Rogue is no longer the newest person everybody is trying to figure out. After the Massacre, she is one of the X-Men who can still go into the field, which puts her in a differen…

Rogue is no longer the newest person everybody is trying to figure out. After the Massacre, she is one of the X-Men who can still go into the field, which puts her in a different relationship with the next arrivals. Becoming an experienced teammate doesn't erase her own unfinished business. Dazzler is a particularly awkward addition. Alison remembers encounters with Rogue from before Rogue joined the X-Men. They cannot start with the pleasant fiction that they are strangers who simply need an introduction. Alison's reasons for being wary are personal, and Rogue's acceptance by other X-Men doesn't automatically settle them. The Juggernaut story in #217–218 gives that relationship somewhere to go besides another argument about the past. Dazzler, Rogue, Psylocke and Longshot have to work as a group against somebody none of them should casually underestimate. Rogue's power to absorb abilities is useful here, but success also depends on the others doing their parts. That combination makes these issues a good look at what membership actually asks of her. She has to be someone a new teammate can rely on, including when that teammate has excellent reasons not to like her. She cannot demand forgiveness as a benefit of wearing the same insignia. There is also something strange about watching Rogue become part of the team's continuity while so many of the people who helped establish her place are injured or absent. Her own sense of belonging has to bear more weight now. She is helping make the next version of the household work. The fights still let her be loud, strong and wonderfully direct. Underneath that energy, the reconstruction asks a quieter question: what does earning trust look like after you have already been accepted, when somebody new arrives carrying an older version of you?