Ricochet Rita

Origin

A daring young woman from Texas, Ricochet Rita became a successful stunt woman in Hollywood. She was always willing to do the most dangerous stunts, for very little money. One day filming was interupted by the appearance of a young blond man known only as Longshot. Soon he was roped into joing the stunt team. Rita’s passion for adrenalyne inducing stunts and Longshot’s natural skill to have everything go his way made them a great collaborative team, and soon Rita fell in love with the mysterious young man.

However, Longshot was seriously injured during an extremely dangerous and ill-planned stunt. The director was uninsured, and didn’t want anyone to discover how he had been cutting corners, so he kidnapped Longshot and tried to dump his body. Rita had no idea what had happened, and left to search for his missing lover.

Creation

Richochet Rita was created by Ann Nocenti and Art Adams and first appeared (as Richochet Rita) in Longshot issue 2 (1985). It was only later revealed that the villain known as Spiral was Rita’s future self.

Major Story Arcs

Mojo

She failed to find Longshot, and returned home. However, her return home was short-lived as she was soon attacked by a mysterious couple who destroyed her home. Rita had no idea who they were, or why they attacked her. Spiral and Mojo were searching for Longshot, and they could sense that Rita had spent a lot of time with the fallen messiah. They destroyed her home, killed her dog and kidnapped Rita as bait to get to Longshot. Transported back to the MojoVerse, Rita was strapped to the front of Mojo’s transdimensional ship as the figurehead. There she was exposed to the maddening effects of galactic and dimensional travel. Although she rebelled against Mojo, her human body and mind could not withstand the constant torture and soon she was left brain damaged. Mojo and Spiral were disappointed that Longshot had not come searching for his lost love, and therefore abandoned her on Earth.

Rebellion

Back on Earth Rita was found by Longshot who took her to Doctor Strange. However, none of his mystical powers or knowledge could cure Rita. It wasn’t until she heard Longshot’s voice over the telephone that she regained conscious thought.

Back to normal, Rita was furious for the way she had been treated. She joined Longshot and his companion Quark in their fight against Mojo. She aided in their attack, and helped defeat Mojo from taking over the humans televised airways. Although his attempt to take over the Earth had been thwarted, Mojo survived. Both he and Spiral fled back to the MojoVerse. Longshot and Quark followed, determinned to lead another rebellion and defeat Mojo once and for all. Rita decided to turn her back on her home and went with them.

Doomed Captive

However, Longshot was doomed to be the fallen messiah on Mojo World. His rebellion repeatedly failed, and ultimately Rita was kidnapped by Mojo’s forces once more. She was still as fiesty and would fight Mojo at every opportunity. Therefore when Mojo had trouble with his latest creations, the X-Babies, he decided to teach Rita a lesson by putting her in charge of the diminuative X-Men. Instead of fighting to control the outrageous group of super-powered children, Rita enjoyed her time as nanny to the X-Babies.

Sadly her time with the children came to an end. Mojo had not forgotten about her, and Spiral hated her passionately. It had been assumed that Spiral had been Longshot’s lover and therefore hated him for forgetting her, and hated Rita for being the new girl that he loved instead. However, Spiral hated Rita because she was Rita!

Rita was experimented on by Spiral and was later transformed by Arize. Although Arize hated creating slaves for Mojo, he had been confronted by Spiral and accepted his part in creating her. Rita’s mind was once again warped by transdimensional travel, her body was twisted by genetics, science and magicks. The person who was Ricochet Rita no longer existed. She had become Spiral; Mojo’s six-armed insane warrior. Given new powers of teleportation and time travel, she danced a magical spell and travelled back in time to become Mojo’s servant, fight Longshot, and kidnap herself in the past.

Skills

Although a Rita was a regular human being, she had the skills and aptitude to become a warrior of Longshot’s rebellion. She was already incredibly athletic, and her life as a stunt woman had already set her up to enjoy crazy death-defying adventures. She was ready for rough and tumble action. She had grown up in Texas and was already an exemplary markswoman, and therefore easily adapted to using the high-tech weaponary used by the rebellion.