Writer: Andy Diggle; Artist: Billy Tan' Inker: Victor Olazaba w/ Billy Tan; Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna; Colorist: Guru EFX; Assistant Editor: Tom Brennan; Editor: Stephen Wacker; Editor-In-Chief: Joe Quesada; Cover Artist: John Cassaday
Hell's Kitchen is consumed by a riot with the police unable to
calm things down. Outside the Shadowland fortress, Matt Murdock's friend
Foggy Nelson attempts to scale the castle's wall. He loses his grip and
falls, but is caught by the Ghost Rider, who tells him next time take
the stairs. Inside the fortress, the demonically possessed Daredevil
stands victorious over the heroes he has defeated. He senses the Ghost
Rider and leaps toward the wall, which the Rider breaks through on his
motorcycle. Daredevil surprises him by kicking him off his bike and back
out through the hole in the wall. The Beast, who has taken total
control of Daredevil's body, explains that he has caused the people to
riot in order to feed him with the destruction he craves. Ghost Rider
replies with a blast of hellfire from his mouth, which the Beast easily
absorbs. He grabs Blaze and absorbs all of the hellfire from his body,
leaving the Ghost Rider an immobile skeleton.
Inside, White Tiger brings Foggy Nelson to
Daredevil's throne, ready to kill the man. Daredevil stops her so he can
do the kill himself, but Foggy is able to reach Murdock outside of the
Beast's control. Using this opportunity, Iron Fist uses his chi to
strike Daredevil - but it wasn't meant to harm him, it was meant to heal
Matt's spirit. Daredevil begins an internal struggle with the Beast and
is losing his fight until Elektra enters the dream world tells him that
the only way to defeat the Beast is to kill himself. He takes a sword
and stabs it through his chest, which frees him from the Beast's
possession but nearly kills him as well. Foggy tries to save his friend,
but Elektra tells him to let Murdock go. Meanwhile, outside, the
rioters awaken, confused by what's been happening.
Back inside Shadowland, the heroes take stock of
everything that's happened, feeling lucky that Bullseye wasn't
resurrected. But Daredevil's body has mysteriously vanished, and Elektra
finds his discarded mask at the end of a tunnel. Later, the Kingpin
arrives at Shadowland and finds Typhoid Mary in charge of the Hand. Fisk
reveals a trigger phrase that gives him control over Mary, and in turn
control over the Hand as well. Elsewhere, a living Matt Murdock wanders
into a church and asks the priest for forgiveness.
THE ROADMAP
Ghost Rider's next appearance is in Wolverine (2010) # 2.
CHAIN REACTION
Despite my disappointment in the previous issues of Shadowland, I was really looking forward to this final chapter. The solicitation and covers promised a major confrontation between Ghost Rider and the demonically possessed Daredevil as the climax of the story. Consider my disappointment when I finally got to read the issue...
When the covers (both the regular AND the
variant!) promise an epic battle between Ghost Rider and Daredevil, by
god that's what I bloody well expect! What I didn't expect was for Ghost
Rider to be defeated within two pages, which is just plain sad. Diggle
spent a lot of time in previous issues building up Ghost Rider as this
unstoppable force, and having him so easily defeated by Daredevil is
another instance of the heroes getting owned way too quickly (see
Daredevil trouncing Iron Fist and Shang Chi in the third issue). Ghost
Rider really gets no respect in this issue - not only is he defeated so
easily, but the heroes leave Shadowland with Ghost Rider still hanging
paralyzed on the wall! I guess Johnny Blaze just wasn't important enough
to save when they're all crying over Matt Murdock.
Diggle also gives us an incredibly cliched ending
with Daredevil taking back control of his body via a battle in his
subconscious. Yet again, the struggle is over far too quickly with the
Beast being defeated without even a goodbye rant. Diggle tries to sell
us on the emotional journey at the end, but it just seems lifeless. This
was a mislabeled "event" that took two issues worth of story and
stretched it out to five (not to mention the numerous number of
superfluous tie-in books). I understand that something was necessary to
clear the decks for Daredevil before his book relaunches, but this just
wasn't a good series. It was formulaic with no surprises at all -
Diggle is a great writer, but this is like he phoned his work in. We
also get another terrible piece of dialogue, this time from Ghost Rider:
"What in the name of Hades' Mercedes?". Ouch, that's bloody awful.
Billy Tan's artwork does pick up some in this
issue, though, with a few nice touches that I appreciated. I really
liked how Daredevil's body transformed and elongated as the Beast took
more and more control, and I also liked the page with Iron Fist striking
the Beast in the chest. The perspective is handled nicely in that
panel, with Daredevil looming like a giant over Iron Fist. I knew Tan
was capable of better work than he showed in previous issues, and it's
glad to be reminded of that.
I have no choice but to deem Shadowland a complete
and utter failure as an event story. The creative team is capable of
doing so much better than what they produced here, which makes the
awfulness even more disappointing. I'd recommend picking up the
Shadowland: Ghost Rider tie-in, which was quite good, but avoid the main
series.
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