Cover Date: December 2014; On Sale Date: October 2014
Writer: Felipe Smith; Artist: Damion Scott; Inker: Cory Hamscher; Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna; Colorist: Val Staples; Editor: Mark Paniccia; Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Damion Scott
Robbie Reyes is confronted by Johnny Blaze, the original Ghost Rider, who wants answers about who Robbie is and what he's been doing. Eli Morrow takes control and transforms into his version of the Ghost Rider, but is quickly overpowered by Blaze, who uses his Penance Stare to discern Morrow's identity. Blaze claims that Morrow is an evil Satanist who needs to suffer for the murders he committed, but Morrow escapes by teleporting into his car. Morrow speeds off with Blaze attached to the car by a chain, dragging him down the road until Blaze's motorcycle catches up to them for Johnny to jump onto. Robbie speaks telepathically to Eli, asking him what Blaze meant by "murderous Satanist", but Morrow dodges the question. Blaze jumps on top of the car, but when confronted on the roof by Morrow Johnny is stunned by what he sees. Morrow kicks Johnny off, leaving the biker to question why there are two human souls inhabiting this new Ghost Rider instead of just one. As they escape, Robbie says to Eli that something is wrong and he feels weak.
Elsewhere in East Los Angeles, Guero and his friends are hijacking medical supplies from an ambulance when the police arrive. Using the strength from Zabo's blue pills, the gang easily overpower the cops, telling them not to mess with the Blue Krue. At school the next day, Robbie and Guero are both playing basketball during gym class, and while Guero displays enhanced strength and agility Reyes is becoming weaker by the second. Robbie collapses and wakes up in the school infirmary, his body now under Eli's control.
That night, Eli goes to Robbie's house and finds Gabe waiting for him. Robbie goes into Gabe's room, flips over the bed, and uses a hammer and screwdriver to pull up the floorboards. Under the floor is a box with money and a name and address for a man named Yegor Ivanov, who Eli wants revenge against. Eli leaves to find Ivanov, leaving the handicapped Gabe lying on the floor alone. Meanwhile, in Santa Monica, Blaze searches for information about Morrow, learning that he was an enforcer for the Russian mob who was shot dead in a police shootout. Morrow was also a Satanist who dismembered his victims and used the bodies in his rituals, ultimately responsible for the deaths of 37 people and suspected of killing 15 more.
At the Century Bar, Eli goes inside to find Ivanov, but finds one of his associates instead. Ivanov receives a call telling him that Morrow is alive, and the Russian sends out his men to kill Eli again. Back at the Reyes house, Gabe is forced to eat what food he can find by crawling to the refrigerator, still hoping that Robbie will return to help him. While the Blue Krue tear up the neighborhood, Morrow is attacking Ivanov's forces and Blaze is riding to find him.
THE ROADMAP
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.
Eli Morrow's connection to Robbie and his family will be revealed in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 11.
CHAIN REACTION
Felipe Smith starts revealing some of the mysteries he's established, but every answer just leads to more questions for both the readers and the characters.
We finally get the anticipated showdown between Ghost Riders, with Old School Johnny Blaze looking for answers from All-New Robbie Reyes, and I definitely like and appreciate how it was handled. Blaze has been the Ghost Rider for a long damn time now, and it was so nice to see him written appropriately as a character you just don't fuck with, especially if you're a neophyte like Reyes/Morrow. It would have been very easy to let Reyes just run straight through Blaze, given that he's the star of the series, but to do so would have been a cheat of Mary Sue proportions. Smith also sidesteps another old trope of "two heroes beating the shit out of each other for no reason" by putting Eli in control of the ANGR (an acronym is so much easier than typing out "All-New Ghost Rider" every time, especially since I have to clarify which Ghost Rider I'm talking about). Robbie's a good kid and a sympathetic character that we're meant to like as the ANGR, so seeing him beaten down by Blaze wouldn't really work. Conversely, Blaze is a hero with justification for his actions, and seeing him beat down Robbie wouldn't work either. So, we meet in the middle for a happy compromise.
Outside of the Ghost Riders meeting and fighting, the big event of the issue is the "outing" of Eli Morrow as something far different than the vengeance spirit with good intentions we had been accustomed to so far. He's not a capital-letter Spirit of Vengeance after all, he's a Satanic serial killer than worked for the mob before being killed, which is...different, to say the least. It's surprising and confusing, but at least those descriptions apply just as much to the characters in the story as they do to the readers. I'm not sure how much I like the Morrow reveal, because I think it divorces ANGR too much from the standard Ghost Rider mythos, but I'll talk more about that when I get to the end of the arc.
Smith is bombarding us with subplots this issue, and they're starting to feel really excessive. The Blue Krue storyline isn't that interesting, since it's just a redux of what we had in the first arc, and the introduction of the Ivanov plot makes a packed issue feel really cluttered. What does work fantastically well are the scenes with Gabe and the emotional gutpunch Smith lays on us as a consequence of Robbie losing control of his body to Eli. The Robbie/Gabe relationship has been the heart of this series, and to see Gabe left helpless on the floor in the dark, forced to eat a raw cabbage because it's all he can reach in the fridge, is goddamned heartbreaking.
What drags this issue down the most is, once again, the artwork from Damion Scott. The fight and chase sequence between Blaze and Reyes should have been epic, but instead it's nearly incomprehensible. Panels barrel over top one another with seemingly no thought to structure or story progression, and there were multiple instances where I had to really study the pages to discern just what the hell was going on. If only Tradd Moore had stuck around past the first arc, this issue would have really been something to behold.
I wanted to love this comic SO MUCH, but came out of it feeling let down. There is a lot of great stuff still happening in this series, but the artwork and breakneck progression of subplots are dragging things down considerably.
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