Longshots #3: Wonders Never Cease

I’ll give Longshots this, it has never once lied in its solicits. What you see is exactly what you get. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because there is a surprising amount of heart tucked away underneath the satire of the Mojoverse’s latest death trap tv show. 

From issue one, Longshots has been a completely unserious story to follow while also being a thinly veiled commentary on tie-in books when it comes to line wide events. Gerry Duggan is currently having fun destroying the Marvel Universe with Godzilla, but Jonathan Hickman was a little more constrained. After revamping the entire X-Universe with Krakoa he took off to space to do the same thing with Marvel Cosmic in Imperial, so Longshots at times feels like a space for him to vent certain frustrations he might have with state of event comics (as well as a few certain politicians in the form of visual gags). From Mojo and Major Domo’s commentary, to the supposed “star” the book is named after, Longshot himself, not being part of the main story, and even the way the Bishop subplot was handled as if they writers remembered it at the last minute before sending the book to the editor. It all comes together to generate a few genuine chuckles if you don’t catch on, and a few “oohs” if you do. 

The end result of this wild caper, turns out to be a pretty entertaining affair. A few characters might not get the best treatment (sorry, Bishop fans), but all in all Longshots was a more comedic take on the dour state of this Age of Revelation. Speaking of characters, Wonder Man surprisingly gets a few very good scenes in this final issue, along with Hellcat, which are backed by very gorgeous art by Alan Robinson along with Carlos Lopez and Antonio Fabela’s eye-catching colors. 

Could this be because of the upcoming Wonder Man series? The editor’s note seems to believe so, but time will tell if we see the pair again after this story.