Writer: Felipe Smith; Artist: Tradd Moore; Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna; Colorists: Nelson Daniel & Val Staples; Editor: Mark Paniccia; Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Tradd Moore
On the 101 Freeway in Downtown Los Angeles, the new Ghost Rider
chases after the paramilitary team that shot him and left him for dead.
They fire bullets at the flaming car with no effect, and when they fire a
missile the explosion blows the car into the air, only for it to land
back on its wheels to continue the chase. The Rider pulls up alongside
the fourth of the soldiers' vans and drives straight through it,
destroying it. The other three vans speed off as the Ghost Rider's car
drives off the bridge and explodes in mid-air. Later, the soldiers are
assembled in front of their employer, Dr. Calvin Zabo, who is happy to
see his duffel bags filled with pills returned to him after they had
been stolen by some gang members. He notices that one of the bags is
still missing and transforms into Mr. Hyde, killing the leader of the
mercenaries and appointing a new one in command to find the missing bag.
The next morning, Robbie Reyes wakes up in his
bed, thinking the previous night's events had been a dream. He notices
in the mirror that not only have all of his injuries from the previous
day's beating have healed, but that his right eye is now colored orange.
Robbie takes his brother Gabe to his special learning center, then goes
to school, encountering the same three punks who had beat him up the
day before. While the class goes wild around him, Robbie simply sits and
stares quietly. Elsewhere in LA, at the house of a drug dealer named
Grumpy, two teenagers buy one of Zabo's stolen pink pills to use as a
date rape drug. While they slip the pill into the drink of a girl in the
kitchen, another addict tells Grumpy that he saw someone driving his
car the night before. Grumpy's underlings tell their boss that the other
bags of pills were in the trunk of the car. In the kitchen, the woman
dosed with Zabo's drug transforms into a Hyde creature and kills the
boys who drugged her, destroying part of the house in the process.
That night, after Gabe has gone to bed, Robbie
sneaks back into the auto shop and finds the car that had been destroyed
has returned in perfect condition. As he's taking the car out of the
shop, Grumpy's lieutenants pull up to steal the car back and open fire
on Reyes. He transforms into Ghost Rider and brutally disarms the thugs,
forcing them to flee in their car. Ghost Rider gives chase, but
ultimately speeds past them on his way to an abandoned salvage yard.
When they arrive, Reyes turns back into his normal form and looks at the
car, asking "what are you?". To his surprise, the car answers with "the
real question is, what are WE?"
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| Road rage! |
THE ROADMAP
The concept of there being many different Spirits of Vengeance,
each with their own appropriate vehicle, was introduced by writer Jason
Aaron in Ghost Rider (2006) # 27. That issue even showed a glimpse of a Ghost Rider that drove a muscle car similar to the one used by Robbie Reyes.
While traditionally a foe of Captain America and
the Avengers, Mr. Hyde has had three previous encounters with a Ghost
Rider (Danny Ketch) in Ghost Rider (1990) # 4, Ghost Rider (1990) # 36, and Ghost Rider (1990) # 55.
CHAIN REACTION
All-New Ghost Rider zooms into its second issue, and hot damn is it a doozy!
Something struck me as I was reading this issue.
For all the attempt to make this series seemingly as different as
possible from previous Ghost Rider stories, I couldn't help but be
reminded of the similarities it shares with the opening issues of the
1990 Danny Ketch series. You have the teenage boy with a sibling in
trouble, a writer's affectation dominating the aesthetics (street racing
instead of cemeteries), and a lead character possessed by what appears
to be a haunted vehicle. Even the choice of villain, Mr. Hyde, calls up
comparisons to the first several issues of the Ketch Ghost Rider series!
By no means is this a bad thing, and I think it really shows just how
one should go about launching a successful revamp of the property.
Instead of relying on Johnny Blaze, either as the star or as an
immediate supporting cast member (as in the 2011 GR series), the
characters are allowed to be as in-the-dark as the readers concerning
what's happening to them.
While Reyes is following a similar trajectory as
Ketch did back in 1990, the characters are worlds apart in terms of
characterization. Whereas Ketch was a bit timid and frightened about
what was happening to him, Reyes shows more curiosity and stoicism. That
rage seething just below Reyes' surface is again on display during his
time shown in school as the only teen not taking the piss out of the
substitute teacher, and the artwork really sells how different Robbie is
from his peers. Whereas Ketch seemed to be a weak fit for a Spirit of
Vengeance, you can immediately see why such a creature would be
attracted to Reyes.
The Ghost Rider himself gets two fantastic
extended sequences following his two-page introduction at the end of
issue # 1, and he looks magnificent. Tradd Moore has sold me on the
character design AND the use of the car in place of the traditional
motorcycle. Moore's art just leaps off the page during every single
panel where the Rider is shown, and I happy to see that he has
storytelling skills alongside his unique design work. The sequence with
the Rider's car being blown into the air by a missile, only to land back
on its wheels, is very well done. His art just flows, even in the
action scene that takes place outside of the car, showing some brutally
efficient violence against the thugs that try to shoot Robbie. I'm a
little less sold on Moore's design for Mr. Hyde, though, because he
looks more like a werewolf than a brutish man. Still, high marks all
around for the art, which compliments Smith's story perfectly.
Any reservations I had about this series after
reading the first issue have successfully been driven away with this
second installment. Smith and Moore get everything right, and it makes
me again wish that the first issue had been double-sized to include this
issue as well. Highly recommended.
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| Poetry in motion! |
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