Warning: Spoilers ahead for X-Men #2 by Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz!
As one of the resident powerhouses of the X-Men, the mutant the Avengers vs. X-Men event, Cap formed the Avengers Unity Squad to bring together both the Avengers and the X-Men. But with the clashing personalities, not every member of the group fit in so easily at first.
While she experienced more than a few growing pains amongst Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Rogue soon proved a valuable addition to the Unity Squad. She even led the team on more than one occasion. Now, it seems her Avengers training has finally come in handy as the Merry Mutants face a new threat in X-Men #2 by Gerry Duggan and Pepe Larraz.
X-Men #2 finds the Krakoan heroes facing off with one of the Marvel Universe’s deadliest threats - the Annihilation Wave. With the wave devouring a small town in Kansas, threatening to expand across the globe, it’s up to the X-Men to meet it head-on. But as the team confronts an enemy they’re largely unfamiliar with, Rogue comes to a conclusion about the threat they’re facing thanks to Captain America’s training. Anna Marie tells her teammates that they’re facing the Wave, before adding “Whenever we had downtime on the Unity Squad, Captain America would check our knowledge of extinction-level threats.”
Rogue was an Avenger for years, so it’s not surprising that she retained information about cataclysmic threats. With all the extinction-level threats facing the Marvel Universe, it’s important for heroes to stay up-to-date, and Cap’s training clearly paid off as Rogue’s information proved invaluable to the X-Men’s battle. But the fact that drilling the team on threats was a way for Captain America to the time says a lot about the Avengers as an overall organization.
While the X-Men are known as more of a surrogate family for all its , in a lot of ways, the Avengers tend to be a more professional and focused organization. The X-Men are amazing heroes who protect the world without hesitation, but a large part of why they originally came together was because they felt alone in the world. Meanwhile, the Avengers were formally put together to take on foes no single superhero could withstand.
With a leader like Cyclops, it’s clear that the X-Men aren’t all play and no work. But Anna Marie’s reference to Captain America and the Avengers does help put the differences between the two teams into perspective. Either way, both teams have been lucky enough to call a hero like Rogue one of their own, but at the end of the day, her heart belongs with her family in the X-Men.
