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| Cover Artist: Damion Scott |
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Title: "Legend", Part 5
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
SYNOPSIS
Outside Lincoln High School, Guero Valdez has punched Robbie Reyes in the face, accusing him of being the Ghost Rider. Guero and his two friends continue to beat on Robbie and threatens the life of his little brother, while Robbie fights with the spirit of Eli Morrow in his head, who is demanding that Robbie needs to fight back. When their teacher, Mr. Wakeford, attempts to intervene, Guero punches him and knocks him out, which causes Robbie to lose control of his emotions. Overcome by rage, Robbie's body is taken over by Eli, who breaks Guero's arm in three places before he's hit from behind by another member of the gang. Guero and his friends run away, yelling that they have powers now too and will be back to kill him. Eli jumps in the Hell Charger and flees as well, not staying for medical attention despite having been stabbed in the hand by Guero's knife.
At the headquarters of the Blue Hyde Brigade, Dr. Calvin Zabo meets with Russian mob leader Yegor Ivanov, who is talking about his former hitman, the serial killing Satanist Eli Morrow. Guero and his friends arrive and take their blue pills, transforming into the Blue Krue, and Guero tells Zabo and Ivanov that the Ghost Rider is really Robbie Reyes, a name that Ivanov recognizes. Robbie, still possessed by Eli, has returned home to bandage his wounds and receives a phone call from Ivanov, who gives him an address to meet. Before Eli can leave, he's visited by Mr. Wakeford, who has brought Robbie's brother Gabe home. Eli decides to make Wakeford his first sacrificial victim, but before he can kill the teacher Robbie manages to take control of the body and punches Wakeford in the face, telling him to leave and not come back. Robbie, still struggling for control with Morrow, jumps in his car and leaves to find Ivanov.
Eli arrives at an abandoned warehouse on a pier to kill Ivanov, unaware that the Blue Hyde Brigade are laying in wait. Ivanov mentions the Reyes family, which causes Robbie to again fight for dominance of the shared body, stopping Morrow from killing the Russian. Zabo tells his men to continue to wait, but Guero takes another blue pill and crashes out of the warehouse, wanting to kill Robbie. Eli takes total control and transforms into the Ghost Rider, easily knocking Guero off the pier. Robbie gathers all of this strength and takes control of their body, just in time to catch Guero with his chain and pull him back up, which also results in Guero's spine being broken as he lands. Zabo and the rest of the Blue Hyde Brigade attack, easily overcoming Robbie with their superior strength and numbers, but Reyes is saved by Johnny Blaze, who has arrived to help. Reyes and Blaze defeat the Blue Hyde Brigade and capture Zabo, but Ivanov escapes and swears revenge.
The next day, Blaze says his goodbyes to Robbie, and tells him that for better or worse, he's part of their family now, he's a Ghost Rider. When Robbie picks up Gabe from his disability school, he sees Guero, who is now in a wheelchair himself.
ANNOTATIONS
The Reyes' family's connection to Eli Morrow and Yegor Ivanov will be revealed in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 11.
Other than in a one-page flashback cameo in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 11, Johnny Blaze doesn't make another appearance until years later in Iceman (2017) # 6.
"Legend" reaches its conclusion, though to say it resolves much of anything would be a bit of a lie.
Writer Felipe Smith had so many balls juggling throughout this arc, which makes for a sharp contrast against the first arc, "Engines of Vengeance", which was streamlined and to-the-point. I'm usually a fan of complex and involved storylines with multiple subplots being woven through, but here it just resulted in a big ol' mess with an ending that left way too much still in the air. In this arc alone, we have Dr. Zabo (held over from the first arc when his story should have come to a natural conclusion) and his Blue Hyde Brigade trying to take over the Los Angeles gangs, the involvement of Yegor Ivanov and the Russian mob, which ties into the history of Eli Morrow. We're given an origin of sorts for Eli, who was a Satanist serial killer/mob enforcer that was betrayed by his boss Ivanov and used sacrificial magic to put his soul into his car. Okay, so that brings us to Robbie's struggle for dominance against Eli, who takes control and is revealed to be far less altruistic than he seemed at first as he tries to murder Ivanov and return to his serial killing ways. This leads us to the problems Robbie has at school and home with his brother due to Morrow's possession, which feeds into his feud with Guero, who is now a member of Zabo's "Blue Krue".
Take a breath!
We also have Johnny Blaze brought into the series to explain how Robbie is his own unique version of a Ghost Rider, and the fight and later team-up between the two Riders. Blaze gives us the origin for Eli Morrow in a roundabout way, which feeds into Robbie's own struggle for control (a la Blaze and Zarathos back in the day). At the end of this issue, we have Zabo in jail, Guero and the Blue Krue taken out of commission, and Blaze back on the road after giving Robbie his blessing as a Ghost Rider. Smith has left plenty of stuff hanging, including Ivanov's status and the continuing presence of Eli Morrow, but look at that synopsis. Smith has crammed three storyarcs worth of events into five issues, and it feels bloated, with the readers not given space to digest anything without being thrown into the next plot twist. Also, what the hell was the point of the animals being mutated back in the opening issues of the arc? More unnecessary complications to a story that was already bursting at the seams. Had Smith slowed down and focused on just a few ideas, such as Johnny Blaze and the struggle between Robbie and Eli, much of this could have been stretched out to a more natural pace.
Much of this arc fell flat, but there were some shining points, such as the slow destruction of Robbie's relationship with Gabe, which was heartbreaking to read. I liked the use of Blaze in the story, even if he was obviously just there to lend credibility to Robbie as a Ghost Rider. The struggle between Eli and Robbie is interesting, mainly because it harkens back to what should be, to me, a core trait of any good Ghost Rider series, namely the fight to keep personal demons at bay. If only these good bits weren't being drowned out by more Mr. Hyde and mobster stuff, which is seriously wearing thin.
Adding to the sense of disjointed chaos is the artwork by Damion Scott, whose brief run as artist thankfully comes to an end with this issue. I wasn't much of a fan of his work at the start of this arc, but it has become even more rushed and sloppy by the time we get to this issue (which was already running a month late upon its eventual release). Compared to the way the Hyde transformations were drawn by former series artist Tradd Moore, Scott's depiction of the Blue Krue is cartoonishly simple and about as non-threatening as it can get. Scott falls in the same school of art as other similarly miscast Ghost Rider artists Pop Mhan and Trent Kaniuga, and I will never understand Marvel's attempts to marry the character to this overexaggerated style.
I had such high hopes for this series following that amazing opening arc, but "Legend" fails to live up to those expectations on just about every level.
Grade: C
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