"..Am I Just Buried in Some Back-Alley Grave?"

Hey guys. No I'm not done with this project, there are just several things going on right now that this has been on the back burner for the last few weeks. Anyway I'm back to discuss the character bits for Rogue in Uncanny X-Men #186-188. Not as much here as the past several post, but still things that are necessary for her journey. Without further ado, let's get to it.

After the attack on both Ororo and Rogue from the government, Ororo has been taken by Forge for recovery. This story-line is a mainly character development for Ororo, but that doesn't mean there are no bits for Rogue here. Rogue goes to Val Cooper who authorized the weapon that zapped Ororo of her powers, at this point she believes to be permanent, from a species of aliens that have attacked her and infiltrated the government. She does this begrudgingly though for obvious reasons.

As the scuffle ends, Val actually manages to get away as Rogue takes a minute because she forgot she doesn't have her costume or gloves, because of this she touches the aliens with her bare skin. Only after Xavier helps stabilize her mind, does she has the energy and wherewithal to go after her; who is currently driving away in a car with a decent head start.

Rogue manages to catch up with Val and touches her to get all the information that is needed to know if they have kept Ororo somewhere. Once she touches her though, she finds out what actually happened and after she pulls the car over, she decides to contact Xavier about what she planned to do by herself. Because she still blames herself for what happened. Which does still line up with her mentality as she has not had time to recover from this trauma and why she went back to Mississippi in the first place. Which is always her go to, before blaming others she will find some way to blame herself; much like Logan, which may be why she has such a kinship with him.

In #187 the only thing worth noting is that she and Peter are sent to get Ororo and Forge and help them with this alien threat. Ororo is happy to see both which I think is a small comfort to Rogue at this point knowing that she may be responsible for her potentially losing her powers forever. Which is confirmed for her that this is true(at least to their knowledge), and the small hope that her powers were not taken from her forever and she wouldn't have to be responsible for another tragedy in her life.

Sure the fact is that Rogue often thinks less of herself and thinks that she is on the precipice of rejecting her than is actually true in reality. However, considering the last several months have been spent working to earn the trust of the X-Men(Ororo being the hardest sell already), and this recent mission to help Michael and the results that have come from that; it makes sense she seems ingrained with this mentality and lifestyle of self-blame.

In #188 one could argue there is even less than the last issue. Rogue has very little to do this issue outside of being tortured along with the others in this issue. Outside of that, she has very little to do with the conclusion of the story.

At the end, Rachel Summers(who has been introduced several issues ago, but the identity is not revealed until this point) gives all the X-Men information about their own fates and what happens to them in her timeline. In this recap, Rogue is never mentioned and realizes she is not a part of the team when Senator Kelly is killed by Mystique. Which leads her to wonder if she survived somehow and just not worth mentioning or killed in some lackluster way. All of this on top of the revelation that her mother is responsible for the slaughter of most mutants in the future.

Maybe she was even convinced that the reason she was not mentioned in the future is that she somehow became convinced to join her mother in her assassination attempt.

That's all for this time guys. Like I said, pretty light in this story, but there was so much covered in the last several issues that it balances out giving other characters some growth and time to shine. Thanks for reading and I will be back when I can.