Slick Shot

 

“I have chosen to make the most of my life because I have seen what happens when men make the worst of theirs.”

 

Greg Price, supername Slick Shot, is one of the many superheroes who frequent Allnighter’s, an all-night coffee diner. It’s not that he wants the coffee, it’s that he wants the company. He doesn’t sleep, and he’s naturally eerie, which puts him right at home with the “dark avenger” types that frequent Allnighter’s.

 

Greg Price developed a metapathogen, a hyperstasis that harms the hyperstatic in some way, when the supervillain Sundown invaded a chemical plant in Mainline City, Greg was one of the chemists he took hostage. Sundown’s goal was to get the chemists to create a prismatic material that could filter out elements of his natural radiation. A previous heist of his was foiled by the superteam known as the Limitless when their member Road Hog, a robot armor engineer, created a device which allowed the Limitless to detect and track his radiation. Sunset hoped to force Greg Price and the other chemists to design a cloak that would make him invisible to this device. When Greg attempted to create a flaw in the cloak that would make it fragile and easy to tear, he was discovered by Sunset, who tossed him into a vat of boiling plastic alloy (specifically Roderian psuedoderm) to demonstrate the cost of disobedience to the other chemists.

 

When the Limitless arrived and chased away Sunset, they drained the vat to retrieve Greg’s body, but instead of a body, they found a mass of orange-yellow psuedo-plastic that rolled around, screamed silently, and then with great effort on the mass’ behalf and assistance from the members of Limitless, untucked its arms, legs, and sightless head from its bulk.

 

Greg had survived, but at a terrible cost. His life as he knew it was over. He could not bare to be seen by his friends and family. He could not work. He could barely go outside, shamed as he was of what he now was.

 

Depressed and angry, Greg took up superheroics as a way of funneling his frustrations toward constructive ends. Superheroics became a form of therapy for him, as it is for many superheroes. As Slick Shot, he could leave the ruins of his old life behind and vent his frustrations on the underworld. What was more, he found new companions in the regulars of Allnighter’s. He sees the life of a an all-nighter superhero was one of calm reflection interrupted by moments of useful work and the general slow pace of the lifestyle is to his liking. Greg is known for slinking around Allnighter’s, telepathically asking (because he has no throat) guests how their night has been. Greg always has a kind word to spare, even if he can’t actually speak.

 

Greg is a personal hero to Martin’s student Gunnar Cropsey, who, like Slick Shot, overcame his metapathogen to become a hero.

 

Powers And Abilities

 

Slick Shot’s most noticeable power is a metapathogen which has negatively impacted his life ever since he fell into that vat of boiling plastic. His entire body is one semi-solid mass of slipper rubber-like material. In this way, he is similar to Steel Dolly, only with plastic instead of metal, though his transformation was far more extreme than her own. Steel Dolly’s cells were covered inside and out with metal, but  Slick Shot doesn’t even have cells. He is simply a large quantity of rubber-like material shaped like a man. His eyes are non-functional. He “sees” through a limited form of 360% telepathy. He has no sense of smell, or taste, or hearing. His sense of touch is muted compared to a basic’s. He can sense a little pressure and a little difference between hot and cold, but that is the extent of what his skin feels. .

 

He also does not need to eat, breathe, or sleep, though he can, through meditation, enter into a state similar to that of sleep, which he finds pleasurable, especially when napping beneath the clear sun or above a cool stone.

 

Slick Shot cannot vocalize. He does not have a mouth, let alone vocal cords. He communicates, like Gunnar Cropsey, through the public noosphere, and without common telepathy, no one would be able to “hear” him speak at all.

 

Many assume at first glance that Slick Shot is a man in a yellow-orange jumpsuit. That it is not true. What appears to be a jumpsuit is, in fact, his body. His “mouth” is painted on, as are his gloves, boots, and tights. His cape is actually a flap of loose skin.

 

While he is capable of a limited degree of stretching, he’s no Plastic Man, and his other abilities are far more powerful. Slick Shot, as his name suggests, is very slippery. He can control the friction of his body, increasing it to become an immovable wall against attacks or increasing it to quickly slide around a battlefield. He can also project waves of energy that can temporarily alter the friction of a person or object (as well as turn it the same yellow-orange of his body. His opponents, after being hit by his “slick shot,” find it incredibly hard to crawl without falling over themselves, let alone walk.

 

(Behind The Scenes Inspiration)

 

 

I found this very interesting bootleg on Instagram, a great place for finding bootleg action figures, by the way, Specifically, I found him through Bootlegtoysonebay, a great gallery of Ebay finds. Ebay is in general a great place to hunt for bootlegs, because Ebay is the closest thing the Internet has to a flea market. It might very well be the best place to hunt for bootlegs. Sellers have no idea what they have, they just throw it up. They empty out bins of surplus goods and dollar store remnants and put them on the Internet for all to see.

 

I love this weird presumably Batman bootleg so much. I knew I had to make a data file character out of him the second I looked at him. I love his hula dance pose. I love his banana or possibly lemon candy colors. I love his peeling blue paint. I love his soulless Orphan Annie eyes. I love the snake logo in place of a bat and vaguely scale-like body. He’s like someone smushed down the ears on a Batman knock-off and went “Hey! This guy looks sort of like a snake now! I bet we could make…Snakeman! We’ll save a fortune in pesos not having to make the ears on all these toys!”

 

You can smell the rubber through the picture. How is that possible?

 

Alternatively, you can think of this bootleg as Batman from that one All-Star Batman and Robin episode, you know, the infamous one with Green Lantern, or as Copperhead after a very bad reinvention, or as Space Ghost fallen on hard times.

 

There’s nothing to be found about this guy. Note, that’s my usual line when it comes to bootleg toys. I usually say something like “There’s not much to be found about this bootleg, even on the Internet.” But here, there’ s nothing. There’s no packaging, no brand, no name, no nothing. For all I know, this is a one-off voodoo doll created by Image back in the day to curse Batman and DC after Spawn’s sells started to tank.

 

This yellow dude is just an image taken from ebay. I think that’s really cool. This weird little banana lemon candy colored dude is the Internet version of something you found in a bin at a flea market, and that’s awesome, that’s the very essence and soul of bootleg action figures.