"With Friends Like These..." Captain Marvel's Greatest Foe - The X-Man ROGUE?

It's practically a tradition that when two superheroes meet for the first time, they fight. For Captain Marvel and Rogue, that's something of an understatement - when they first met, Rogue was a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants! Since that day, there's been a simmering tension between the two women. Every now and again it comes to the surface - and here are the classic examples!

The First Fight!

Oddly enough, the origin of the rivalry between Carol Danvers and Rogue has never been fully explained. That's because it was part of an ongoing arc Chris Claremont was working on in the pages of Ms. Marvel - and the book wound up cancelled. As part of his Ms. Marvel run, Claremont had introduced a shapeshifter known as Mystique (yes, that Mystique), who had an unexplained vendetta against Ms. Marvel. That vendetta was finally explained decades later, when the unfinished Ms. Marvel #25 was published in Marvel Super Heroes #11. We learned that Mystique had adopted a daughter, Rogue, and that her precognitive lover Destiny had foreseen Ms. Marvel causing harm to Rogue.

That unfinished book showed the first time the two women went at it. But Avengers Annual #10, which finally gave Claremont his chance to introduce Rogue, gave us our first glimpse of her deadly powers. The book began with Rogue savagely attacking Carol, absorbing her powers and memories, and throwing her unconscious body off the Golden Gate bridge! Fortunately for Carol, she was saved from death by Spider-Woman.

Although fans of the 1990s X-Men Animated Series will probably think Carol slipped into a coma for years, actually she awoke - but a large part of her psyche was gone, and her powers were permanently absorbed by Rogue. Carol soon developed her powers once again, launching on intergalactic adventures as Binary. When she learned Rogue was now an X-Man, she returned to show her displeasure.

The Battle for Rogue's Life!

The aftermath of Avengers Annual #10 left Rogue with major issues - an echo of Carol's mind was left in her own. Finally, Rogue plunged into the mystic portal known as the Siege Perilous, emerging in Uncanny X-Men #269. The Siege Perilous gave the two minds separate form - but only one life-force between them, meaning that one had to kill the other! Making matters worse for Rogue, the powers she had absorbed from Ms. Marvel seemed to be gone.

The desperate battle took the two women from the Australian Outback to the Savage Land, kicking off one of Rogue's most famous solo adventures. In the Savage Land, the choice of who should live and who should die was made for them; they were found by Magneto, who killed the simulacrum of Carol Danvers when he worked out what was going on.

This is one battle that Carol knows nothing about. At the time, she was in deep space wielding cosmic power as Binary.

An Alternate-Earth Ms. Marvel Causes Chaos!

Years later, shortly after Marvel's "Civil War" event, Ms. Marvel and Rogue clashed once again - and in very unusual circumstances. An alternate-universe version of Carol emerged in our reality, still going by the name of Warbird. This version of Carol had never truly recovered from Rogue's attack, and - after she had failed to save her reality - had spun through countless dimensions. As she travelled through the Multiverse, she took bloody revenge on any versions of Rogue she met!

Furious at this broke and selfish version of herself, in Ms. Marvel #9-10 our reality's Ms. Marvel provoked a rematch. In a disturbing twist, when Rogue got in the way, Ms. Marvel took pleasure in breaking a few ribs. She was pretty shocked at herself for it.

Avengers Vs. X-Men!

When Marvel first teased the "Avengers Vs. X-Men" event, the Rogue / Ms. Marvel match-up was a logical one to advertize! The actual confrontation happened in X-Men: Legacy #269, at a time when the X-Men's 'Phoenix Five' had pretty much taken over the world. Although Rogue was supporting them - in common with most mutants at that point in the overarching plot - Ms. Marvel felt Rogue would be willing to listen to sense.

Yeah, right. Rogue thought it was an ambush, and her attempt to fight back included an attempt to drain Carol's powers. Ms. Marvel was understandably furious that Rogue would ever do that again! The fight came to an end when Rogue combined those stolen powers with abilities she'd already absorbed from Iceman.

Ironically enough, Ms. Marvel's warnings proved right by the end of that very issue. When Rogue saw the 'prison' that Magik had constructed for Ms. Marvel, she freed her, and soon was one of the first X-Men to change sides and oppose the Phoenix Five.

So there you have it - a more unusual grudge match, one that's more of a simmering tension between two allies than an out-and-out-battle! Nowadays, Carol's taken up the identity of Captain Marvel and become a major figure, while Rogue is actually an Avenger. It'd be fun to see these two work together for a while...

Do you want to see Rogue and Captain Marvel fight side-by-side?