Cover Date: November 2014; On Sale Date: September 2014
Writer: Felipe Smith; Artist: Damion Scott; Inker: Robert Campanella; Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna; Colorist: Val Staples; Editor: Mark Paniccia; Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Damion Scott
A group of teenagers changing a flat tire are attacked and killed by the animals that have been mutated by Zabo’s pink pills. The next morning, Robbie drops off Gabe and spends the day paying off bills with the money he’s earned from street racing. He tells Eli that they will have to step up the amount of races they win in order to save more money, which Eli does not agree with at all. Robbie receives a call about a race worth $5,000 in Phoenix, but Eli tells him that he is misusing their power and that he has his own “bullies” to deal with. 5 hours later at an Arizona gas station, a man on a motorcycle watches Robbie as he’s accosted by two large bikers. Robbie gets into a fight with the bikers, and his rage allows Eli to momentarily take control of his body. Robbie regains control and drives away, telling Eli never to do that again, while the man watching follows them.
Back at Lincoln High School, Robbie’s teacher asks Guero if he’s seen Robbie, then comments that Guero and his gang have recovered from their injuries very quickly. He sees the gang stocking up with cans of spray paint from their lockers, then later sees on the news that someone has been spray-painting the name “Blue Krue” around the neighborhood. In downtown Los Angeles, Dr. Zabo sees the same news report and comments that it’s a great way for the gang to spread the word about his new blue pills.
That night in Phoenix, Robbie has won yet another street race, and the loser invites him to another race tomorrow night, with a pay out of double or nothing. The next day, Robbie is told about a new, expensive medication for Gabe, and wonders how he will pay for it. He talks with Eli about it, who suggests that they win the next race, even though he hates the time that it wastes to do so. He asks for full control behind the wheel of the car, but Robbie says he’s a good enough racer on his own to win.
The next night, the race gets underway but Robbie is blocked by the mutant animals, who attack the car. When Robbie begs for Eli’s help, the spirit tells him that they’re a team. Robbie agrees and gives up control to Eli, who transforms them into the Ghost Rider to fight off the animals. They destroy the mutants, but Robbie loses the race and the winner comes to collect the money. Robbie gives him the money, but Eli convinces Robbie that they need that money for Gabe and they need to follow the racers and take the money back. Robbie gives in and transforms, easily catches up to the winner, and runs his car off the road and over a cliff. Robbie runs down the hill to help the man, but Eli talks him into taking the money instead. When Robbie does so, he’s interrupted by Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, who asks him “who are you and what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
THE ROADMAP
The story behind Eli Morrow is revealed in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 8.
Johnny Blaze has been tracking Robbie down since All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 6, and made his last appearance before that issue in Thunderbolts (2013) # 32.
CHAIN REACTION
The “Legend” storyarc continues with Johnny Blaze, the “official” Ghost Rider, finally making an appearance to start tying the series into the character’s larger continuity.
Felipe Smith, and Marvel editorial as a whole, played things very smart when it came to the introduction of Robbie Reyes and the launch of this series. Johnny Blaze has a very large, very vocal fanbase that easily could have been hesitant about him being replaced by a yet another new character. A similar tactic was attempted only a few years earlier, with disastrous results, when Alejandra was introduced at the start of Rob Williams’ Ghost Rider series, so it’s nice to see that Marvel learned its lesson. It’s a tricky balance, though, because part of what made the Williams series so grating was that Blaze remained the central character of the series, which did nothing but keep Alejandra from being anything more than a plot device. Launching All-New Ghost Rider with an introductory arc completely divorced from Blaze and the Spirit of Vengeance canon was the logical move, echoing what had been done back at the start of the 1990s Danny Ketch series. Unlike back in 1990, however, Blaze is still THE Ghost Rider in current continuity, so having him nowhere to be seen while launching a NEW Ghost Rider could have been problematic. Marvel sidestepped this by putting Blaze front and center in a concurrent series, Thunderbolts, which regardless of the book’s quality still sent the message that Johnny hadn’t been forgotten.
With that introductory arc out of the way, though, Smith is able to bring Blaze and the associated plot points (or problems, even) into the series in a natural and organic fashion. Like when Ketch first appeared, Blaze has a reason to enter the series as his own agent, wanting to learn how and why there’s another person riding around elsewhere in the country calling himself “Ghost Rider”. I’ll get into the dynamics between Blaze and Reyes in the review for the next issue, since Johnny is only around for a few panels here.
The bulk of this issue hinges around the Robbie/Eli relationship and the slow-build toward Eli’s heel turn, which makes the story much more interesting than it honestly has any right to be. Eli is the stand-in for Zarathos here, slowly corrupting and manipulating his host while also being the one in control of the power shared between them. While Blaze always struggled against the demon’s darker influence, Robbie seems doomed to give in Eli’s negative influence. Here is where Eli’s true purpose starts to show as something more than “exact vengeance on the guilty”, he has his own agenda that marks him even more as something different than the traditional Spirit of Vengeance set-up from previous takes on the concept. I like the juxtaposition of Eli becoming more and more frustrated with Robbie’s lackadaisical approach to their supposed “mission”, and it shows that though Eli may be manipulative as all hell, Robbie also has little problem using the spirit for his own needs with little thought to the consequences.
Outside of the fascinating relationship between those two, however, the series is still driving around in metaphorical circles. We’re still dealing with Zabo and his pills, the monster animals are little more than window dressing dispatched within a single page, and Guero and his goon squad are little more than stand-ins for Grumpy and the gang-bangers from the last arc. It’s like Smith really loves the dueling nature of Robbie and Eli, but has run out of plot ideas to hang the relationship on. Here’s hoping Blaze will inject some much-needed story diversity into the equation for the rest of the arc.
Damion Scott is still on art, and I found myself not as perturbed by his work here as I was with his first issue. He handles the quiet scenes well, with Robbie interacting with Eli (which can’t be easy, showing in artwork how someone has an internal discussion with an invisible entity), but the action sequences are still totally incomprehensible. The characters just float in empty space during the action scenes, with no grounding in the environment to let you know just what the hell is going on. He does draw a pretty great splash of Blaze on the last page, though!
I’m cautiously optimistic about where things are going now that Johnny Blaze has arrived, let’s see if things improve as the arc continues.
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