Longshot helps give the Australian base a conscience almost as soon as the X-Men move in. The Reavers have accumulated valuables by hurting people. To most observers, a room ful…

Longshot helps give the Australian base a conscience almost as soon as the X-Men move in. The Reavers have accumulated valuables by hurting people. To most observers, a room full of stolen objects might remain an anonymous collection. His ability to perceive impressions associated with objects makes that distance harder to maintain. In #230, those connections help turn recovered loot into a Christmas mission. The X-Men return possessions to the people they belong to. It is a particularly good use of Longshot because the important contribution isn't winning a fight. He helps the others see specific lives behind the things in front of them. That story also suits a team believed dead. The gesture doesn't depend on a press conference or somebody thanking the right superhero. The objects can go home even when the people returning them cannot publicly do the same. Longshot's acrobatics and luck remain part of the action, of course. His presence changes the visual rhythm of a group containing Colossus, Rogue and Havok. He can move through danger in ways that feel very different from enduring it or blasting a path straight through. At home, his relationship with Dazzler brings warmth and complications. His unfamiliarity with ordinary assumptions can be funny, but he is not simply a cheerful mascot for the others. His own past involves being used, and that history gives his openness a different weight. The Australian team needs ways to remain human while living behind a fiction. Longshot's attention to the histories of things provides one. A necklace is not just treasure in a villain's storehouse. It belonged to someone. Following that thought all the way to an act of kindness is one of the clearest statements this hidden group makes about what it still wants to be.