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| Cover Artist: Damion Scott |
Original Price: $3.99
Title: "Legend", Part 4
Writer: Felipe Smith
Artist: Damion Scott
Inker: Cory Hamscher, Victor Olazaba, and Don Ho
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Val Staples
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso
SYNOPSIS
Johnny Blaze rides through Los Angeles, on the hunt for Robbie Reyes and the mass-murdering spirit that lives inside the boy, Eli Morrow. Blaze thinks about how Reyes is not a true Ghost Rider, as he's powered by the spirit of the Satanic Morrow, and is therefore difficult for him to track. So he rides, waiting for Morrow to commit a murder that he can hone in on. At that moment, at a bar controlled by the Russian mob, Morrow (in possession of Robbie's body) kills several gangsters during a gunfight. Having killed again, Morrow's location is revealed to Blaze, who transforms into the Ghost Rider and rides toward the bar.
Meanwhile, in downtown Los Angeles, Dr. Calvin Zabo addresses his Blue Hyde Brigade, a gang of soldiers powered by his strength-enhancing blue pills. He states that all gangs in the city have bowed down to the Brigade, also known as the Blue Krue, except for the Russian mob controlled by Yegor Ivanov. Zabo sends his men after Ivanov, wanting to either recruit or kill him. In the neighborhood of Hillrock Heights, Robbie's young, disabled brother Gabe has been left alone in their house to lay on the floor and cry for his brother to come home and help him. Morrow leaves the Russian bar in flames and drives away in his haunted car. At another club in Hollywood, Ivanov talks on the phone with Zabo, again refusing to join forces, while Guero and the Blue Krue make their way toward the Russians.
At Ivanov's club, Morrow arrives and transforms into the Ghost Rider, breaking in on the hunt for Yegor. While Ivanov escapes out the back of the building, Blaze arrives for a second confrontation with Morrow. Blaze attacks, but is quickly beaten down by Morrow until Johnny uses the Penance Stare on the killer, making him feel all of the pain he's caused his victims. Ivanov tries to escape, but is caught by the Blue Krue, who kidnap the Russian to take to Zabo. Back inside the burning club, Robbie has regained control of his body and thanks Johnny for helping him. The two talk, with Johnny admitting that while there are more Ghost Riders out there, he's not sure if that's what Robbie is. Blaze explains that the Ghost Riders usually get their powers through deals with Satan, an immortal vengeful spirit, or other supernatural entities. Because Robbie was brought back to life by a Satanist, that could account for his similarities to the Ghost Riders, but that it doesn't necessarily make Robbie a creature of evil. Blaze states that Robbie is in a similar state as when Johnny was bound with the demon Zarathos, which nearly consumed him. Blaze accepted the power of the Spirit of Vengeance and gained control, but Robbie doesn't do the same he runs the risk of Eli Morrow taking control of him again. At that moment, Robbie remembers Gabe and jumps in his car to find his brother, unaware that Guero has been watching and now knows that Reyes is the new Ghost Rider.
Robbie returns home and finds Gabe on the floor. He apologizes to this brother, who is traumatized by what had happened. Elsewhere, Zabo shows Ivanov the power of the Blue Hyde Brigade and offers to destroy the Ghost Rider in return for Yegor's allegiance. The next day at Lincoln High School, Guero confronts Robbie and punches him in the face, stating that he knows he's really the Ghost Rider.
ANNOTATIONS
Johnny Blaze began his search for Robbie Reyes in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 6.
Blaze mentions that there are other Ghost Riders, which include Danny Ketch (last seen powerless in Superior Spider-Man Annual # 1) and Alejandra Jones (last seen in Ghost Rider (2011) # 9). The number of Ghost Riders around the world once numbered in the dozens, as told in Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch (2008) # 3, but most of them were killed by Ketch during his time working for the angel Zadkiel.
Johnny's account of the source of the Ghost Rider's powers and his time possessed by Zarathos are somewhat at odds with established continuity. It was revealed in Ghost Rider (2006) # 18 that the Spirits of Vengeance were created by God and controlled by angels, and Ghost Rider (2011) # 4 revealed that the Spirit possessing Johnny is actually the demon Zarathos.
Johnny mentions that he has fought Mr. Hyde in the past, but this is untrue. The Ghost Rider that fought Hyde was the Danny Ketch/Noble Kale incarnation of the character, who encountered the villain in Ghost Rider (1990) # 4, Ghost Rider (1990) # 36, and Ghost Rider (1990) # 55.
Johnny Blaze gets a rematch against Eli Morrow, while Robbie Reyes gets some info on what it means to be a Ghost Rider as "Legend" continues.
One of the biggest mysteries of the series so far is just how Robbie fits in with all of the other previous Ghost Riders, and writer Felipe Smith has brought in Johnny Blaze to provide some much-welcome answers. However, I don't think he sticks the landing, because I'm not quite sold on what he's selling in regards to Robbie Reyes' status as a Ghost Rider. I get that Smith wants Robbie to stand on his own and not be seen as just a stand-in for Blaze, which is what happened to the character from the last series, Alejandra. So he goes for an alternate origin involving the ghost of a Satanic serial killer that is totally disconnected from the wider Ghost Rider mythos, then brings in Johnny Blaze as the mouthpiece for explaining how unique Robbie is as a character within those same mythos. The problem comes in the narrative leaps that Smith expects the readers to follow along with just because he's using Blaze as the one putting together the pieces.
For example, he has Blaze posit that the Ghost Riders get their powers from Satanic deals or from "immortal vengeful spirits", and then states that the reason Robbie has a Ghost Rider look and power-set is because the spirit of Eli Morrow was a Satanist. That's...wow, yeah, that's pretty speculative there, Johnny. However, since it's Blaze that Smith is using as the voice of the writer, we're expected to take that as the last word. Essentially, Smith is wanting to have his cake and eat it too: he wants Robbie to stand alone as a unique "Ghost Rider", but also wants him validated to the readers by the original Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze.
Outside of the origin discussion, this comic is packed to the gills with stuff happening, with the subplot of Yegor Ivanov now thrown into the mix alongside all of the other plates Smith has spinning in the air. There's Robbie and Eli's fight for dominance, Johnny Blaze's intervention, Dr. Zabo and his attempts to rule the gangs, Guero and his "Blue Krue", and now there's Eli's feud with Ivanov and Zabo's desire to partner with Ivanov and jesus shit there's too much going on! However, as overcrowded as this book has become, it's refreshing to read a comic that actually demands your time to sit and read it as opposed to giving you 22 splash pages that take 30 seconds to finish.
The artwork, however, is still holding this series back, and is actually getting worse from issue to issue. Damion Scott is absolutely an acquired taste, but I actually enjoyed his work in the past on DC titles like Robin and Batgirl, mainly because you could actually tell what was going on in those books. Here, the characters just float in weird voids, totally disconnected from the background as they interact bizarrely with one another. Look at the panel where Blaze leaps at Morrow in the bar, with his arms bent back and his leg folded up like a carpet under him, Johnny looks like a fucking Fruit Roll-Up. The characters move in ways that no human being could, supernatural powers or not, and it makes following the action a near impossibility.
"Legend" has one more chapter to go, what are the odds that Smith and Scott will wrap up all of the chaos of this arc before it ends?
Grade: B-
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