Book Review: Gambit: Once a Thief by James Asmus

Gambit: Once a Thief
James Asmus, Clay Mann and Diogenes Neves
Genre(s): Graphic Novels, Comics, Superheroes
Published: April 2nd 2013
Pages: 152
Rating: 4 stars

“When Marvel's premiere thief sets his sights on his biggest score yet, he may just end up over his head. 

Desperately searching for a means to destroy the pilfered artifact that's cursed him, Gambit journeys deep into the Guatemalan jungles in search of a lost temple - but finds an ancient god-monster accidentally loosed on Earth! It's going to take more than just playing cards and southern charm to get out of this one! 


Then, coerced by a criminal mastermind, Gambit is sent to the United Kingdom to heist the greatest weapon in the history of man: Excalibur! How will Marvel's premiere thief manage to dupe his extortionist while also escaping with a clear name? Be here as the X-Men's ragin' cajun kicks off his all-new solo career!”

After marathoning all of the X-Men films, I really wanted to jump into some of the comics. Once A Thief seemed like a good place to start, as not only is it from the Marvel NOW! line of comics, it also collects the first seven issues of Gambit's comics, a character I have very limited knowledge of. I often find that comic collections are confusing and offer little to know prior information of characters, so the fact that this starts from the very beginning of his story line had me very excited to pick it up.

For starters, I really like the artwork. Just having a quick flip through it showed me that it was crisp and clean, with lots of lovely colour schemes in the panels. Marvel really does some to know what it's doing when to comes to artists, and I really cannot fault the talent of all the pencilers and inkers involved.

I did like Gambit as a character, and I was interested to read about him and his abilities. He seemed very well prepared and equipped for everything, and not just because of his mutation. He seemed to give off that kind of 'I know what I'm doing' vibe, and his costume was really cool. I also really liked his mysterious partner in crime. She was independent and headstrong and I was interested to see what she was up to. The way she and Gambit interacted and worked together, even though she didn't want his help, was nice too. 

I did like the plot, it was fun, even if it was a bit of a typical thief plot. But then again, the title of this volume is Once a Thief, so I shouldn't really have expected anything different.

Overall, I did really enjoy this graphic novel, and I think I'll definitely be carrying on with the series.