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Post by badwolf on Aug 19, 2018 16:41:31 GMT -5
Throughout this series, Poltergeist is heartsick over the death of Spider-Woman in the recent final issue of her own comic book. This is interesting for a couple reasons. First, in that last Spider-Woman issue, she had her medieval mage friend Magnus remove her from the memory of everyone she ever met. So at this point, Mickey shouldn't even remember her.
Later, in Roger Stern's Avengers run, we do find out that Magnus' spell didn't work too well, but only because some of her friends wondered what they were doing in her house and looked around, finding Jessica's comatose body. She was in hospital when Tigra contacted the Avengers for help.
So Mickey should either not remember Spider-Woman at all, or know that she wasn't quite dead.
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Post by rberman on Aug 20, 2018 7:20:26 GMT -5
Longshot #1 “A Man Without a Past” (September 1985)
Creative Team: Ann Nocenti writing. Art Adams penciling. Bill Anderson, Whilce Portacio, and Scott Williams inking. Theme: Jesus comes down The Story: The very first panel speaks of action, as our hero barrels headlong toward the camera, wondering why the gunfire from behind him keeps missing. He and his pursuers leap through a dimensional portal, and he materializes on our earth without them. His unexpected arrival leads to a Rube Goldbergian series of a events culminating in a shower of hidden coinage from the top of a building, and four uses of the word “lucky” in four pages, plus one “beat the odds,” one “odds were impossible,” and one “throw the dice” for good measure.  He rescues a frantically praying woman and is twice proclaimed “my saviour” (with a British “u”), while he’s distressed by “this godless place,” so this man-child is being set up as a Christ-figure, an innocent descended into a world of wolves, a sacrificial lamb in the making. We will later learn that Longshot also has a cross-shaped scar hidden in the hair lateral to his left eye. This Christ-imagery fits with Longshot’s “luck” power, which is to make people around him lucky. An inherently altruistic super-power? That’s something new.  He encounters Eliot, an overly friendly pot-bellied survivalist who dubs the events of the previous scene a “longshot.”  After discovering that storefront mannequins are not alive, blithely shoplifting an expensive leather jacket (“What’s money?”), and encountering with a furry monster that seems to know him, our hero arrives at Eliot’s fallout shelter and gets an earful about conspiracy theories of the mid-1980s, including “The Trilateral Commission, Bell Tel, and Con Ed.”   Our hero reads a newspaper story about a missing baby and prevails on Eliot to help him solve the mystery. At the home of the missing child, our hero reads “the past and the future” from a discarded baby doll at the site of the kidnapping, and the baby’s mother Hester joins the entourage. The image below makes now a great time to point out: Longshot's hands have only three fingers and a thumb. I don't think anybody ever comments on it in this mini-series. It must have taken Arthur Adams incredible discipline to remember to draw Longshot this way in every single panel.  They follow a psychic trail to a haunted Indian burial ground where the baby is going to be offered as a sacrifice to open a gateway. After an unsuccessful attempt to break through a troop of monster soldiers on ground level, the hero withdraws to a convenient nearby cliff and uses a grappling claw (fashioned from a garden hand rake) to access the roof of a ruined windmill. The beasts who chased him through the portal at the beginning of the story have gained the power to phase in and out of existence, which makes fighting them impossible.  As our unnamed hero rescues the baby and returns him to his mother, the monster soldiers fade out of existence completely. Eliot calls him “Longshot” for the fourth time, and the name sticks.  The furry little monster sets off on the road with Longshot. But we know something Longshot does not: The little creature Gog N' Magog is the son of the beast commander. He saves Longshot at one point, and we don’t yet know why.   My Two Cents: Unlike the other two series I've covered in this thread so far, this one did not begin as an X-Men story, though it became one later. Ann Nocenti’s series about an amnesiac called “Long Shot” had been gestating for a few years before finally seeing publication in 1985. Based on spec notes published at the back of a trade edition, it appears that Nocenti was plugging two connected ongoing series: This one (which ended up as a mini-series, which is a reasonable try-out for a relatively new author on a new character), and another series about "Darkmane," about which I can find nothing online. A hint of "Long Shot's" existence was seen on the wall behind Nocenti when she appeared in the January 1984 issue of The Incredible Hulk, courtesy of one of the goofy plots of Assistant Editors’ Month. When she finally connected with new-on-the-scene artist Arthur Adams, he reportedly spent eight months on the first issue, becoming somewhat faster over time, but never enough to do a monthly series with his detailed pencils.  Nocenti is working with several themes here, and one of them is front and center in this issue’s title. In the forward to the trade paperback, she says she wanted to explore, “If we forget who we are, who are we?” She was fascinated by the way that our identity is compiled from a vast store of faulty memories. Would a clean slate be more of a handicap or a fresh start? Amnesia is also a convenient plot device, as the hero remembers helpful exposition at just the right time, as happens often in this series, e.g. “How do I know this? As above, so below. Once the symbols align, space will open!” Arthur Adams' detailed style prefigured Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld, without the worst excesses of either. Adams can draw feet, for instance. Letterer Joe Rosen gets a workout; Nocenti’s script is full of dialogue (more character-based than expository) and rendered in a smaller font than usual for comic books. Adams introduces a number of intriguing character designs among the villains, including the little critter Gog N’ Magog, his mohawked dad, and a ram-man named Quark. But the most interesting is Spiral, a Shiva-like six-armed dancing priestess whom we first meet when she's only wearing a loincloth, about to sacrifice the baby. She has no lines this time around but still makes a cool scene, and we’ll get more of her in the future.  Longshot’s shining eye, years before Cable and Shatterstar, came from the way Nocenti’s cat looked in the dark, and his mullet was lifted from Limahl, lead singer of the British pop band Kajagoogoo. It’s been said that men prefer images of heavily muscled men, whereas women prefer their men lithe; Longshot falls into the latter category. His clothing is more functional than heroic, and his pouches prefigure 90s excesses.     The mother of the missing baby’s name is a single mom named Hester, a reference to Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “The Scarlet Letter.” She does have red hair, which in medieval paintings signified sexual promiscuity. The phrase “as above, so below” is not from The Lord’s Prayer; it’s a paraphrase from the early medieval alchemical treatise known as the Emerald Tablet: Cover Image was drawn: February 1985. Some of the other covers were done long in advance of the series, perhaps as promo art originally. Easter Eggs and Eye Candy: As I said above, Arthur Adams’ work is slow but very detailed. The good news is that there are tons of beautiful images and jokes embedded in the backgrounds of these panels, and I’m going to show you some highlights. The bad news is that Christie Steele’s coloring work resorts to deep-hued monochromes left and right instead of giving Adams’ detailed pencils the detailed coloring they deserve. Steele told me that this was a deliberate choice for mood purposes. I don't like the results. Backgrounds are often rendered in deep, solid colors that obscure Adam’s intricate work. But if you look hard, there’s lots to see, and much of it combinations of beautiful and funny. Hester’s kitchen includes bowls for her now-deceased dog, labelled “Cool Water” and “Puppy Chow Time.”  Longshot pauses for a moment in front of Nocenti’s Deli. He doesn’t get a sandwich, but he does get a look at his own face.  Eliot’s extensive library of computer textbooks includes “Henny Youngman Computer Jokes” and “How to Draw Computers the Marvel Comics Way.”  When Longshot was in Hester’s kitchen, he made a point of procuring both a garden fork and an electric iron. In true Chekhov’s law fashion, he uses the former to fashion a grappling hook, while the latter he flings through Spiral and Magog, forcing them both to dematerialize. A bit of dialogue here would have helped make it clear that he was throwing the iron in the panel below. 
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Post by rberman on Aug 21, 2018 5:25:50 GMT -5
Longshot #2 “I’ll Wave to You from the Top!” (October 1985)
Creative Team: Ann Nocenti writing. Art Adams penciling. Whilce Portacio and Scott Williams inking. Theme: Media Satire The Story: Longshot interrupts a film shoot, and his acrobatic skills land him a job as a stunt double for the leading man in a “space pirates” story. We meet a cast (hah) of kooky Hollywood stock characters including: • Ricochet Rita, friendly stuntwoman extraordinaire, Ann Nocenti impersonator, and Longshot’s guide through the insanity  • Kimberly Price, a past-her-prime leading lady desperately clinging to the edge of the limelight   • Ivan, the young, pretentious leading man • “Hitch” (after Hitchcock, but not his real name) the director who imagines that his pulpy sci-fi action film is secretly a social statement of great import  Rita takes Longshot on a test flight with rocket packs in preparation for tomorrow’s film shoot. It gives him a flashback to earlier in his life, where apparently he was a stuntman participating in live-fire filming, just as Hitch is asking him to do on Earth. This suggests that Earth is not far from the dictatorial dystopia from which he orginates.  Rita finds the idea of a man without baggage appealing. That night in a nearby hotel, she puts her moves on Longshot but is repulsed when she realizes that he’s not human.  Later that night, Longshot’s “Pup” (actually his alien foe Gog N' Magog) meddles with the rocket packs but then rescues Longshot from a pack of beast soldiers. When Longshot starts quizzing “Pup” about their joint origin, Pup stalks off, thinking to himself that he is evolving quickly and will soon be powerful enough to challenge Longshot. This is a little confusing; if Pup is strong enough to defeat enemies that daunted Longshot, isn’t he already more powerful than Longshot too, by the transitive property of combat strength? Maybe it’s more like rock paper scissors. Anyway, it makes Longshot resolve not to trust anyone, even Rita.   During the movie shoot the next day, Longshot is doing well until he has a flashback to some sort of branding ritual. Longshot is severely wounded in the stunt (real lasers will tend to do that). Hitch dumps his body, apparently dead or dying, in a river rather than risk questions at the hospital.   Cover Image was drawn: July 2, 1984, over a year before this issue saw publication. My Two Cents: Ricochet Rita is a fictionalized Ann Nocenti, a can-do girl who is invigorated rather than threatened by her new super-colleague. Adams had been drawing her into Buck Rogers type pin-ups as “Super Editor,” and writers like to put themselves in the action anyway, so Ann casts herself as a stuntwoman, playing second fiddle to others who take all the credit for producing an amazing work of entertainment. I’m sure this circumstance bears no resemblance whatsoever to anything that might happen at a fine institution like Marvel Comics! Especially when the movie director dresses like Captain America. Nope, no subtext here, move along.   Here’s the real Ann Nocenti circa 1985 with Dan Green and John Romita, Jr.:  Characteristically, Adams fills the scenes with lots of fun little details like the clouds of anger that materialize over the movie stars’ heads when Longshot opines that their job is terrible and shameful. This is all played as a broad, farcical satire full of Monty Python-esque absurdity, and Longshot is the straight man who just absorbs it all without flinching.  One question that I’ve seen bandied about is, “Who are Art’s art influences?” His incredibly detailed backgrounds recall Moebius, Herge, or Katsuhiro Otomo, but some of his kinetic images remind me of Walt Simonson, like the one below.  Nocenti has interesting story ideas but at this point at least did not have an ear for dialogue; characters tend to exposit their inner states through massive unsolicited info-dumps rather than have natural conversations to reveal them, as in this exchange:  Not that this sort of stilted speech is all that unusual for comic books, but I think Nocenti was aiming higher. Indeed, she was working on a Poli Sci masters’ degree at Columbia University while working at Marvel. Pup’s motives remain inscrutable; he alternates between rescuing, insulting, and assaulting Longshot.  Longshot offers Nocenti’s thoughts on celebrity, and Hitch voices her opinions about the state of the film industry, which run along the same lines as the anti-Hollywood story she had offered up in the Beauty and the Beast mini-series a year earlier. Hitch’s reliance on “real stunts” that genuinely jeopardize Rita and Longshot echoes the need for real deaths in the underground arena run by Hugh and Alexander Flynn.  Longshot’s second flashback takes him back to the time that he gained his luck power by receiving a star-brand (but not Star Brand) on his left eye, from hooded monks who already had the same. They chant about “Purification of Motive.”  This is a quotation from T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding” (1942), the third stanza of which is about the virtue of indifference as opposed to active attachment or intentional detachment: This stanza encapsulates the amnesia/identity theme of Longshot. “History may be servitude. History may be freedom. See now they vanish, the faces and and places, with the self…” Nocenti reports that she adopted the last two lines of this stanza as a mantra in college to recite before going out drinking. The two preceding lines about “All shall be well” are a quotating from Julain of Norwich, who despite the name was a British medieval mystic who wrote down what she said was a series of messages directly from Jesus. Easter Eggs and Eye Candy: When Hitch loads Longshot in the truck to “take him to the hospital,” the crowd of concerned onlookers includes a carnival barker, a giraffe, Volstagg, and maybe Karate Kid wearing his gi with his yellow flared collar.  Rita’s motorcycle is a Harley Davidson 80, which refers to its 80 cubic inch engine.  Hitch’s full-size train was nonetheless made by the Lionel toy train company.  Longshot’s war partner Jackson looks very much like Michael Jackson circa 1985, with stringy black bangs.   Arthur Adams populates his scenes with faces, lots and lots of distinct faces, to the point where you’re sure he knows exactly who they are, and it would be nice to have a key to let the reader in on the jokes, like the guy in superhero tights with a hamburger insignia on his chest. Too bad the only one I recognize is Gumby, who appears five times in issues 2-5, but I couldn’t find him in #1 or #6. It’s all just background eye candy, but it exemplifies how Adams seems to love drawing rather than just moving on to the next panel once the foreground is done.  
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Post by badwolf on Aug 21, 2018 10:06:29 GMT -5
I haven't seen these comics in ages, and it's interesting to see how Adams' art has evolved and improved since then. And, I hate to say it, but I do see the Liefeld connection. Some of the panels above even look like they could have been drawn by him.
I never thought Longshot was a good fit for the X-Men. I can't think of any reason they would have gotten together other than they were both hot properties at the time (or they thought Longshot could be if he got a boost) and editorial desired it. Even though he meets some MU characters in this series, I always felt he should have been kept mostly separate in his own "pocket universe." (Likewise Spiral and Mystique's Brotherhood.) That said, I remember enjoying the books where Mojo would try to get the X-Men in his movies. Maybe an occasional crossover would have been okay.
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Post by rberman on Aug 21, 2018 19:18:06 GMT -5
I never thought Longshot was a good fit for the X-Men. I can't think of any reason they would have gotten together other than they were both hot properties at the time (or they thought Longshot could be if he got a boost) and editorial desired it. Even though he meets some MU characters in this series, I always felt he should have been kept mostly separate in his own "pocket universe." (Likewise Spiral and Mystique's Brotherhood.) That said, I remember enjoying the books where Mojo would try to get the X-Men in his movies. Maybe an occasional crossover would have been okay. Thematically, putting Longshot in the X-Men made no sense. His luck power was clearly acquired, not a mutation, and the jaunty tone of his series was so different from Claremont's mutant soap opera of angst. Behind the scenes it made a lot of sense because (1) Nocenti was editing X-Men, and (2) Claremont was selling very well, so letting a well-regarded, highly-selling author like Claremont play with her creation under her supervision must have seemed like a win-win. More problematic was when Fabian Nicieza got a hold of the characters in X-Factor Annual #7 (1992) and declared that Spiral was a modified Rita Richochet who had been reprogrammed and sent back in time to kill Longshot. That was 100% not what Nocenti had in mind for either Rita or Spiral, so it's best ignored. I only tell you to innoculate you. |
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Post by rberman on Aug 21, 2018 21:54:39 GMT -5
I haven't seen these comics in ages, and it's interesting to see how Adams' art has evolved and improved since then. And, I hate to say it, but I do see the Liefeld connection. Some of the panels above even look like they could have been drawn by him. Part of what you're seeing there may be Whilce Portacio's inks on top of Adams, and part may be Adams as a young artist. See what you think when we get to Adams' work on the New Mutants/X-Men Asgardian saga, in the New Mutants thread. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Aug 21, 2018 22:35:40 GMT -5
Art Adams had a stiffness like early Marschall Rogers to his comics I felt, sometimes it was a strain to read but maybe the coloring or balloon placement could hinder at times. I didn't understand much about Longshot #1 and I still don't. It seemed to be a lot of style over substance. As a SF reader it seemed to be a lot of nothing, plus the fashions didn't appeal to me at all even if that was what was on trend at the time. I thought Longshot might've been Mick Ronson, but the Kajagoogoo dude looks like the inspiration; never got into those earl '80s hair product groups past a single, or maybe two, myself. Adams got much better before too long. The first thing I saw was a Black Widow cover for Marvel Fanfare. I remember 'marveling' over a New Mutants Special and X-Men Annual by him with a connected story.
I recognize Al Milgrom, Jim Shooter and Danny Crespi in the crowd scene. I think the guy with the art board and t-square might be Bob Wiacek. Might be Carl Potts in the background of the first bunch too, if not Larry Hama.
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Post by rberman on Aug 21, 2018 22:51:46 GMT -5
I recognize Al Milgrom, Jim Shooter and Danny Crespi in the crowd scene. I think the guy with the art board and t-square might be Bob Wiacek. Might be Carl Potts in the background of the first bunch too, if not Larry Hama. I wondered whether the really tall guy was Jim Shooter, which made me what other bullpen faces were in the same scene. Thanks! |
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Post by rberman on Aug 22, 2018 5:26:18 GMT -5
Longshot #3 “Just Let Me Die” (November 1985)
 Creative Team: Ann Nocenti writing. Art Adams penciling. Whilce Portacio and Scott Williams inking. Theme: The Blessed One and the Cursed One  The Story: A middle aged man named Theo who calls himself “Jinx” has a middle aged crisis, shoots his TV with a revolver, and jumps off a bridge to die. His fall is broken by the body of Longshot, floating in the stream. Jinx drags Longshot out and tries to hang himself with a noose, but Longshot awakens and intervenes. Jinx wears the noose around for the rest of the issue.  Jinx lists his quotidian woes, which include utilities company Con Ed (Consolidated Edison), a real power company in NYC/Westchester which probably didn’t like their portrayal here. This matches what Longshot heard Eliot complaining about back in issue #1. Longshot convinces Jinx to find zest in life by breaking into Con Ed to steal back the money it has supposedly stolen from the public. Inside the power plant, Longshot flashes back to his origin, a prisoner of obese, spineless creatures with wide-mouthed grins and hoverchairs to support their massive girth. We don’t know what their game is, but they consider Longshot’s muscular perfection to be repulsive; too much spine and not enough adipose tissue for their liking.  Longshot and Jinx confiscate the special diamonds with which Con Ed is doing some sort of dimensional experimentation. He is captured by a troop of beast soldiers; Pup hides Jinx from capture. The villains use the diamonds to activate a dimension portal and return home, refusing to answer Longshot’s queries about his own origins. In the process of all this, the surging power causes a blackout across Manhattan.   By the time it’s all said and done, Jinx has some missing teeth and broken nose and glasses. His time with Longshot has made him envious of Longshot's good luck, and he just wants to get home to his wife and kids. His last admonition to Longshot is to find some way to atone for having cut off the power to Manhattan.  My Two Cents: The overall structure of this series so far is anthological, as our hero travels from one location and one cast of characters to another, like David Banner on TV’s The Incredible Hulk. The only ongoing plot thread from issue to issue has been the ominous growth of Pup. Longshot’s irrepressible naïveté is dangerous, blinding him to actual dangers around him. Just this week a story made the national news about an American couple who biking across Africa and Asia who commented that they had found that people everywhere were good and kind. “Evil doesn’t exist,” they said. Not long afterward, they were murdered on the road by ISIS partisans in Tajikistan. Longshot's inability to recognize Pup as evil will continue to cause him (and others) problems in future issues.  Is Longshot happy because he’s lucky and can afford to be happy? Or does he have an innate happiness which leads him to take advantage of life’s opportunities? Theo (which means “God”) is his opposite counterpart, a man without luck or happiness, unable to derive joy from his family. Nocenti gives us at least a partial insight when Jinx lists his broken television among his woes, yet we saw him break his television, suggesting that his problems are at least partly of his own making rather than simply being the result of his not being created equal to other men, as he tells himself. To whatever degree men do not have equal starting points in life (which they surely do not; intersectional privilege is a reality), focusing on that inequity does not put them any further forward. Jinx’s suicide attempts are played for laughs, and he’s arguably worse off at the end of the story than he was at the beginning. Theo needs some counseling and Prozac before he gives his family PTSD from more firearm discharges in the living room.  Longshot’s flashback prompts this little theological exchange with Jinx, who is probably not the most helpful informant on theological matters. Longshot’s quest for his creator is both theme and plot thread in this series: Why am I the way I am? One thinks of Roy Batty's quest to confront his maker in Blade Runner or Animal Man's meeting with Grant Morrison to ask about the death of his family.  The beast soldiers are called “demons” throughout this series, They don’t look particularly demonic, except of course that the names “Gog and Magog” appear in the Bible in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation, where they name two enemies of God’s people. This fits with Longshot’s status as a Christ-figure, that his enemies would be “demons” and Gog and Magog. The appearance of J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson in Manhattan is our first evidence that this series takes place in the Marvel Universe. Next issue comes Longshot’s first real encounter with Marvel continuity, now that he and his supporting cast have been established in their own right. This was a smart move, even for a six issue mini-series.  Art Adams has nice detail and figure work, but he appears to be Patient Zero for the infection of “characters drawn with too much cross-hatching,” a disease which would soon pass to others like Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee. (Unless Whilce Portacio added the hatching.)  Cover Image was drawn: July 22, 1984, again over a year before the issue was published. Easter Eggs and Eye Candy: Jinx’s album collection includes the Perry Como LP “Songs to Snore By.”  Here’s a building labeled “Consolidated Edison” which seems like a bold bit of trademark infringement.  The 1984 “Canlender” hanging on the wall at Con Ed reminds us of how late this book was in getting published compared to the original plan. Pinups are on the wall (the one on the right appears to be be at bat in a baseball game), and the cup of coffee on the desk is oddly hot, a silent testimony to the murdered guard over whose body Jinx will be tripping in a few minutes.  One of the police cars from the TV show Adam-12 comes to investigate the break-in at Con Ed:  Somebody is a Gumby fan. This is the second issue in a row featuring him, as Jinx’s kids and dog play with Gumby and Pokey dolls. I have a feeling this scene inside “Pete’s Coffee Castle” in Manhattan is supposed to depict Ann Nocenti and Arthur Adams, but I can’t find any 80s pictures of Adams to prove it. Next issue we'll see a cameo self-portrait that looks a lot like this guy, though. 
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Post by badwolf on Aug 22, 2018 9:15:14 GMT -5
Art Adams loves Gumby and I think even did a Gumby comic at one time.
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Post by badwolf on Aug 22, 2018 9:17:30 GMT -5
I haven't seen these comics in ages, and it's interesting to see how Adams' art has evolved and improved since then. And, I hate to say it, but I do see the Liefeld connection. Some of the panels above even look like they could have been drawn by him. Part of what you're seeing there may be Whilce Portacio's pencils on top of Adams, and part may be Adams as a young artist. See what you think when we get to Adams' work on the New Mutants/X-Men Asgardian saga, in the New Mutants thread. I do still have the Asgardian saga issues, and the art is much better there. You might be right about Portacio. |
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Post by rberman on Aug 22, 2018 9:18:27 GMT -5
Part of what you're seeing there may be Whilce Portacio's pencils on top of Adams, and part may be Adams as a young artist. See what you think when we get to Adams' work on the New Mutants/X-Men Asgardian saga, in the New Mutants thread. I do still have the Asgardian saga issues, and the art is much better there. You might be right about Portacio. I meant Portacio inks. I guess that was obvious. Sometimes the things I type baffle me. |
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Post by badwolf on Aug 22, 2018 9:32:16 GMT -5
I do still have the Asgardian saga issues, and the art is much better there. You might be right about Portacio. I meant Portacio inks. I guess that was obvious. Sometimes the things I type baffle me. Heh, I actually read what you meant, not what you wrote. |
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Post by String on Aug 22, 2018 11:32:55 GMT -5
I never thought Longshot was a good fit for the X-Men. I can't think of any reason they would have gotten together other than they were both hot properties at the time (or they thought Longshot could be if he got a boost) and editorial desired it. Even though he meets some MU characters in this series, I always felt he should have been kept mostly separate in his own "pocket universe." (Likewise Spiral and Mystique's Brotherhood.) That said, I remember enjoying the books where Mojo would try to get the X-Men in his movies. Maybe an occasional crossover would have been okay. Thematically, putting Longshot in the X-Men made no sense. His luck power was clearly acquired, not a mutation, and the jaunty tone of his series was so different from Claremont's mutant soap opera of angst. Behind the scenes it made a lot of sense because (1) Nocenti was editing X-Men, and (2) Claremont was selling very well, so letting a well-regarded, highly-selling author like Claremont play with her creation under her supervision must have seemed like a win-win. More problematic was when Fabian Nicieza got a hold of the characters in X-Factor Annual #7 (1992) and declared that Spiral was a modified Rita Richochet who had been reprogrammed and sent back in time to kill Longshot. That was 100% not what Nocenti had in mind for either Rita or Spiral, so it's best ignored. I only tell you to innoculate you. I can see that but I still think Longshot was a good fit for the team. Apparently, Claremont enjoyed putting these characters in unfamiliar genres occasionally to shake things up (speaking of Asgard), so Mojo's dimension would fit into that design. While Longshot may not be a mutant per se, he was an outcast and what better place to find a temporary refuge than with a team of outcasts? His more jovial nature also lent to lighten the serious mood some in the title as well. (I wouldn't necessarily call him 'comic relief' but his contrast in mood certainly helped, I thought). Plus, I really liked his relationship with Dazzler, one of the more newer pairings in the X-universe that I thought had potential. |
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Post by rberman on Aug 23, 2018 0:07:41 GMT -5
Longshot #4 “Can’t Give It All Away!” (December 1985)
Creative Team: Ann Nocenti writing. Art Adams penciling. Whilce Portacio and Scott Williams inking. Theme: realism vs fantasy The Story: Longshot wants to atone for last issue’s Manhattan blackout by distributing diamonds, but no one believes they are real, or else does believe and fears (correctly) that they are stolen goods. A four page sequence introduces the Star Slammers, a gang of cosplaying grade school kids who use an abandoned car as their pretend spaceship. A couple of parents tower over them debating the morality of warlike play, the importance of large nuclear arsenals, and the propriety of comic books. Longshot gives some diamonds to the kids, who somehow immediately recognize their worth.   Peter Parker and She-Hulk both resolve to catch the criminal who stole the diamonds from Con Ed. She-Hulk finds him first while jogging through Central Park, then Spider-Man later on a rooftop. He mistakes them for more of the demon pack that has been hounding him since issue #1. Both battles end quickly and inconclusively, as Longshot flees as soon as possible.   A four page sequence takes us back to Longshot’s home dimension finally naming the characters there. Mojo is the bulbous master who rides a spidery robotic chair. The cyborg Major Domo is his, er, majordomo. Mojo hears a report that Longshot has fled to a world full of humans, who are creatures of mythology in his own world. What if Longshot saw all these free humans on earth and brings such seditious ideas back home? That will never do! Mojo summons Spiral to open a dimensional gateway to take him to Earth; they somehow know both Rita’s connection to Longshot and where she lives. They hide in her house, and take her captive. His mere presence in the house is enough to kill her parrot and her dog, and to turn her potted plants to smoke. “Take us to Longshot!” Not that she knows where he is at this point.  Longshot runs across the Star Slammers kids again. One of them, who briefly saw Pup earlier, has traded his diamonds for a handgun to protect himself against “a monster.” This triggers more memories within Longshot, but nothing that he can interpret coherently. The kids lead him to Pup, who is now big enough that he feels ready to take on Longshot. Pup is so strong that extra eyes are popping out on various parts of his body.  My Two Cents: As I said above, this issue is about realism vs fantasy. This is a reasonable problem for someone with the ability to see the past and future of people based on exposure to the psychic residue their belongings. Longshot loses track of whether some particular experience is reality or a vision. He suspects that She-Hulk and Spider-Man, unnatural looking as they are, must be members of the creature squad that’s been hounding him on Earth. When he meets a bunch of cosplaying kids who say they saw a monster that disappeared, who’s to say whether it was real or not?  That said, Longshot’s first encounter with the mainstream Marvel Universe is a little bit of a letdown. Neither encounter (She-Hulk or Spider-Man) moves his story along; it’s just a bit of filler to give some time between Longshot’s first and second encounters with the Star Slammers. Plus, no doubt, an attempt to lure She-Hulk and Spidey fans to read this series. I can buy Longshot evading She-Hulk’s brute force, but evading Spider-Man? I mean, nimbleness is kind of his thing. But he’s as surprised as we are, so at least we know we have to chalk it up to Longshot’s luck ability rather than skill. Though the distinction may be moot if his skill is luck.  There’s an obvious Christ-figure irony in Longshot’s failed attempt to be altruistic when society isn’t ready to accept his selfless gift. Throwing pearls before swine indeed! If you want to accept Longshot into your life, you’ll have to come as a little child. Speaking of which… The Star Slammers seem like a parody of X-Men’s Starjammers mashed up with the Little Rascals and the Newsboy Legion. They would later be named the “Bratpack,” but not in this series. Two of the kids in particular are Alfalfa and Darla, while another looks like Rogue with Corsair’s head, which is kinda weird. I get a kitchen sink feeling from them, as if Nocenti had all these ideas for characters and settings and wanted to find them all a home as soon as possible rather than waiting for the ideal story into which to put them. I suppose that happens when you’re not writing a regular series, where you have the monthly opportunity to disgorge your ideas, and eventually your well runs dry.   The adult conversation is an interesting bit of 80s culture, with nuclear war anxieties and gun control ideas that actually impact the plot, since one of the kids takes “gotta have a gun” to heart. Neither Spider-Man nor She-Hulk has altruistic motives for seeking out Longshot. He wants to pick a fight and sell some photos of it to the Daily Bugle; she thinks Longshot is attractive and wants to… um… punch an attractive guy?  "Mojo the Lifebringer" on the other hand is one of the most entertaining comic book characters of the whole 1980s. His insane Caligula-esque narcissism and toothy grin give him both personality and a unique visual style. He calls for human exotic dancers and then immediately dismisses them because humans are ugly. His epithet Lifebringer is deliciously ironic for a bad guy whose very presence causes plants to wilt and pets to die.   He demands that everyone wear masks of his own face and the capriciously punishes the mask-wearers. The unnerving thing about being around someone unstable is not that they turn on you, but that they turn on you in ways that are impossible to predict, leaving you always fearful that the change will strike at any minute. Mojo’s dimension is one of those arbitrary stylistic mishmashes. It’s full of tech, yet references to magic abound as well; Pup’s increasing power on Earth stems from his absorption of Earth’s magical energy field, for instance. Major Domo is the consummate straight man. At one point, Mojo locks himself into a room full of mirrors to calm himself with scream therapy, a reference to the Primal Scream movement of the 1970s and 80s memorialized in the band Tears for Fears and especially their song “Shout.”  Speaking of great characters, I will never get tired of Spiral as drawn by Arthur Adams. Her impossible anatomy makes for a compelling image, especially now that she’s acquired her standard costume with the subcontinental helmet and fur leggings, instead of the loincloth in which we first saw her. Also, she speaks of Longshot like a jilted lover seeking payback. Nobody could hate a stranger like she hates him.   Cover Image was drawn: July 25, 1984. With so much lead time, why not do some background? Note the gnarled look of Spider-Man’s webline on the cover. Todd McFarlane’s similar take on Spider-Man (compare below) was still over a year off when this issue was published.  Easter Eggs and Eye Candy: Peter Parker has a "Burma Shave: Better and Better” sign in his bedroom, and he’s wearing a zigzag sweater like Charlie Brown. Both of these details are anachronistic for the mid-90s; Burma Shave signs were found on roadsides from the 1930s to 1960s.  When Mojo goes into the mirrored room to calm down by staring at infinite reflections of his own beautiful face, one of the reflections is a doodle of Arthur Adams speaking to us:  Mojo and Major Domo stand before a giant doorway bearing Mojo’s image flanked by two “hideous” female nudes. You can see Major Domo’s snaky Doctor Octopus arm attached to his backpack.  Longshot passes a bunch of folks in Central Park, including a girl mooning at a guy on the bench (hearts fill the air, but he ignores her), a guy with a brown bagged-bottle talking to a guy breakdancing off a street sign, a guitarist and trumpeter busking, and a couple making out on a bench, cheered on by some street toughs. As often is the case in this series, the dark colors chosen makes their details very hard to discern. Except for that one guy in yellow with the guitar! He got special treatment.  A Manhattan window features Gumby, Godzilla, and a Japanese mecha.  One of the Star Slammers is apparently a huge “Speder-Man” fan. Did Whilce Portacio really ink that error without changing it? (It’s not intentional. I have seen Adams’ thumbnail layouts.)  Rita’s house is an endearing mess: a bearskin rug, a pet parrot and dog, weapons and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” poster on the wall, trophy animal heads, a framed picture of her college graduation, a stack of pizza boxes, lots of exercise equipment, and clothing strewing the floor. Gumby makes his fourth appearance in three issues, hanging from Rita’s lampshade.  Also, Rita has a dartboard with a dart impaling a photo of actress Joan Collins. Bitter much?  Remember that cross-shaped scar on under Longshot’s hair that I mentioned back in the discussion about issue #1? Here it is: 
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