Everyone knows Rogue’s powers, she absorbs the powers of whoever gives skin to skin contact with her and she keeps them for a while before they wear off and she goes back to normal and this has been consistent pretty much since day one with the only thing varying is her control. One thing that is far less consistent is the representation of the copy, mainly her physical appearance. In the shows like X-Men: Evolution, Wolverine and the X-Men, and even the 90’s X-Men series she is commonly portrayed as shape shifting after absorbing someone’s powers however in the comics it is much less common. While she occasionally does, the last one that really comes to mind was during Second Coming in X-Men: Legacy 235 and X-Force 26 where she copies Colossus, Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Angel and gets an aspect of each of their appearances. The most recent physical transformation that I have found was in X-Men: Legacy 266 and 267 where she turned green after touching She-Hulk and in 270 when she fights a demon and gains its appearance.

This aspect of Rogue’s power is very underused as it could be used to not just straight copy the appearance but it could also be used as a slightly variant design. For example, if she copied Colossus’s original power (not the Juggernaut) instead of just getting silver skin, she could have small spikes on her arms or something like that to make it similar but different; this could work for people without physical mutations as well such as Ms. Marvel (Captain Marvel now) as she could get blonde hair instead of brown or a more radical transformation such as gaining a figure closer to Ms. Marvel’s. There are literally hundreds of possibilities out there.

Now since there were two in three issue, that seems like a lot but the She-Hulk one really doesn’t count since she just turned green, wouldn’t a more appropriate Hulk family power copy be green skin and more muscle mass? Of course this could not hold true for all people, like Wolverine, if she copied him, she would just get the claws, not the sideburns and other things of that nature.

This physical aspect of her powers could lead to more freedom for the artist to have fun with new or at least altered character designs and could lead to interesting stories, for example if she needed to deliver an important message but needed to borrow Beast’s power and grew blue fur. This could be used not only for visual gags, which could get entertaining, but serious stories as well; for example if the X-Men got stranded on an alien world and needed to infiltrate somewhere.

While this transformation doesn’t have to happen every time I feel that this was one aspect commonly used on the television shows and only semi-frequently in the comics that could lead to some interesting character designs and stories as well, thereby expanding the character a little more in a way that has, to my knowledge, never been done before. In a medium like comics, any chance to expand a character in a new way, as long as it is reasonable and this is, should be taken.

Do you agree?