Cover Date: December 1993; Publication Date: October 1993
While drinking in a bar, John Blaze is hassled by a group of bikers. Blaze beats the men severely, but stops himself before he kills them. He returns to drinking, but is found by his friend Clara Menninger and the youngest member of the Blood, Seer. Blaze blames the Blood for what's happened to his life, telling them to go find the surviving Spirit of Vengeance to play with. Seer tells him that this concerns his wife and children, but they are interrupted by the arrival of a demon. John kills the demon, saying that this happens every night because the demons are attracted to his power. John leaves, telling the two women to leave him alone. Later, they find him slumped over drunk in an alley. They take him to the cabin where the remaining members of the Quentin Carnival have been living, and they sober him up by splashing him with water. The telephone rings, and John speaks to his son Craig, who hangs up after only a few moments. He had been calling all day, which is why Clara had been searching for him. Wolf gives John the address of where Craig had been calling from in Chicago, and Blaze leaves, rebuking Seer's attempts to help him.
Meanwhile, at a stronghold in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, a member of the Blood named Regent is told that they found the children but the "husband" has become involved. Regent tells his men to delay Blaze, but that "the woman" is expendable. Blaze arrives at the abandoned building in Chicago, but finds only a photograph of his children waiting for him. He is attacked by a group of ninja assassins called the Hidden, whom he kills as he ascends to the roof of the building. One of the assassins holds his wife, Roxanne, hostage, and stabs her before escaping. Seer arrives and begs John to bring Roxanne and follow her, just before the building explodes.
Blaze sent his wife, Roxanne, and children, Craig and Emma, away with George and Marianne Waters in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 1. In that same issue, Blaze was told by Clara that he was a magnet for supernatural energy.
Blaze blames the Blood for the death of Dan Ketch in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 18. (which was published two months after the release of this issue). John learned that he and Dan were brothers in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance # 16.
John says to Seer, "Are the Blood running out of Spirits of Vengeance to play with? Go get the one that's still alive to do your dirty work", which references Vengeance taking over as the "new" Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider (1990) # 46.
CHAIN REACTION
It kind of mystifies me why this series existed at all, to tell the truth. The series debuted the same month that "Siege of Darkness" started in the rest of the Midnight Sons line of titles, which means the editors and writer Howard Mackie knew that in just two short months the ongoing Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance series would be missing one of its two lead characters. Spirits of Vengeance effectively became a solo Blaze series by default once Ghost Rider was killed at the end of the "Siege" crossover, and this mini-series explicitly takes place after those events, so why not just wait to run this story? It forces Mackie to tip-toe around the events of the crossover so as not to spoil the big death, and running this arc in Spirits would have kept that book from treading water for five months as it waited for cancellation.
Regardless of the logistics concerning its publication, the Blaze limited series does in fact exist and I can see the reasons why. Johnny Blaze had seen an upswing in popularity following his return and revamp in the early issues of the 90s Ghost Rider series, with good reason because Mackie transformed him into a really great, engaging character. He had a great visual gimmick with the hellfire shotgun, and establishing him as a viable lead away from Ghost Rider was a good idea. Unfortunately, the editors (and, yes, Mackie too) had only a few months prior to this series saddled Blaze with a truly horrendous visual redesign that I'm sure was to make him look more appropriate to headline a series of his own. Gone was the grizzled guy in a trenchcoat and sunglasses, replaced with (sigh) a cyborg that looked way too much like Cable, glowing left eye included.
It's surprising, then, that with all of the accumulated baggage that had been heaped upon the character at the time, this is actually a pretty good comic. Mackie sets up Blaze as a man that has hit rock bottom very well, with his life now nothing but "get drunk, fight demons, repeat". Blaze has a totally justified animosity toward Seer and her kind, because they DID manipulate him and his family for generations without his knowledge. The big through-line for this series was "family", with the focus on Blaze's hunt for his children and the secrets that are thrown up due to said search. It's a good hook for the character, a father desperately trying to find his children and keep them safe (so good, in fact, that the next two writers to use the character do variations on that exact same story).
The artwork in this series is really great, too. Ron Wagner had just finished a fantastic run on the Morbius series, but his work looks quite different in this series. Howard Rourke is the inker, and I'm not familiar with his work outside of this series, but he's obviously what's made the different in Wagner's art. This is a really dark comic, the mood is practically drowning in misery as we move from Blaze drunk in a bar to a fight with ninjas in a burning building. I like the combination of pencils and inks, and I wonder why these two artists didn't work together more? They even manage to make the cyborg Blaze design look less ridiculous than usual, which is a fairly astounding feat.
"Legacy of Blood" may have been an unnecessary mini-series, but it was at least a fairly entertaining one.
Meanwhile, at a stronghold in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, a member of the Blood named Regent is told that they found the children but the "husband" has become involved. Regent tells his men to delay Blaze, but that "the woman" is expendable. Blaze arrives at the abandoned building in Chicago, but finds only a photograph of his children waiting for him. He is attacked by a group of ninja assassins called the Hidden, whom he kills as he ascends to the roof of the building. One of the assassins holds his wife, Roxanne, hostage, and stabs her before escaping. Seer arrives and begs John to bring Roxanne and follow her, just before the building explodes.
THE ROADMAP
John Blaze last appeared in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 19.
Blaze sent his wife, Roxanne, and children, Craig and Emma, away with George and Marianne Waters in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 1. In that same issue, Blaze was told by Clara that he was a magnet for supernatural energy.
Blaze blames the Blood for the death of Dan Ketch in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 18. (which was published two months after the release of this issue). John learned that he and Dan were brothers in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance # 16.
John says to Seer, "Are the Blood running out of Spirits of Vengeance to play with? Go get the one that's still alive to do your dirty work", which references Vengeance taking over as the "new" Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider (1990) # 46.
CHAIN REACTION
John Blaze gets his first shot at a solo series separate from Ghost Rider.
It kind of mystifies me why this series existed at all, to tell the truth. The series debuted the same month that "Siege of Darkness" started in the rest of the Midnight Sons line of titles, which means the editors and writer Howard Mackie knew that in just two short months the ongoing Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance series would be missing one of its two lead characters. Spirits of Vengeance effectively became a solo Blaze series by default once Ghost Rider was killed at the end of the "Siege" crossover, and this mini-series explicitly takes place after those events, so why not just wait to run this story? It forces Mackie to tip-toe around the events of the crossover so as not to spoil the big death, and running this arc in Spirits would have kept that book from treading water for five months as it waited for cancellation.
Regardless of the logistics concerning its publication, the Blaze limited series does in fact exist and I can see the reasons why. Johnny Blaze had seen an upswing in popularity following his return and revamp in the early issues of the 90s Ghost Rider series, with good reason because Mackie transformed him into a really great, engaging character. He had a great visual gimmick with the hellfire shotgun, and establishing him as a viable lead away from Ghost Rider was a good idea. Unfortunately, the editors (and, yes, Mackie too) had only a few months prior to this series saddled Blaze with a truly horrendous visual redesign that I'm sure was to make him look more appropriate to headline a series of his own. Gone was the grizzled guy in a trenchcoat and sunglasses, replaced with (sigh) a cyborg that looked way too much like Cable, glowing left eye included.
It's surprising, then, that with all of the accumulated baggage that had been heaped upon the character at the time, this is actually a pretty good comic. Mackie sets up Blaze as a man that has hit rock bottom very well, with his life now nothing but "get drunk, fight demons, repeat". Blaze has a totally justified animosity toward Seer and her kind, because they DID manipulate him and his family for generations without his knowledge. The big through-line for this series was "family", with the focus on Blaze's hunt for his children and the secrets that are thrown up due to said search. It's a good hook for the character, a father desperately trying to find his children and keep them safe (so good, in fact, that the next two writers to use the character do variations on that exact same story).
The artwork in this series is really great, too. Ron Wagner had just finished a fantastic run on the Morbius series, but his work looks quite different in this series. Howard Rourke is the inker, and I'm not familiar with his work outside of this series, but he's obviously what's made the different in Wagner's art. This is a really dark comic, the mood is practically drowning in misery as we move from Blaze drunk in a bar to a fight with ninjas in a burning building. I like the combination of pencils and inks, and I wonder why these two artists didn't work together more? They even manage to make the cyborg Blaze design look less ridiculous than usual, which is a fairly astounding feat.
"Legacy of Blood" may have been an unnecessary mini-series, but it was at least a fairly entertaining one.
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