight.

After exposure to the viral Strain 88 courtesy of Pandemic, Rogue's power was amplified to uncontrollable levels. Her touch was now instantly fatal to other people, shutting down their minds and permanently rendering them to a vegetative state, while Rogue absorbed their entire lifetime of thoughts and memories. She almost fatally overloaded after making contact with the Hecatomb, a collective psychic entity containing thousands of minds, all of which were absorbed into Rogue's psyche. The psychic shock drove her into a coma until Hope Summers' touch somehow wiped Rogue's mind clean of all foreign presences and influences.

Briefly reduced to more manageable levels, Rogue's powers were perfected after Professor Xavier and Danger worked together to properly realign her powers and give her total control over her abilities. Rogue could now freely touch other people without absorbing from them. She can selectively use her power to absorb someone's abilities or sifting through their memories and skills as she chooses. The side-effects of her power can also be controlled, letting her render people unconscious, active but powerless, or merely momentarily weakened. Rogue can selectively manifest power imprints once she absorbs them: Touching Archangel doesn't give her his wings for a period of time, but the ability to manifest his wings for a period of time. The abilities she absorbs are optional and she can choose to access them sometime after the initial contact or not at all. They can also manifest without secondary indicators, such as when she duplicated Anole's agility and leaping ability without turning green and scaly. Rogue can also combine several absorbed abilities together into creative gestalt powers. She once combined the powers of Dust, Mercury, Rockslide, Gentle, and Armor to transform herself into super-dense shards of silicon-metal, erupting with explosive force while each piece was surrounded with impenetrable psionic force.

Becoming permanently imbued with the ionic flux of Wonder Man granted her ionically-sustained superhuman strength, limitless endurance, invulnerability to physical harm, and supersonic flight speed. A side effect was that she once again lost control of her mutant power. Rogue's powers increased after merging powers with Xandra, so her power would uncontrollably affects anyone within a general proximity.