After effectively establishing himself as one of the coolest members of the X-Men by way of his smooth-talking swagger, Gambit also has a surprisingly violent side and in one particular instance, he pulled off a hit so shocking–both in method and in target–that he basically became the X-Men’s version of the Punisher.
Remy LeBeau aka Gambit is a mutant with the power of molecular acceleration–converting the potential energy in an object to kinetic energy, causing it to explode. Remy’s calling card is literally playing cards as he supercharges them before throwing them at his enemies during combat missions, though the cards are just his stylistic preference since he can supercharge anything he touches. Before joining the X-Men, Gambit was a member of the Thieves Guild based out of New Orleans, and as a member of the outlaw organization of thieves and con men, Gambit learned how to survive on the streets of any city as well as how to comfortably travel through the criminal underworld. While Gambit was originally a criminal before joining the X-Men, he wasn’t a bad person and would do whatever he believed was necessary in any given situation to protect the innocent from harm.
In Ultimate X-Men #14 by Chuck Austen and Esad Ribic, the New York mob boss Hammerhead kidnapped a girl who was an escaped witness to the murder of her parent, a murder carried out by Hammerhead himself. While Hammerhead recently got an upgrade in Spider-Man comics, his Ultimate counterpart was always a major threat.Before she was kidnapped, this girl encountered Gambit who was performing card tricks for money on the streets of New York before she came along. She told him what happened to her family and he agreed to help her, but when the two fell asleep in Gambit’s ‘secure’ location, Hammerhead’s goons kidnapped her, leaving a note for Gambit that said to leave the situation alone. Of course, Gambit could not oblige and instead launched a crusade to get the girl back and decimate Hammerhead’s organization despite Hammerhead's threatening physical enhancements. After killing his men and successfully saving the girl, Gambit found himself face-to-face with Hammerhead who proved himself to be a formidable challenge for the future X-Man. Right as Hammerhead was gearing up to deliver the finishing blow, Gambit grabbed the enhanced gangster’s face and supercharged his head–frying Hammerhead’s brain inside his skull.
Gambit’s actions in this issue are strikingly similar to those of the Punisher in more ways than one. The Punisher is usually the only hero, or antihero, to kill members of New York’s crime families with Hammerhead even being one of his past victims in previous storylines, though here fans see Gambit going after them with murderous intent, wiping out the entire organization from the ground up just as the Punisher would have done. Not only was the choice in target similar to the Punisher, but the viciousness of Gambit’s attacks mirror the Punisher’s cruel killing methods as well. Gambit cooked Hammerhead’s brain and in doing so gave him a horrifying death rather than incapacitating him and bringing him to justice.
To add yet another similarity between the Punisher and Gambit in this issue is the fact that Gambit had no moral hang ups about killing Hammerhead or his men. Being someone who grew up around criminals, Gambit knew the difference between someone like himself who breaks the law to survive and truly evil people who just need to be taken out. Though Marvel recently confirmed Punisher is their greatest killer, Gambit would make Frank jealous. Gambit apparently shares the Punisher’s sense for who deserves to live and die, and in this issue, he exercises that sense to the most brutal extent as Gambit basically became the X-Men’s version of the Punisher.