Origin
The first person to wear the jacket and discs of the Ricochet identity was none other than Peter Parker, better known as Spider-Man. At the time, there was a price on the head of Spider-Man, so Peter had to create some new identities to clear his name and fight crime at the same time. One of these was the Ricochet identity, which was designed by his wife Mary Jane. After finding an old leather jacket and shirt, both with a large “R” on them in a second-hand clothes shop, Mary Jane managed to create the Ricochet identity for Peter, which spotlighted his agility. The character also represented the joking, funny side of Peter Parker.
Whilst Ricochet, Peter had a role as a sort of anti-hero. After he defeated some of Black Tarantula‘s thugs, Peter teamed up with Delilah, an assassin who held a grudge against Black Tarantula. Peter agreed to team up with her because he wanted a bit of revenge against Black Tarantula, who had recently defeated him as Spider-Man. After defeating Black Tarantula’s agents Bloodscream and Roughouse alongside Delilah, Peter stopped using the costume, as his name was cleared as Spider-Man. For the sake of not keeping the character or costume dead, the Ricochet identity was then passed on to a new user, Johnny Gallo.
Creation
Johnny Gallo was created by Joseph Harris and Adam Polina and first appeared in Slingers #0. The Ricochet suit was however created by Spider-man and first appeared in Amazing Spider-man Issue #434 and also appeared in the following issues.
Major Story Arcs
Johnny Gallo
When Johnny Gallo was six, he met a girl named Kathy. The two would often play together, but as they grew older their friendship turned into romance. He discovered his powers when a car started coming towards him and he simply jumped over it. Whilst he was doing this, his mother was killed by the Orphan Maker in the car park of a supermarket. As a result of his wife dying, Johnny’s father withdrew and became quieter. Johnny is a mutant with enhanced agility and the ability to sense danger before it happens. He attempts to keep this secret from his widowed father and his girlfriend, Kathy. Black Marvel later discovered his powers, gave him the Ricochet costume, and offered him a place on the Slingers. He accepted, happy at a chance to help people without revealing his mutant powers. Johnny was the first member of this team. Ricochet was also offered a chance to be on the New Warriors, but he laughed in Speedball’s face when offered.
During fights, he likes to make wise-cracks, much to the annoyance of his team (especially his team leader, Prodigy.) He became friends with the Hornet, who gave him throwing disks ( ones that ricochet off objects, boomerang ones that come back to him and ones with explosives in them) , and Dusk had a crush on him, which he didnât return. He also fought Spider-Man with his powers. Whilst Hornet was trying to coax Dusk into leaping across a rooftop, Ricochet lost his balance and fell off the adjacent roof. Prodigy caught him, but told him that someone would have to die for Ricochet to take being a hero seriously. Prodigy then let go of Ricochet’s hand, and Ricochet would have fallen and died if he hadn’t grabbed Prodigy’s hand with his other hand. Just after that, Dusk stepped off the edge of the roof to her death.
Even though it was nobody’s fault, Ricochet and Hornet were worried about Dusk’s death, and agreed not to talk about it. Unknown to them, Dusk came back to life, although how she came back has never been explained. Shortly after wards, Ricochet, Hornet and Prodigy had their first real adventure as a team, when they saved a man called Mac Garrity, who was trying to commit suicide by rerouting trains so that they’d kill him. Despite Ricochet and Prodigy stopping the trains whilst Hornet flew Garrity out of the way, this mission would come back to haunt the team when Garrity returned to kill them as the Griz.
Ricochet and Hornet were soon sent to investigate the train lines beneath a hotel run by the Maggia when ordered to by Prodigy. There, they found that the Maggia were dumping radioactive waste which was mutating rats into monsters. During an encounter with the rats, Ricochet caused a cave-in in order to escape from the rats, but Hornet was trapped as a result of this. Ricochet then called Prodigy to ask for his help, but Prodigy coldly smashed his phone, saying that real heroes could save themselves. Hornet was rescued from the cave-in by Dusk, although he didn’t realize it was her at the time. Shortly after this, Ricochet and Hornet went to investigate the hotel upon its opening night. There, they encountered Prodigy, who was there with the Black Marvel. Upon Ricochet questioning and attacking Prodigy, Prodigy threw Ricochet off the hotel’s roof. Ricochet was tele-ported back inside the hotel by Dusk, discovering that she was still alive for the first time. By now, the Black Marvel had triggered some bombs he had planted inside the hotel, so that he could save people and be a hero. Ricochet and Hornet confronted the Black Marvel about his purpose in giving them their costumes. Ricochet and Hornet then managed to escape the building before it burned down, but Prodigy seemingly died, holding up half the building to give them a chance to escape.
Following the events of this, Ricochet, Hornet and Dusk (who had revealed that she had come back to life during the hotel incident) met up at their unofficial headquarters, a billboard promoting New York’s superheroes. Because Ricochet was skeptical about Dusk’s return to life, she suggested that they play a game of truth or dare. After Dusk revealed all she knew about her revival (which wasn’t much), Ricochet leaped backwards off the building they were on for his dare. When Dusk failed to save him, Hornet flew down and caught him a few seconds before he hit the ground. Upon returning to the top of the roof, Hornet flew off, giving Dusk the chance to kiss Johnny, showing that she liked him. This put a bit of a strain on their relationship, since Johnny already had a girlfriend and Hornet liked Dusk.
Despite this, Dusk and Ricochet teamed up shortly after wards to save Hornet
from the Griz, the rail worker whom they had saved during their first real adventure. Since Ricochet was injured during the fight, Dusk tele-ported him back to his house. To distract himself whilst Dusk saved Hornet, Ricochet upgraded an old go-kart of his and gave it a new paint job, calling it the
“Ricochet-Mobile”. This cart was briefly used in the fight against the Griz when Ricochet was tele-ported back, although it was destroyed at the water treatment plant during the climax of the fight.
Whilst brooding over the death of his mother, Ricochet was unexpectedly captured by Nanny and Orphan Maker, who had come to get him after the many years since they had killed his mother. After escaping from Nanny’s flying carrier, Ricochet made it to his house, where Orphan Maker was about to kill his father. Although he was no match for Orphan Maker, Ricochet tricked Orphan Maker into leaving by saying that Nanny liked him more. This affected Orphan Maker’s pride, causing him to leave Ricochet’s father alone, so that Ricochet wouldn’t truly be an orphan, thus unable to join with Nanny. After this little adventure, Johnny revealed his secret identity to his father.
End of the Slingers
Shortly after this, Johnny went to the hospital where the Black Marvel had been kept after the hotel incident, only to find the Black Marvel gone. He called a meeting with the rest of the Slingers to discuss the Black Marvel, and was given new explosive discs by Hornet. After testing one, Mephisto attacked the Slingers, bringing the superheroes on the billboard which was their headquarters to life. Although all the Slingers fought valiantly, eventually they were defeated and sucked into a pocket dimension of sorts, where they found Mephisto holding the Black Marvel hostage. It turned out that Black Marvel had made a deal with Mephisto for the costumes which the Slingers now possessed. Mephisto told the Slingers that to save the Black Marvel, all they had to do was forgive him.
Since the Black Marvel had made them heroes for his own purposes, they were all pretty reluctant to do so. They were then all forced apart, to do trials of a sort, unique to each one of them. Ricochet was in an arena, where he used his powers to overcome various traps. At first the people in the arena were cheering him on, but before long they started throwing rocks at him for being a mutant. Prodigy arrived and saved Ricochet, showing him that it had all been an illusion. After the others overcame their trials, Mephisto gathered the Slingers together again to test them as a team. He summoned thousands of demons for them to fight against, but these were all defeated by Dusk, who had started to realize her potential. Eventually, Hornet convinced the others to forgive the Black Marvel, and he and the team were set free. The Slingers then disbanded, but before doing so, Ricochet and Hornet spray painted “Slingers were here” at the base of the billboard which had been their base.
Excelsior/Loners
Ricochet then disappeared for many years, before turning up in Runaways in the group Excelsior (later renamed the Loners) alongside Julie Power, Chamber, Phil Urich, Turbo and Darkhawk. The team’s aim was to try and dissuade teens from becoming super heroes. Ricochet joined because he thinks being a teenage superhero hasnât helped him at all, and blames himself for Hornet’s death. During Excelsior’s first meeting, the team was asked to capture the Runaways by a mysterious man. The team agreed to do so, although a few members were reluctant about why the man was being so mysterious and wanted to capture the Runaways.
Excelsior managed to find the team, and whilst Ricochet took out Gert Yorkes with a disc, the other members of the team weren’t as successful, and the Runaways escaped. By the time the team found them again, they were fighting Ultron. Excelsior managed to stop Ultron whilst the Runaways escaped yet again, although by now the mysterious man had revealed himself to be Rick Jones, and told them that he didn’t mind the Runaways escaping.
A few months later, Mattie Franklin joined Excelsior (who had been renamed the Loners over copyrights), and with her and Darkhawk, Ricochet helped stop some drug traffickers who were making Mutant Growth Hormone. However, they found out that the traffickers were supplying to several super-villains, and agreed to stop them before telling the other members of the Loners. After revealing to his teammates the guilt he feels over Hornet’s death, Ricochet went to an abandoned warehouse where they had gotten their best lead. Upon arriving, he was attacked by Delilah, who had fought Peter Parker when he was using the Ricochet identity, and assumed that Johnny was the original Ricochet. Although Ricochet managed to defeat Delilah, he accidentally smashed open a fluid-filled container which held the Generation X member formerly known as Penance. Penance went on to live with Phil Urich for the rest of the Loners miniseries.
Ricochet was later seduced by Mattie Franklin when she came over to his apartment, although it was later revealed that she had been hired by Dusk’s parents to find Dusk, and was seeing if Ricochet knew anything. At the end of the Loners miniseries, Ricochet was last seen as a member of the team.
Ricochet retained his powers after M-Day. According to Civil War: Battle Damage Report, Ricochet is a potential recruit for the Initiative.
Avengers Academy
Johnny Gallo has recently been shown as a part-time student at the ‘West Coast’ Avengers Academy.
Las Vegas
Working under orders from his old teammate, Prodigy, Ricochet goes to Las Vegas to look into a person using the Hornet identity. When it was revealed that the new Hornet didn’t have the best intentions, the other Slingers were reunited and teamed up with Ben Reilly to take out the demonically powered new foe.
Powers and Abilities
Ricochet has the mutant abilities of enhanced speed and agility. He was given throwing discs by Hornet which can bounce off walls and other such objects with amazing force. Combined with his powers of agility, this means that Ricochet is an excellent shot. Ricochet has four of these discs on each sleeve of his jacket. In the Runaways series, Ricochet used an E.M.P. disc at one point, although where he got it is unknown. He used it against Ultron, but it was not powerful enough to affect him significantly. He also had a Blackout disc, but didn’t use it, so it’s effects are unknown. Ricochet can also sense things before they happen, much like Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense.
Concept art for Ricochet (Peter Parker) shows that there was an idea for a large, ninth disc to be strapped to Ricochet’s back and used like a Captain America-esque shield, but this idea was dropped.
Personal Information
Height: 5’11”
Weight: 162lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: White
Alternate Versions
Earth- 6215
In this reality Ricochet is among the few remaining hero who had survived an attack by Chronok, these surviving heroes were mockingly called the ‘ League of Losers‘ by their foe.
Earth- 5700
This variation of Johnny Gallo came from an alternate version of the Days of Future Past, in which he was a member of the Excelsior. Ricochet was among the heroes when Magneto united the super hero teams, including the X-Men and Avengers, to battle a common threat, the Sentinels. Unlike other versions this Ricochet wore a metal-plate mask as apposed to the normal materiel extension of his costume.
Other Media
Spider-Man: Edge of Time
Ricochet makes an appearance as an alternate ‘skin’ in this video game.
The Spectacular Spider-Man
The code name Ricochet was used by Fancy Dan of the Enforcers. He received a suit from the Tinkerer that increased his agility and speed.
