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Writer: Rob Williams; Artist: Brian Ching; Inker: Sean Parsons; Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles; Colorist: Robert Schwager; Editor: Stephen Wacker; Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Adam Kubert
Inside Adam's temple in Nicaragua, new Ghost Rider Alejandra
attempts to kill Johnny Blaze. She is stopped by the Seeker, who tells
her that she's not supposed to wipe the sin out of everyone, just those
who are deserving, and that Adam is using her. Adam blasts the Seeker
away and grabs Alejandra by her skull, supercharging the Spirit of
Vengeance's power (which manifests itself as a giant demonic
motorcycle). The temple starts to fall apart, and the Seeker tells Blaze
that the energy building up inside Alejandra will explode like a bomb.
Blaze jumps on his bike to escape, but the Seeker wastes time
pontificating and loses his arm to a falling boulder. Blaze and the
Seeker ride out of the temple just before the Ghost Rider explodes,
destroying the temple. Blaze and the Seeker arrive at a small village
just before Adam again amplifies Alejandra's power, destroying
everything in the vicinity. When this happens, the Serpent tells his
follower Skadi that they have a new sister in destruction.
Meanwhile, in Columbia, three Avengers (Hawkeye,
Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Woman) are stranded following a battle with the
Hulk. They see a white flash on the horizon, and when Ms. Marvel takes
to the sky to investigate she sees a large crater where Nicaragua used
to be. Back in the village, Blaze has survived thanks to the Seeker's
power protecting him, but he sees that all of the villagers have been
left as mindless zombies. The Seeker explains that the Ghost Rider's
power burned all of the sin out of them, destroying the people that they
used to be. Later, at Cape Canaveral, Adam and Alejandra break in to
steal a space shuttle.
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| No one likes a show-off, Adam! |
THE ROADMAP
This issue is a tie-in to the "Fear Itself" crossover and takes place during the events of Fear Itself # 3.
The Avengers crashed their plane in Columbia during Avengers (2010) # 15. Hawkeye will be sent by the Avengers to apprehend Blaze for what happened in Nicaragua in Ghost Rider (2011) # 7.
CHAIN REACTION
Rob Williams and fill-in artist Brian Ching continue the first arc of the new series.
There are a small handful of Ghost Rider stories
that are so bad, written so terribly regardless of whatever good
intentions may have been behind them, that they are actually damaging to
the character. Howard Mackie's "Road to Vengeance: the Missing Link" is
one, Daniel Way's "Revelations" and Devin Grayson's "The Hammer Lane"
are others. As much as I hate to say it, "Give Up the Ghost" falls into
that same category. You can see why the creative team thought this
storyline would work, the pieces are there for what could have been a
good exploration on how the power of vengeance can be used to
catastrophic extremes. The problem, as with most things like this, comes
with the poor execution.
Among the many problems in this issue, the most
damning is the use of the new Ghost Rider, Alejandra. I have no issue
with a new character being Ghost Rider, it's worked well in the past
(and, in fact, is working very well in the 2014 series), but we're now
three issues into this series and the main character just doesn't exist
as anything more than a prop. Alejandra is as much a character as Ghost
Rider's bike or chain, she's there for decoration and as a catalyst for
other characters to use as a weapon. Having her be manipulated by Adam
is fine for plot purposes, but why should I care what's happening to her
when there's been no attempt at all to give her any kind of
personality? Despite what the cover and premise of the series may
proclaim, Ghost Rider is not the main character of this series.
That, of course, brings us to the biggest problem
with this issue: Johnny Blaze. I don't necessarily agree that keeping
Blaze as the main character (because that's exactly what he is) was the
best move, because it keeps Alejandra in his shadow. Even worse, Blaze
is used as nothing more than comic relief. He's always been a flippant
character, sure, but he's not fucking Spider-Man. The attempts to inject
comedy into this issue are a glaring misstep, because the jokes aren't
funny and it makes the characters annoying to read about. The Seeker,
whose role I still don't fathom, is a mess of characterization that goes
from "serious supernatural force" to "idiot English asshole" and back
on a panel-to-panel basis. The one character that IS taken seriously,
Adam, is given such terribly cliched villain dialogue that he comes off
as much of a joke as Blaze and the Seeker.
Another huge warning sign that this series just
isn't working is the presence of a fill-in artist before the first arc
has even finished. I assume Matthew Clark had deadline problems,
considering how rushed his work in the previous issue looked, but Brian
Ching was not a suitable replacement. Yes, his work resembles Clark's
superficially, but there's nothing memorable about it. Even with the
problems I have with his work, Clark still managed to turn out some very
cool images (like the shot of Mephisto at the end of # 1). Ching's work
is typical Marvel house style of the time and adds nothing that could
potentially salvage aspects of this issue's plot.
I really wanted to like this series, but it's by
far the weakest series debut in Ghost Rider history. Even the Daniel Way
and Devin Grayson stories had their positive sides, this just has none.
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| And if wishes were horses, right? |
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