‘The Bride of Frankenstein Lives’ Has a Surprising Connection to Rogue and Gambit [Exclusive]

1 week ago 19

Published Oct 1, 2026, 5:00 AM EDT

Hannah covers horror, sci-fi, and games at Collider, where she writes news and features, reviews new releases, and interviews the people who make them. She’s helping build out Collider’s gaming coverage, with Pokémon as one of her specialties. If she isn’t writing about a monster, she’s probably watching one on a tape from her VHS collection.

Rogue and Gambit’s relationship has never been simple when it comes to touch. For years, something most couples take for granted carried a risk for them. Writer Kelly Thompson explored what that meant for their marriage in Mr. & Mrs. X, especially as Rogue worked to understand and control her powers.

Thompson’s upcoming Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives is a very different kind of story. Its central character has only just entered the world, and almost every physical experience she has is frightening or painful. When someone finally touches her gently, that does not mean she wants to be touched at all.

Speaking with Collider's Hannah Hunt, Thompson said the tension around touch in the new series is one of its clearest connections to her work on Rogue and Gambit. Asked whether writing the X-Men couple taught her anything she brought to the Bride, Thompson pointed to the “push and the pull” of wanting closeness while having reason to fear it. "I think the touch thing is probably the number one thing," Thompson said.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring

Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you.

😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)

🧸Chucky(Child's Play)

📞Scream(Ghostface)

🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)

FIND YOUR NIGHTMARE →

Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you.

ASomebody falling asleep when they really should not. BA toy that has moved, and nobody touched it. CA phone ringing in an empty house. DA child talking to somebody who is not there.

NEXT QUESTION →

You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything.

AI am exhausted and my mind is playing tricks on me. BSomething in this room is not where I left it. CSomebody is in here with me. DThis house has never felt entirely right.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does.

ANever fall asleep. BNever leave it out of your sight. CNever answer the phone. DNever go down to the basement.

NEXT QUESTION →

Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight.

AConvince myself I imagined the whole thing. BTell someone, and brace for them not believing me. CWork out which person I know could be behind it. DGet everybody in the house into one room.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking.

AFine during. Wide awake at two in the morning. BShouting at the screen that nobody is listening. CCalling the twist out loud before it lands. DThrough my fingers, holding on to something.

NEXT QUESTION →

Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing.

AFall asleep in a room I have never been in before. BKeep an old doll on the shelf facing my bed. CAnswer every unknown number that calls after midnight. DSpend one night alone in a house with a history.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do.

ANot wanting to turn the bedroom light off. BNot trusting one particular object in my house. CLooking twice at people I have known for years. DFeeling like something came home with me.

NEXT QUESTION →

Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.

AThat I am still asleep, and it knows it. BThat the thing nobody believed me about is here. CThat somebody with a key is downstairs. DThat something is in the doorway, watching us sleep.

REVEAL MY NIGHTMARE →

The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.

Elm Street

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.

Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage.
These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Chucky

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too.
The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults.
By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Scream

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party.
You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films.
The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

The Conjuring

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

Rogue’s Powers Helped Kelly Thompson Explore the Danger of Touch

In the first issue, a man named West believes the Bride is his missing wife, Elise. The warmth of his touch stands apart from everything else she has experienced, but Thompson and artist Mattia De Iulis wanted their embrace to feel uncomfortable. Thompson said another artist might have made the moment beautiful. De Iulis understood why it needed to look “horribly awkward” instead. The Bride has just survived violence, fire, and a river. Thompson said she would have no reason to welcome someone reaching for her, however kind he might appear.

That distinction matters throughout a story about a woman learning what her body can do while other people arrive with expectations of what it means to them. Thompson said Rogue’s powers make similar questions unusually literal. As a teenager, Rogue was her favorite character, though she could not fully explain why at the time. Looking back, Thompson sees something beyond the tragedy of Rogue being unable to touch people safely: there was also relief in knowing she could stop them from touching her. Thompson said:

“Part of that was about safety, part of that was about Rogue not being able to be touched, and while that was tragic, there was also relief in it."

She later explored those feelings in Mr. & Mrs. X as Rogue confronted what control over her powers could mean for her relationship with Gambit. The Bride is not Rogue, and Thompson said her experience is less literal, but both characters must decide where their boundaries lie for themselves. The Bride has yet to learn what makes her different from other women, let alone what she wants from anyone who comes close to her. That makes the connection more interesting than a shared reluctance to be touched. For Rogue, touch has long been bound up with both danger and the possibility of intimacy. The Bride is only beginning to understand either one.

Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives #1 releases October 28. Explore more comics and books with a free trial of Audible.