Ghost Riders: Heaven's On Fire (2009) # 4

"Heaven's On Fire, Part 4: Here Comes Hell"

Cover Date: January 2010

On Sale Date: November 2009

Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Roland Boschi
Letterer: Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Dan Brown
Editor: Sebastian Girner
Consulting Editor: Axel Alonso
Editor In Chief: Joe Quesada

Cover Artist: Dustin Weaver

At the Jasper County Sheriff Station, the police talk about two strangers in funny costumes whom they arrested the night before and locked in with a group of rowdy, drunk brothers. When the cops go to check the cells, everyone inside has been brutally murdered by the two “funny costumes”, the Scarecrow and Madcap.

Two days later, Daimon Hellstrom, Jaine Cutter, Sister Sara, and the Antichrist ride through the countryside on motorcycles. They eventually arrive at a graveyard, which was supposed to be a deconsecrated church that served as a gateway to Hell. Zadkiel, who is becoming more powerful the longer he controls Heaven, has become able to change and move the landscape - he moved the church to another location. Hellstrom, tired of the games, wants to just kill the Antichrist himself, but he's stopped at gunpoint by Jaine. Then the foursome go off in search of the gateway to Hell that's been moved.

Hellstrom leads them to Jasper County , where he senses the gateway to be close. However, the entire town seems to be empty. They split up, and Cutter goes into a store in search of beer. There she's confronted by Madcap, who asks her if she believes in God. At a nearby town carnival, Hellstrom comes across the Scarecrow, who has already killed several people and displayed their bodies on the carnival rides. Hearing the sound of screams, Sara and the Caretaker begin searching for any sign of life in the town. Sara hopes that Johnny and Danny are doing better than they are, unaware that the two brothers are on the side of a desert road fighting with one another. Sara and the Antichrist find the townspeople in the park; they've all gone mad and are attempting to kill one another. When they see Sara and the boy, they start chasing after them. Sara and the Antichrist take refuge inside a building, which they discover is actually the moved Satanic church.

Back in the store, Madcap attempts to have a theological discussion with Jaine, who has the Breathing Gun aimed at his face. Madcap pulls his own gun, which fires bubbles at her, and she responds by punching him in the face and kicking him across the store. Madcap continues his insane rambling, unable to feel any pain from her savage beating. So Cutter fires the Breathing Gun, and the sentient bullet chases Madcap out of the store. She follows him into an alley, where she finds Madcap holding the whimpering bullet - he'd used his hypnotic stare to drive the sentient bullet crazy, just like he did to everyone else in the town. Then, he turns his stare on her.

At the carnival, Scarecrow and Hellstrom have a brief fight until Daimon is distracted by the villain's mentally-controlled flock of crows. Scarecrow uses the opportunity to stab Hellstrom in the back with his pitchfork, which also poisons Daimon with fear toxin. Hellstrom begins to hallucinate, seeing himself as the lord of Hell just like his father. Madcap and Scarecrow reunite, and Madcap uses the enslaved Jaine to shoot the hallucinating Hellstrom with her Breathing Gun. Back at Satan's church, Sara looks around and decides that the gateway isn't there. The Antichrist tells her she's wrong, right before she's hit in the back of the head. The gateway isn't a place, it's a person - Master Pandemonium!

Elsewhere, the Gun Nuns are armed and ready to protect their gateway to Heaven from the ones that are coming. Outside their home stands Vengeance and the All-New Orb, in command of a legion of undead zombie bikers!

I mean, it's a legitimate question considering the circumstance.

THE ROADMAP

Zadkiel won the war for Heaven at the end of "Last Stand of the Spirits of Vengeance" in Ghost Rider (2006) # 32.

The Scarecrow was a recurring villain in the 1990s Ghost Rider series, starting with Ghost Rider (1990) # 7, and last appeared in the series as a prisoner of Blackheart in Hell in Ghost Rider (1990) # 86. He was next seen years later back on Earth in an issue of Geoff Johns' Avengers run.

Madcap first appeared in Mark Gruenwald's run on Captain America, and fought Dan Ketch exactly one time in Ghost Rider (1990) # 33.

Master Pandemonium last appeared in Ghost Riders: Heaven's On Fire (2009) # 2 as the go-between for Danny Ketch and Satan.

CHAIN REACTION

So I suppose its time to eat my foot after referring to this series as “The Hellstorm and Jaine Cutter Show” in the review for # 2, eh?

Nine times out of ten, I hate it when a comic doesn't feature the character its named after. If I put down $3.99 for an issue of Ghost Rider, I damn well expect the Ghost Rider to actually be IN the issue. Normally, this bugs the shit out of me. But damn it, this issue here was so well-done that I just can't stay mad at it. While its true that neither of the titular Ghost Riders appear outside of a one-panel (and quite funny) cameo, the story DID have a lot to do with the character's history. Specifically, it brings back two villains from the book's previous long-running incarnation, Madcap and the Scarecrow.

Madcap was a character I always had a fondness for, and when Howard Mackie used him in a single issue of his Ghost Rider run it seemed as if the villain might have finally found an appropriate home. Alas, after setting up a suitable reason to have Madcap as a recurring foil, he failed to make another appearance in Ghost Rider. Its nice to see that rectified here. The Scarecrow, on the other hand, was established as a core Ghost Rider villain all throughout the book's second volume, and some pretty dodgy stuff was done to him during that time. In fact, I'll just go ahead and say that by the time he made his last appearance during Ivan Velez's run the Scarecrow was absolutely nothing like the character was at his creation. Again, its nice to see the “classic” incarnation of the Scarecrow is what we get in this issue.

So while it may not be the Ghost Riders those two antagonists come up against, their presence was enough to keep this Ghost Rider fan happy. And oh, what a story that was concocted around them. Unlike last issue's rather laughable Big Wheel and Trull the Inhuman, these two are actually pretty formidable and horrific on their own, let alone when paired together. Just the opening scene alone establishes this, with the two villains lounging in a jail cell amidst a number of corpses. Hellstorm and Jaine Cutter are pretty tough, but its obvious that they had no idea what they were in for when Zadkiel set Madcap and Scarecrow after them. Bonus villain: Master Pandemonium! Nice to see he's being used outside of the humorous joke appearance a few issues ago.

When I said earlier that Madcap and Scarecrow are horrific characters, this is illustrated perfectly by Roland Boschi. Madcap in particular looks great, a grinning maniac who believes in nothing and feels no pain. Side note: has anyone ever considered a story that pairs up Madcap and Deadpool? Seems like a story that would write itself, to me anyway.

In all honesty, while this wasn't really a Ghost Rider story at its core, it felt like I was reading a new issue of Warren Ellis' classic Hellstorm series, and there's nothing wrong with that. Next issue, teased fantastically by that final splash page of Vengeance and the All-New Orb, looks to be promising another Ghost Rider fight-fest. I, for one, can't wait to see it.

Brotherly love