Here’s the Creaky Comic Book Math That Will Help Us Determine Rogue’s Age in ‘X-Men ’97’

We all have a favorite member of the X-Men, but only those who designate Rogue as such are correct.

I kid, of course, but that sentiment is nevertheless indicative of how dearly I adore this character. Her Southern Belle spunk is all kinds of infectious, her perennial desire for connection speaks to me and many other queer folk on a significant level, and in my case, she’s voiced by a fellow Nova Scotian in X-Men ’97 and its predecessor, which probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but is perhaps one of the coolest things in the world to me.

Speaking of X-Men ‘97, we’re in for quite a bit of drama on the Rogue front, given what appears to be a bizarre love triangle going on with her, Gambit, and Magneto, which surely raised a few eyebrows when it was teased in the first two episodes. (And before you say that Rogue and Magneto have comics history in that vein, that doesn’t make it any less weird.)

For one thing, Rogue appears to be a fraction of Magneto’s age.

How old is Rogue?

While Rogue’s age is never explicitly stated in either X-Men ’97 or the original animated series it serves as a sequel to (to say nothing of the devil-may-care nature of comic book continuity), we can use some context clues to make a perfectly reasonable guesstimate here.

In the original animated series, we learn that as a teenager, Rogue had run away from her home to escape her bigoted father. She then spent some time under the wing of Mystique and the Brotherhood of Mutants before eventually joining the X-Men.

Now, the original X-Men team (consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, Iceman, and Angel) was formed back when Professor X was in his 40s, and given that he’s about the same age as Magneto, who survived the Holocaust as a child, and the show takes place in the ’90s (about 15 years later, give or take), that would put Professor X and Magneto in and around their late 50s to early-to-mid 60s.

Furthermore, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Beast had to have been at least in their mid-to-late teens to join the X-Men back when the team was first formed, and with roughly 15 years having passed since then, that would put the original members in their late-20s or early-to-mid-30s today, and since we know Rogue is younger than those three but older than Jubilee (late teens at least), that would mean she’s likely somewhere in her mid-20s.

And that, dear readers, is all the math I’ll be doing for the rest of the month. Carry on.

(featured image: Disney Plus)