I don’t read comic books but I saw This Pete Holmes Skit where Professor X makes fun of them and he’s right, in the pictures I could find Gambit’s gloves are fingerless except for the index and ring finger on one hand and the index and pinky on the other.
Why?
I don’t think there is a specific answer other than “it was the 90s and Jim Lee thought it looked cool”.
All the pics I can find are index+ring on both hands.
Really, what’s up with Gambit’s entire costume? He’s supposed to be a master thief - who runs around in a fuschia shirt and metal boots?
Real stealthy there, chere.
It’s like the jokes we used to make about Garrett, from the Thief games–he’s so stealthy that he wears metal boots just to make it a challenge.
As to the gloves–I’ve seen a number of variations on them. Sometimes it’s index+thumb, sometimes it’s index, thumb, and pinky. X-Men: Evolution even has him wearing completely fingerless gloves.
I can’t account for the variations, but I see a plausible reason for him having some of his fingers exposed–his power works by touch. He needs at least some skin contact with the object he wants to charge, so his gloves have to be at least partially fingerless. Since one of his favorite stunts is throwing charged cards, which are naturally held between thumb and index finger, those are the fingers that he most consistently leaves exposed. (I suppose he may have another power stunt that he habitually uses his pinky for, but I don’t know what it might be.)
Of course, he could do without gloves entirely, but he’s from a family of thieves. “Always wear gloves” was probably conditioned into him from the time he was potty trained. (Besides, he’s from the Deep South and seems to spend most of his time in New York now. He wears gloves and a coat because he’s freezing half the time. 
)
Misdirection? That’s why Penn Jillette had red nail polish on his pinkie.
I’m thinking he forgets a lot, goes to use his powers, and burns off one finger so he can actually do the thing he wanted to do. He probably goes through a lot of gloves.
I’ve never really gotten a handle on what exactly Gambit’s mutant X-Man power IS. Um, “imbuing objects with kinetic power” ? That’s pretty oblique compared to wings, eye-rays, and shiny knives that pop out of one’s knuckles.
I just like him because he’s Cajun, and probably cooks a MEAN mudbug etouffee.
The “kinetic energy” explanation is rather silly (even by superhero comic standards), and I take it as an indication that Gambit either doesn’t actually understand how it works himself or is deliberately using a simplistic (and wrong) explanation to deceive people.
Whatever he does, it creates a field that produces a visible glow and causes the “charged” object to explode with great force shortly after losing contact with him. The energy released varies with the size of the object and the time Gambit spends charging it, but frequently exceeds the chemical energy one would expect to release from the object by means of conventional combustion.
If I had to write a new handwave for his power, it would be something like this: Gambit replaces an *extremely *small proportion of the particles in the object with antiparticles, encapsulated in tiny forcefields.The glow is the result from annihilation of minute amounts of matter caught in the edges of the forcefields. When he loses contact with the object, he can no longer maintain the forcefields; they collapse soon after leaving his hand, and the object explodes as a bunch of antiparticles collide with its normal matter. (It’s still a bit silly, but at least not completely nonsensical.)
He probably also finds it useful to be able to not touch some things directly, because his powers probably bleed into anything he touches even when he’s not actively intending to use them. So he has covering on some of his fingers, so he can just use those fingers to handle delicate things.
And Balance, doesn’t he sometimes also charge up a staff to use in melee, without destroying the staff?
Hm. As long as he stays in contact with it, his charged object won’t explode. And the field he creates can spread throughout large and complex objects. Maybe he uses the staff to extend the field to a target, and the detonation triggers when the staff rebounds, adding explosive force to the impact?
I’m sure there are examples of things he’s done that don’t fit my version. It’s hard to make a single power match three decades of vagaries and inconsistencies by multiple authors.
I only remember the character from a couple cameo appearances in – was it X-Men Origins: Wolverine?
If I recall correctly, Logan seeks him out in a New Orleans bar. That’s kind-of his hang-out spot, where it wouldn’t be uncommon for people around him to be playing pool/billiards or poker – in other words, there would be an abundance of pool cues and cards around, both of which he uses as weapons.*
And, if I remember correctly, that character doesn’t just hang out at those places, but participates in the games.
Which leads me to the question. Were the gloves drawn with the ring-finger & pinky exposed?
Those would be billiards gloves – look up some images via your favorite search engine. If he’s a pool shark or even an enthusiast, it’s logical for him to use one of those on his bridge hand (as opposed to his stroke hand). Why he would wear one on each hand is a mystery to me – though maybe he’s an ambidextrous hustler.
The cloth covering the thumb, index, and middle fingers are used in place of chalk to give a consistent smooth stroke. One could also chalk the hand (typically the webbing between the thumb and index finger) but chalk tends to wear out and that leads to an uneven stroke-resistance. One could also go bare-skinned, but sweat (from nervousness about an expensive purse on the game) can build up and, again, result in an unpredictable stroke-resistance.
I have noticed that the stroke-resistance with a billiard glove is NOT smoother than chalk. However, it is consistent and predictable, and that predictability is critical for dedicated cue-men. My preference was actually for a cotton-wool blended glove-liner, which provides a smoother stroke than chalk or a billiard glove and is, critically, consistent. The problem I ran into was that the ring-finger and pinky fingertips would wear through from abrasion on the billiard table’s felt surface. That meant I was replacing my glove every six months or so – and buying pairs when I only needed one. Furthermore, the ring-finger and pinky can and should be left uncovered for greater bridge stability. The solution would be to make a glove without those last two fingers – which is exactly why the billiard glove is designed that way.
–G!