"To Bad You Ain't Awake to See This Rescue, Storm."

Welcome back to the Rogue's journey in the analysis of the X-men Classic comics. This one is likely to be short, as it is not really focused on her overall, but well worth talking about specific points nonetheless. So, let's get to shall we and discuss Rogue's net steps in Uncanny X-men #175.

The opening starts with most of the X-men doing something relatively mundane, rooting up a dead tree. Rogue asks why Ororo is sad as she knew that the tree was dead, and Ororo admits that because of her changes she has made recently in her lifestyle may be part of the reason why she could not sense the illness of the tree. This only bothers her(seemingly) because no one ever wants to see something that is so strongly a metaphor for your old-self fading away into something new.

While Rogue does try to connect with her to some degree, Ororo is still fairly cold with her. When Rogue asks why she didn't just ask Peter or herself to deal with the tree with more efficiency, Ororo states that it's mostly just a team-building exercise.

The conversation is cut short when the 'Phoenix' fire symbol appears in the sky and drops Scott out of the sky. Being that she has only been on the team since Scott left the team, it takes her a minute to recognize him until Xavier calls them all into his study.

Xavier attempts to find 'The Phoenix' with Cerebro and the information that Scott gave him, until the machine explodes and nearly fries his brain.

It's not long after that ordeal that it is revealed that Scott is being possessed by Phoenix or at least someone that looks like her. Phoenix takes down most of the team fairly quick without issue, and when she comes to Rogue, she grabs her by the throat and throws her out of the building. While, even discussed during the last post, Rogue is far more aware of her vulnerability then she lets on; but outside of Carol Danvers, Phoenix is the first individual who could toss her around. It has to hurt even more because Phoenix states aloud that she doesn't know who Rogue is, obviously because she has joined only recently; and yet she still is defeated without a thought. The big point with Rogue here is that she has already made a connection with this team, even if not all of them have made one with her, reinforcing that once someone has her trust, she will fight with all her strength.

Once the scuffle with Phoenix ends and she goes away for unknown reasons. Scott wakes up and is seemingly still possessed. With his knowledge of the team and being a brilliant strategist, the next several panels show him taking out all the X-men with various tactics; including Rogue because he read her medical records and knows her weaknesses.

During the chase, Rogue catches Ororo after Scott knocks her out of the sky with his blasts. We still get the idea that Ororo is the most reluctant to accept her onto the team with Rogue's thoughts stating that if she were the evil mutant she believes her to be, she would have let her die.

After Scott knocks Rogue out, it seems that getting her to absorb Xavier's abilities is the primary goal of this detailed plan.With the absorption of Xavier's powers, it takes a while for for her to adjust to noise that emanates from every mind in close vicinity, yet with Scott's training from Xavier and understanding from his link with Jean, they manage to ease her mind at least for the moment.

The whole point of all of this was to show that 'Mastermind' is the one showing these visions, and Jean is still dead; using Rogue to convince the others of this truth. To end the battle, Ororo causes a devastating flood to fill the room while unintentionally nearly killing the whole team. While Logan is about to kill Mastermind, Ororo stops him, but when he questions her about preventing his death when she was about to possibly kill him a few minutes ago, she said that was during the heat of the battle.

While that answer seems to appease Logan for the moment, Rogue has her doubts about how unintentional Matermind's death might have been, because while her psychic are fading, she senses that she was not only ready to kill him but also sacrifice the others without question. Maybe that begins her understanding of Ororo and what kind of leader she is turning into, or it's something that chills her for those same reasons.

That's it for this time guys. Next time we will discuss Uncanny X-men 177-178. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it.