MR. SINISTER

Young Remy LeBeau's mutant gift was growing faster than his body could survive it. The kinetic energy he generated kept climbing toward levels he could not switch off, and the master thief knew exactly one surgeon unscrupulous enough to help. As revealed in Uncanny X-Men #350 (1997), by Steve Seagle and Joe Madureira, Gambit went to Mister Sinister — and Sinister agreed to operate.

The procedure was brain surgery as a dimmer switch: Sinister removed a portion of Gambit's brain tissue, throttling his power down to the familiar card-charging level he has used ever since. The Gambit readers know — the charged cards, the staff, the charm — is the reduced model. Untouched, that same power grows into the New Sun, a variant who mastered biokinetic energy completely, killed the Phoenix Force in his reality and burned his world clean.

Sinister, of course, did not work for free. The surgery bought him Gambit's debt, and collecting it led Remy to assemble a team of mutant killers for one last job — the Marauders, whose descent into the Morlock tunnels became the Mutant Massacre. The removed tissue was later restored by a younger, time-displaced Sinister when Gambit briefly needed his full strength back, before he burned the excess power out for good.