On Sale Date: February 2008
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Roland Boschi
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Dan Brown
Editor: Aubrey Sitterson
Executive Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada
Cover Artist: Marko Djurdjevic
In an empty church late at night, a priest hears the confession of a man who tells him an incredible story of how he sold his soul to Satan and then beat the Devil back to Hell. Johnny Blaze has just come from burying his friend Dixie, the latest in a long string of loved ones that have died because of him. All this time, Blaze believed his power to be a curse from Hell, but has recently learned that he was cursed by the angel Zadkiel. He asks the priest how he could get to Heaven, and the Father tells him that he is speaking blasphemy. Blaze begins to burn with hellfire and tells the priest to get on his Heavenly hotline and tell Zadkiel that vengeance is coming from him. The confessional bursts into flames, and the terrified priest sees the Ghost Rider racing out of his church.
Two weeks later, Blaze is still riding across the country, trying to think of a way to get into Heaven. He enters the outskirts of New Beulah, Montana and stops for supplies at a small gas station. The attendant there strikes up a conversation on religion and mentions in passing that there's a boy in the local hospital that had a near death experience and came back terrified of angels. Blaze leaves the store and goes looking for this boy named Lucas. He finds him at the New Beulah Hospital , where he bullies past a young nurse named Naomi before being confronted by the large and haggard Head Nurse. The Head Nurse commands him to leave, and after a vicious fantasy of burning the woman alive, he turns and walks outside. The Head Nurse and Naomi walk through the hospital...and then the Ghost Rider bursts through the doors and races to Lucas's bedside. Lucas agrees to tell Blaze everything he knows about Zadkiel as long as he gets him away from the hospital; so the two ride off, leaving the destroyed hospital in their wake. The Head Nurse gathers her fellow nurses and unlocks a cache of weapons, revealing all of them but Naomi as servants of Zadkiel.
Elsewhere in New Beulah, on the deserted Highway 18, a young couple drive along lost at night. A ghostly hand emerges from the road and claws out their tire, causing them to flip their vehicle into a horrific crash. The girl, ejected from the car through the windshield, is then approached by a group of knife wielding ghosts.
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| Johnny's confessions never go well for the priest. |
THE ROADMAP
Blaze discovered that the Ghost Rider curse was given to him by the angel Zadkiel in Ghost Rider (2006) # 18.
Blaze's friend Dixie was killed as a result of his final battle with Lucifer in Ghost Rider (2006) # 19.
CHAIN REACTION
The torch is passed as new series writer Jason Aaron takes over from Daniel Way , whose last story-arc revealed the bombshell bit of knowledge that the Ghost Rider is an angelic entity instead of demonic. Needless to say, this “revelation” wasn't well-received by fans, ensuring that Aaron very much has an up-hill battle while following up this plot.
I certainly admit a great deal of trepidation concerning how the “Ghost Rider as angel” idea would play out. I wasn't necessarily against the idea - it makes a lot of sense, actually, considering the whole Spirit of Vengeance angle - even if it threw into chaos the entire story of Blaze and Zarathos from the original series. But where would you take such a story in the long-run? We'd already had a highly repetitive uber-arc with Blaze hunting down Satan, and I was afraid that we were going to see a repeat of that with Johnny hunting down an angel. Thankfully, Jason Aaron came into this fully prepared and with his guns locked and loaded.
This issue gives us a complete 180 degree turn from Daniel Way 's work on the book, turning what had been a 20-second-read-per-issue series into one stocked to the gills with razor sharp dialogue and some fantastic nods to past continuity. And just look at the crazy-ass ideas that Aaron's throwing into this story: gun-toting nuns, ghost cannibals, killer angels, and a fantastic heaven-based conspiracy theory. Its absolutely NUTS, and I love every word of it.
Speaking of things I love, let's talk about artist Roland Boschi. I was completely unfamiliar with the man's work before reading this issue, and I'm absolutely floored by his interpretation of the Ghost Rider. It's unique and thoroughly appropriate for the scary horror aspect that this series needs so badly. Hell, just look at the guy's redesign of the Rider's motorcycle, completely monstrous and massive like a chopper that's forged in Hell's cycle shop.
In one issue, Aaron and Boschi have elevated Ghost Rider from a padded and plodding series to a fabulous must-read book. Absolutely recommended.
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| Unleaded or synthetic? |
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