NULL-MYTHS: LONGSHOT 1-6 (1985-86)

 

I would assume that Longshot, as created by writer Ann Nocenti and penciller Art Adams, has his fans. But from what I can judge, the character never caught on with most readers as much as did the villains Nocenti and Adams created for the hero. In one interview Nocenti mentioned that during her tenure on DAREDEVIL, she tended to construct most of her stories around the villains than around the established hero, so perhaps she’s more comfortable delineating the darker areas of the human mind.

The hero, a loner with only a few passing allies, is not only opposed by impossible odds, he doesn’t even have the asset of self-knowledge. His memory pretty much starts with the events of LONGSHOT #1, when he finds himself on the planet Earth, fleeing from the monstrous minions of his enemies. An Earthman dubs the agile, blonde-haired battler “Longshot” because he seems to possess uncanny luck even when faced with overwhelming opposition. In the course of this six-issue debut, Longshot never regains his memory, though he learns various incidental things about his past: that he’s a humanoid from another dimension, where humanoids are genetically manufactured to serve the whims of their masters, and that he in some way rebelled against that rule. In the course of six issues, Longshot gets a girlfriend, fights Spider-Man and the She-Hulk, and renders aid to Earthpeople even when he doesn’t truly understand their desires.

The trope of “the hero as naif” is hard to pull off, and Nocenti doesn’t do so, even with the help of Adams’ dazzling visuals. Thus, Longshot never got his own ongoing series, but joined the X-Men for a time and then largely faded from prominence. His villains Mojo and Spiral, however, seem to remain popular. Mojo, a huge yellow slug-man, rules the Other Dimension by using his manufacutured humans in various gladiatorial games, in a play upon the “bread and circuses” trope, though in the six-issue series one sees little of the masses Mojo is supposedly placating. His sometimes rebellios lieutenant Spiral takes some inspiration from the iconography of Hindu deities like Shiva and Kali, in that she’s a woman with six arms who can cause assorted magical effects through the medium of dance. Neither character gets any more explicit backstory than does Longshot, though there’s some mysterious connection between Longshot and Spiral that might have been explored by Nocenti had a regular series materialized. However, given in the course of six issues the plot is erratic and the characterization precious, I can’t say that I think much in the way of a “Longshot myth” would have been articulated.