Writer: Rob Williams; Artist: Dalibor Talajic; Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles; Colorist: Robert Schwager; Editor: Sebastian Girner; Senior Editor: Stephen Wacker; Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Arturo Lozzi
Zarathos has brought Alejandra to the swamps of Louisiana, where a hurricane is getting ready to hit. She comes across an old woman in a boat who calls her a "guilty ghost" and smiles. Alejandra notices a voodoo trinket hanging from a tree, and when she crosses the border past it finds herself transformed back into her human form, unable to turn back into the Ghost Rider. She is saved from the alligators in the water by an old man, who pulls her to shore and introduces himself as Earle. He takes her to a small community of people imprisoned by the witch, explaining that all of them are murderers cursed to stay within the community's borders. The witch, who lost a daughter to a killer, cursed every murderer in the region to her swamp prison, where each of them have changed their ways. Earle sees Alejandra's arrival as a sign that their curse is going to end, as she's the first person the witch has ever allowed to cross the border.
While Earle talks to Alejandra, the rest of the town holds a meeting where they decide to take care of Alejandra themselves. They touch one another and merge into a monstrous gestalt creature, which bursts out of the small building to attack Alejandra, knocking the protesting Earle aside. The creature explains that they haven't changed their ways, the witch's curse states that they have to murder one more person to be free...but they are unable to kill each other, no matter how hard they have tried over the years. The monster chases Alejandra back into the swamp, and when she crosses the border her power returns. She transforms into the Ghost Rider and calls down a bolt of lightning, which she uses to destroy the combined murderers. Earle sees the body of the witch, now dead in her boat, and realizes that he's finally free from his curse. Alejandra, however, cuts him down with her scythe, stating that he's still a murderer. The Ghost Rider leaves the swamp just as the hurricane hits, leaving the town to be destroyed.
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| Ride the lightning! |
THE ROADMAP
Alejandra last appeared in X-Men (2010) # 15.1.
CHAIN REACTION
Rob Williams and guest artist Dalibor Talajic produce what is easily the best issue of the series with a one-shot story that echoes the spirit of the best Marvel horror comics of the 1970s.
While last issue took some good strides toward making Alejandra more of a real character and actual protagonist of her own series, this untitled story is really the first to stand out as something truly special. Williams steps deep into horror territory with this issue, leaving behind the forced sarcasm and zany tongue-in-cheek dialogue for what I think is one of the more unsettling Ghost Rider stories ever produced. In a lot of ways, it reminds me not just of the Michael Fleisher stories of the early 1980s, where Johnny Blaze would go from town to town interacting with weird events, but also Steve Gerber's Man-Thing series (and not just because of the swamp setting, I promise).
So far, Alejandra's time as the Ghost Rider has been an absolute disaster, with her not only spending the first arc as a pawn but also being responsible for the spiritual destruction of an entire town. She's a character at a truly low point, and this issue dangles hope in front of her for the first time only for it to backfire on her in a truly spectacular and depressing fashion. Williams may lay the "hope for change" motif on a little thick, but the hook of the story manages to sell it effectively. In the fashion of those old Man-Thing stories, Williams doesn't have to justify or even really explain just where this witch comes from or the details of her curse. It's an exercise in mood and tone, and everything just comes together perfectly.
The main factor for this, I think, is the artwork by Dalibor Talajic, which gives off a perfect Bernie Wrightson homage in its depiction of the swamp and the gestalt murder monster. The artwork just drips with doom and despair, this guy is a fantastic horror artist. I also love his rendition of the Ghost Rider herself, being one of the first to really sell her as something other than a skull with breasts. The sequence with Alejandra's transformation and lightning attack is immensely powerful and built up so well in the proceeding panels with how frightened he depicts her as being (she is just a teenage girl, after all).
I've been extremely critical of this series, but this issue stands as one of my favorite Ghost Rider stories of the last decade. Unfortunately, the work produced here would be an aberration, because next issue...well, it gets pretty dire, folks.
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| Only vengeance remains... |
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