Longshot #5
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeLongshot #5 delivers the first visual appearance of Arize — the Mojoverse geneticist who secretly engineered Longshot with free will and a rebellious conscience, making him one of the most consequential characters in the entire mythology — and it does so through a recovered memory flashback that finally unlocks the hero's origin. The issue also provides the first substantive crossover between the Mojoverse and mainstream Marvel sorcery, with Doctor Strange drawn into the conflict after detecting the dimensional drain caused by Mojo and Spiral's incursion into New York. As the penultimate chapter of a miniseries that launched one of the medium's sharpest 1980s satires of corporate media and entertainment culture, this issue is where all of Nocenti's thematic threads converge: Longshot's moral luck fails him precisely when he acts out of despair rather than purity, dramatizing the series' core philosophical argument about heroism and selflessness. The Mojoverse world-building introduced across this six-issue run would anchor decades of X-Men storylines, and issue #5 is the hinge on which the series' resolution turns.
In "Deadly Lies," Longshot faces his past when Mojo and Spiral capture Rita to track him down. With the kids and Quark, he battles the magic-drunk Magog, only to lose his powers and question his purpose—until a flash of memory reveals he was engineered by Arize as a weapon of entertainment, yet programmed to rebel. After discovering Rita’s home destroyed and meeting Dr. Strange, Longshot chooses to stop running and fight for his future. Written by Ann Nocenti and brought to life with dynamic art by Arthur Adams, the cover by Adams captures the intensity of the moment.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
The Longshot limited series was the debut professional work of both writer Ann Nocenti — then serving as an assistant editor under Carl Potts at Marvel — and penciller Arthur Adams, whose samples had been brought to Potts and Nocenti by editor Al Milgrom after most of Marvel's established artists had declined the project. Nocenti drew conceptually on existentialist ideas about identity and media theory she was absorbing at Columbia's School of International Affairs, shaping Mojo as a stand-in for consolidated corporate media ownership. Issue #5, titled 'Deadly Lies,' was released with a cover date of January 1986 and was inked by Whilce Portacio (a future co-founder of Image Comics), with colors by Christie Scheele and lettering by Joe Rosen — the same core production team that carried the series throughout.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First visual appearance of Arize, the Mojoverse geneticist who created Longshot and secretly programmed him and other slave-race 'Bipeds' with free will and the imperative to rebel — a character whose importance to the Shatterstar/Longshot lineage would only grow in subsequent decades.
- Arize's name had appeared in dialogue as early as Longshot #3, but this issue marks his first on-panel, visual debut, confirmed by both the Marvel Database and the Marvunapp character appendix.
- The issue reveals Longshot's full origin in flashback: he was engineered by Arize as a genetically created warrior for Mojo's entertainment empire, but was hard-wired with a penchant for rebellion that Mojo could not anticipate.
- Doctor Strange makes his first appearance in the miniseries here, drawn to Rita Wayword's apartment after detecting the extradimensional magic drain caused by Mojo and Spiral's arrival on Earth — setting up his role as a key ally in the finale.
- Quark's name is formally revealed in this issue; the ram-headed Mojoverse rebel had appeared previously but was only now identified by name (confirmed by the Marvel Database character index for this issue).
- The demonic creature Magog (Gog N'Magog), who had been an antagonist throughout the series, meets his end in this issue, destroyed by Longshot and Doctor Strange together at the Cloisters.
- The story is titled 'Deadly Lies' and was written by Ann Nocenti, penciled by Arthur Adams, inked by Whilce Portacio (with Scott Williams as assistant inker), colored by Christie Scheele, and lettered by Joe Rosen.
- The entire six-issue miniseries, including this issue, was collected in the 2008 Marvel Premiere Classic hardcover 'X-Men: Longshot' (vol. 14), and subsequently in the 2023 Marvel Universe by Arthur Adams Omnibus.
Cast · 14 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Les Transformers #9 (1986), Les Transformers #10 (1986), Longshot #3 (1988), Longshot #4 (1989), Spécial Strange #60 (1989), Superaventuras Marvel #82 (1989), Superaventuras Marvel #83 (1989), Marvels universum #7/1990 (1990), X-Marvel #6 (1990), Obras Maestras #8 (1993), X-Men: Longshot #[nn] (2008), X-Men: Longshot #[nn] (2013), Marvel Masterworks: The Uncanny X-Men #13 (2021), The Uncanny X-Men Omnibus #5 (2023), Marvel Universe by Arthur Adams Omnibus #[nn] (2023)
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