"It's Only Fair I Return the Compliment".

So...as Uncanny X-Men #172 has very little time with Rogue, and since this is a two part story anyway, I've decided to include coverage of Uncanny X-Men #173 as well. Hopefully this won't go too long but we'll see I guess. Without further ado, let's get into Rogue's adventure with Logan in Japan.

The first thing that is made clear is that while the majority of the X-Men have arrived at Logan's wedding, he has not had time to make his resolve with Rogue becoming a member of the team as he was not there at the time when Charles made his speech. While the rest of the team seem to have begrudgingly accepted her, to be capped with Ororo saying, "We made the decision".

While Logan is still steamed about the decision, his fiancé(Mariko) is the only one that has decided to be civil about a guest in her home. To be fair to Logan and the rest of the group, Mariko has no history with Rogue and as far as can be told, she has never met Carol Danvers. Still, the fact that she still counts Rogue as an equal along with the rest of the group is a start for Logan to accept her into the family.

For the rest of the issue, Rogue stays in the background. Always apart from the group whenever they are discussing strategies. That is, up until the end of the issue when she insist that she go along with Logan on his mission against The Silver Samurai(Harada) and Viper.

At the beginning of issue #173, Logan and Rogue have been bashing assassins and members of the mob all night.

As Logan is interrogating another member, Rogue just sits back and enjoys the show. Even when an assassin is attacking her with a knife, she just talks about how educational it has been watching Logan work.

This is where Rogue's personality starts to form; at least in the way that she has fun with what she does, which is a subtle way to show how she and Logan are similar. Both characters have their times when they have their brooding time, most of the time for good reason. By the same token, both also enjoy violence to a degree and have the greatest loyalty to those they love. They are also both ashamed of their past, the big difference is that while Logan does not remember most of his past and Rogue can never forget the mistakes she's made throughout her life.

After they get their information, Logan does begin to appreciate what Rogue can bring to the team when his narration box(meant to be his thoughts) tell that the stealth portion of their mission is made much easier because of her ability to fly over the computer defenses.

Once they come into the building, Logan tells Rogue to follow his lead. When she makes a joking response, he gets annoyed with her during a mission that is very personal for himself. This is a nice parallel to whenever he has made jokes during missions when Scott or Ororo are calling the shots. Just goes to show how one could be their own worst student.

While Rogue tells him that the confidence is a part of the perks of being invulnerable, Logan knows how insignificant that word is with his soldier mentality that there is always a weakness, and his time with the X-Men have proved it time and again with enemies such as: Phoenix, Gladiator, Sabastian Shaw and the Hellfire Club, and it also could be eluding to Rogue bringing down Carol when she was once considered to be invincible.

Though the temptation is strong to let her be shot by a security eye to test her limits, Logan chooses to snatch Rogue away stately because she might be needed. A small spark to ignite the relationship between the two to be sure, but an important one nonetheless.

The relationship takes a step back when Rogue starts to play with Logan and tries to kiss him as a reward; but he shuts that down quickly when puts his knuckles against her chin. Though he knows it's a joke, he still tries to lay down the ground rules with the other members of the X-Men as she is still on very thin ice with this group. In his own way he is trying to help her, though his methods are rough at this point, they are needed at this time; and to be honest, he's the only one that could get this message through to her.

When they realize that they have been suckered to the wrong location, they start there trek to the accurate location.

Once they arrive, Rogue deals with the ninja's and assassins while Logan takes on Harada.

For an unknown reason at the time, Mariko stops Logan from killing Harada(against the traditional fight to the death, which both parties agreed to). The injuries received are too much and Harada appears to be dead. Viper tries to shoot Logan and Mariko, but Rogue shoves them both out of the way and takes the shot.

While Viper tells her it's noble to take a shot and must feel proud of herself, Rogue clarifies that the team couldn't care less because she's not foolish and knows how to read people enough to know not to trust what people say at face value. The reason she says she takes the bullet is because Mariko is the first person to accept her; though it's highly likely she knows this will score points with Logan which will influence the rest of the team.

Regardless of the theory of how much she knows that act will influence Logan, it's clear she did this selflessly to a large degree. While Viper's gun overloads, she retreats and Logan tells her that he'll kill her and her group if he sees them again.

Being at the point of death, Rogue does accept her fate as she refuses Logan's offer to take his healing abilities. The reason why she refuses is because she knows he's been terribly injured as well, and without those abilities, he'll die. He's not deterred by that fact and says that he's a man who pays his debts, and because of her sacrifice for Mariko he wants to return the compliment.

In that moment, that is where the deep connection between the two truly begin and for the rest of their lives, regardless of the decisions the other makes, they will always be indebted to one another. That is more than decent grounds to begin forming a strong connection; different in so many ways from his relationship with Kitty Pryde, but just as deep under any circumstance. That and Logan is really the first member of the team to accept Rogue and have good reason to believe she is genuine, without the sway of Charles.

That's all for this one guys. It's fun going back to these comics that I haven't read in a long time. X-Men was the first comic I started seeing the depth they could hold, which is why I wanted this to be the first comic run on this blog. When we come back to Rogue's journey, we'll be analyzing Uncanny X-Men #175. Till then, thanks for reading.