Dark Stars: Daddy Long Legs
Sunday, October 15th, 2006DADDY LONG LEGS, Spider-Woman #47, 1982.
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Would you sacrifice everything for 15 seconds of fame? Ramsey Kole, a.k.a. Daddy Long Legs was a tiny brutha with a big complex. Always feeling like his dancing skills showed unmatchable prowess, he was a solid gold dancer but couldn’t get any respect because he didn’t fit the ideal dancers mold.
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Kole, desperate for an edge on his competition, drops his scenario on scientist Bill Foster, a.k.a. Giant-Man, a.k.a Black Goliath (get down with next weeks Dark Stars post for more on Black Goliath!). Unfortunately the big man isn’t ready to slide his untested formula over, so Kole sucker punches Foster and knocks him out.
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After straight bartending formula concoctions from Bill Foster’s lab hoping he got the right mix of giant-man serum, Kole hides out at a local junkyard and waits for the juice to kick in. Exhausted and high on his liquid mix, Kole starts to get his groove on in the middle of the junkyard..”even in exhaustion, he moves with a loose, lazy, adeptness to motion…for if he knows anything — he knows how to move. To Kole, there is the dance and only the dance…and the freedom it brings, the joy. But joy is fickle.”
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Now that Kole’s whole hustle and format is now elongated with his mentals as crooked as a question mark, he races the one place he’s most desired to be — the stage. Caught in the moment in an empty auditorium, Kole dances. On stage, his journey from a talented dancer with an overwhelming obsession to a towering madman stretched beyond sanity climaxes through violent realization as…Daddy Long Legs!
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The story of the madmans arrival wouldn’t be complete without revenge taking center stage. They say if one waits before taking vengeance, it makes it all the sweeter[page12]. Daddy Long Legs, longing for that R-E-S-P-E-C-T, bum rushes a show of a dancer who is said to be on the cutting edge, like nothing anyone has ever seen. Clearly he thinks they’ve got it twisted.
“CULTURE VULTURES! I can’t stand anymore of their bracker-barrel philosophy — the babble that is their consciousness! And here I am..such a freak no one even recognizes me as HUMAN anymore. Soon they will see I am so much more! Tonight, I am MAGIC. It’s all copasetic now. I’ll dance like an angel, dance like a devil. I’ll hypnotize…mesmerize. And they’ll all die, choking on their first taste of GREAT ART.”
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Clearly being taller didn’t help my man get any more respect as a great dancer. He did however get recognized as the minstrel show that he played himself out to be. When a mans passion to be great skews his perception of reality, no course of action can convince the outside world of the fire that burns within. In fact, even with the best intentions (i.e. to prove to the world his talents are worthy of their adoration), Daddy Long Legs is so gone that he can’t see being larger than life won’t help others recognize him for the talent he wants to unleash on the world.
“PHILISTINES! You can’t see what you don’t have the eyes for! You enshrine mediocrity — leaving no room for greatness! Mediocrity has mankind by the THROAT! You wouldn’t know greatness if it was forced on you!”
Spider-Woman has been tracking Daddy Long Legs ever since Bill Foster dropped science [note: on page8] that Kole had smacked the taste out his mouth. Finally catching up with Daddy Long Legs in the crowded theater, Spider-Woman confronts him on stage. She throws him some verbiage to set him off and then breaks out, with Daddy Long Legs in hot pursuit. Once outside, she tries to reason with my man, but, he’s not feeling it.
“Wait! I don’t want to fight you! I just couldn’t let you terrorize those people! I see you just want to dance…But you can’t force-feed your talent even if…”
What follows next is five solid pages of fisticuffs. Just like Anita Baker, Spider-Woman is giving Daddy Long Legs the best that she’s got! After pages of battle and both Spider-Woman and Daddy Long Legs breakin’ each other off eight ways from Sunday, she finally lands a crushing blow that lays stretch out.
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Despite a “W” in the win,lose, or draw hustle, Spider-Woman feels remorse. She hit him with a venom blast early in the battle that joined them in a neural sync and they were hooked, linked, sympatico.
“Hmm. Even though I’ve beaten him, I feel no sense of elation, of accomplishment. It must be that weird neural link we shared. I know it was just some bizarre biofeedback caused by my venom blast, but it felt like I was looking straight into his soul. What a tragic soul. I ssaw boundless creativity, but it was twisted, tied into knots…I feel almost…close to him now. We’re both somewhat spidery..and I certainly remember what it’s like to be an outcast from humanity. The question is now what do I do with him?”
Almost on queue, Daddy Long Legs comes to…
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With Daddy Long Legs tied up, Spider-Woman goes off to see if she can get him some help. As Daddy Long Legs considers the heart-to-heart that Spider-Woman has had with him, she also considers his scenario. She walks away, steeped in thought. Yes, the world seems full of creeps. But if one takes a hard look into any ravaged soul, one may find a good reason what made it that way…She suddenly stops. Intuition prickles at the back of her mind, telling her to turn around. Then…She searches the rain-drenched lot, looking for a footprint, any sign of the thin man. There is none. The din of the rain drowns out the sound of nearby laughter.
Spider-Woman #47 takes a hard look at the tragic nature of a villian who really just wants some props for his true talents. It’s the age old hustle & flow of all villians. I dug the fact that Daddy Long Legs was no exception. We can all relate to the desire to be accepted. We all want to be great. We all, however, won’t drink a mixed-blend straight up! to get what we want. Ramsey Kole was willing to stretch and take it to the limit for his obsession. He lost touch with reality and the obsession escalated when hittin’ the juice turned his whole format sour. Even when he had achieved a bastardization of his ultimate goal, to simply be taller he still was the crux of the joke. He turned out to be comedic relief in the end and no matter what he did, up was down and left was right. Daddy Long Legs tried to turn that potential energy into something fantastically kinetic and got burned in the process because he tried to cut corners. In the end, if you truly believe and put in some forreal due diligence, it no longer becomes impossible to achieve your goal. 15 seconds of fame could be a lifetime if you really want it. Lean wit it, ROCK wit it. There is no shortcut to greatness.
Bahlactus has spoken.
