Live Wire is ?. Rance Preston was a former cowboy and performer of rope tricks. Rance started his criminal career partnering with two other mercenaries named Shellshock and Ivan. They were enlisted by the Psycho Man and given special weapons. Rance received an electrified lariat and called himself Live-Wire. The trio was to help Psycho Man acquire components to build a large scale version of his mind-ray emotion device. The plan was thwarted by members of the Fantastic Four, the Inhumans and the Black Panther. They were ultimately defeated and sent to jail.