Nocenti, Ann
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
1 out of 5
(1 book)
Longshot
(Art by Arthur Adams and Whilce Portacio)
The first appearance and origin story of the superhero. A man arrives on our world pursued by demonic creatures and with no memories of his past, however he soon discovers that by undertaking acts with heroic intentions he can bend fortune in his favour and use luck as a superpower.
Despite being a big Marvel fan, I had never heard of Longshot or his arch-enemy Mojo before picking up this book, but apparently Longshot ends up a long-standing member of the X-Men despite being genetically engineered instead of a mutant. Now I have read this book, I suddenly understand why the character is no-one's favourite superhero.
If I had to describe this book in one word, the word would be 'weird'. If I had to describe it in three words, they would be 'weird and boring'. With its semi-corporeal demons and its luck-powered amnesiac from a dimension where all humans are slaves, Nocenti was clearly trying to do something really innovative here, but she fails on almost every level. The amnesiac hero is an incredibly boring cliche to begin with and nothing we learn about his past ever evokes a reaction stronger than "Well, I suppose that's weird". Nothing introduced is ever explored to any interesting level of detail. Case in point is the villain Mojo who, as one of the Spineless Ones and a greedy, reactionary blob, is Nocenti firing shots at TV and movie executives. However, that idea is never developed and there's never enough cleverness to the delivery to consider it satire. Nor humour, for that matter.
The one thing I did like about this book was the character Spiral; a six-armed female antagonist in a samurai-esque helmet. But that's it. Even, and I'm aware this is largely a personal-taste thing, the artwork is terrible. The brief and pointless appearances of She-Hulk, Spider-Man and Doctor Strange feel more like insults to the Marvel Universe than a interweaving of this new character into the existing superhero world.
1 out of 5
Collaborations & Anthologies:
Star Wars: A Long Time Ago... - Wookiee World (here)