From speed demon to whirling dervish: Ricochet Rita / Spiral Appreciation (2019)

[Ricochet Rita]

Mojoverse, the dimension of the Spineless-Ones, is a twisted warped sick place, with a dangerous tendency to history repeating and loops.

One of these saddest loops is Rita/Spiral, whose story's got some sort of Greek tragedy's quality in its ironic fate.

Imagine you're a carefree happy-go-lucky self-sufficent stuntwoman, who lives only for the following kamikaze scene and your beloved dog and parrot. Suddenly an alien crosses your path, then your wild life goes truly wild and your loyalty, courage and recklessness cause you going to pieces...and pursuing in a neverending cycle your old innocent self. So burning rancor and cold violence are your only drives from now on.

Poor wounded thing.

RITA "RICOCHET" WAYWORD



Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 120 lbs?
Skin: White
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black


SPIRAL



Height: 5' 10"
Weight: 162 lbs
Skin: Reddish
Eyes: Yellow (cornea and iris)
Hair: Silver
Unusual Features: Six arms (one fully cybernetic), three fingers in hands and feet

Spell Casting:
Spiral has powerful mystical abilities. With gestures or dance moves, she can teleport herself and numerous people across great distances. Teleportation and her more powerful spells require complicated dance moves. Some of Spiral's spell-casting powers can be triggered through small hand gestures of her many hands. Spiral often incorporates knives and swords into more complicated spells. Spiral can also disguise herself through her magic. With Mojo's aid or specific astral events, Spiral can open gateways between dimensions and travel through time. Currently, her trans-realities powers have been cancelled by Mojo, and she can only teleport on Earth-616 where Mojo dumped her.

Abilities:
Spiral is a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant and sword fighter. Her six arms are fully coordinated, giving her great dexterity and athletic ability. However, Spiral will often lose to less powerful opponents due to tendencies of overconfidence, toying with her foe for too long, or becoming distracted. To cast many, if not all of her spells, Spiral's arms must be free and unhindered and, in some cases, she must be free to dance as well.

Spiral demonstrated highly developed skills in cybernetics and genetic manipulation which she has used to turn humans into powerful cyborgs at her Body Shoppe. Most notable include Lady Deathstrike and the cybernetic Reavers, who have since been "upgraded" by Donald Pierce.

Origins: Longshot #1-6 (1985-86) + X-Factor Annual #7 (1992)

[Extracts from Marvel Database]

[Ricochet Rita]

Two awesome samples of fanart:

Ricochet Rita by fedde



Spiral by Kevin Wada

[Kurolegacy]

Really a shame that we never really got any follow up on Spiral being split off from Mojo after he banished her back in Uncanny X-Force and in the present she’s right back in the same position she was before. There seemed to be story potential especially with the girl Ginny and her newfound alliance with X-Force and it all went ignored.

[Alex.]

Really a shame that we never really got any follow up on Spiral being split off from Mojo after he banished her back in Uncanny X-Force and in the present she’s right back in the same position she was before. There seemed to be story potential especially with the girl Ginny and her newfound alliance with X-Force and it all went ignored.

That x-force run was a mess. I felt like they were setting things up for like, 10 issues. And by the time that it was done, it got canceled, and it was the right call. But yeah, there was a lot of potential Spiral stories to be told that never saw the light of the day.

I wish we knew how she feels about not being Rita anymore.

[From The Shadows]

Two awesome samples of fanart:

Ricochet Rita by fedde



Spiral by Kevin Wada

Very nice. I really love good fanart.


I loved Spiral in the WatX cartoon. Though, she really didn't have the whimsy that she did in the comics so you may not have been that impressed yourself, Rita.



How can you not love that "sushi" barb?

[Ricochet Rita]

Really a shame that we never really got any follow up on Spiral being split off from Mojo after he banished her back in Uncanny X-Force and in the present she’s right back in the same position she was before. There seemed to be story potential especially with the girl Ginny and her newfound alliance with X-Force and it all went ignored.

I still have not read UXF and honestly I've only heard bad things about it. Yet I will buy it if I got to find it somewhere, because...Spiral. Actually, I think it's there where it's revealed for the first time that her last name is Wayword (Nocenti never told about it).

I totally agree with you in the bolds. Nowadays it's sadly usual that continuity is ignored mainly in supporting characters like her, so they're suddenly in wrong places and times acting absolutely OOC, just in order that A-characters can show off (just as if they needed it more). Thus, last Spiral's appearances show her like a simple committed mercenary of Mojo (?!).

I wish we knew how she feels about not being Rita anymore.

Something like that:



But yes, I too would like to hear a more explicit reflexion about her past from her own lips. It's canon since 1992 that Spiral was Rita before, but she usually only refers to herself in relation to her recent time in Mojoworld.

I loved Spiral in the WatX cartoon. Though, she really didn't have the whimsy that she did in the comics so you may not have been that impressed yourself, Rita.

I've never seen WatX before! Certainly it's sort of better animation than usual --but heck, what I find really awesome it's Nightcrawler's teleportation and movements! 10/10!

Also, YouTube has redirected me to a X-Men: Children of the Atom vid in which there's a fabulous landscape of Mojoworld the way it formerly was designed, in those toxic psychedelic yellow and fuchsia. I love it!

[Kurolegacy]

I still have not read UXF and honestly I've only heard bad things about it. Yet I will buy it if I got to find it somewhere, because...Spiral. Actually, I think it's there where it's revealed for the first time that her last name is Wayword (Nocenti never told about it).

I totally agree with you in the bolds. Nowadays it's sadly usual that continuity is ignored mainly in supporting characters like her, so they're suddenly in wrong places and times acting absolutely OOC, just in order that A-characters can show off (just as if they needed it more). Thus, last Spiral's appearances show her like a simple committed mercenary of Mojo (?!).

What's even worse is that while that volume of UXF was pretty bad, it did do some interesting character building where Spiral expressed a longing towards her old life and a sense of hatred towards Mojo for taking that away from her. We got to see a side of Spiral that isn't normally expressed to the degree that her main motivation in that had been trying to save Ginny and rebuild her life. But sadly character evolution is a big no no with Marvel so she's just back to default.

[WallStreeter]

What's even worse is that while that volume of UXF was pretty bad, it did do some interesting character building where Spiral expressed a longing towards her old life and a sense of hatred towards Mojo for taking that away from her. We got to see a side of Spiral that isn't normally expressed to the degree that her main motivation in that had been trying to save Ginny and rebuild her life. But sadly character evolution is a big no no with Marvel so she's just back to default.

I got the feeling Spiral's feeling towards Mojo are love/hate. The process of being transformed from Rita to Spiral was very painful and traumatizing.

And yet, the woman who was a stuntwoman and an adventurer became a powerful sorceress and her adventures got taken to the next level. To an extent she enjoyed her new life as she had plenty of times to escape. She didn't want to.

And as time went on, it was obvious Spiral had her own agenda. She wasn't Mojo's yes woman. She worked for him, but it was self serving.

[616MarvelYear is LeapYear]

I loved Spiral in the WatX cartoon.



How can you not love that "sushi" barb?

Mechanical arms? Guess it is only so in the cartoon in the comics they are not mechanical right?

[AbnormallyNormal]

Just posting in the new thread to express my appreciation of this/these character(s)

[Ricochet Rita]

Mechanical arms? Guess it is only so in the cartoon in the comics they are not mechanical right?

Well, as far as I know it has never been stated if they're really mechanical or just sort of a brassard. Originally she had only one, the third of her left arms.



At some point, the second of her left arms was showed as mechanical too, just her forearm actually. Probably in UXM #10:

Just posting in the new thread to express my appreciation of this/these character(s)

You're SO welcome!