Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 1

"Rise of the Midnight Sons, Part 2"

Cover Date: August 1992
On Sale Date: June 1992

Writer: Howard Mackie
Artist: Adam Kubert
Inker: Chris Warner
Letterer: Michael Heisler
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor In Chief: Tom DeFalco

Cover Artist: Adam Kubert

On the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, John Blaze and the Ghost Rider ride on their mystical motorcycles, fleeing pursuit by a fleet of New York Police cruisers. When a bullet nearly hits Blaze, he returns fire with his shotgun, momentarily forgetting that the gun shots pure hellfire. When the blast strikes the car, it nearly destroys it, and a shocked Blaze turns his bike around to go help the policemen still in the car. The Ghost Rider assists in dragging the men from the wreckage just as the car explodes. The two vigilantes ride off again while the police have their cars stopped. A few minutes later, atop the Brooklyn Bridge, the Ghost Rider attempts to tell his partner about the vision he and his human host, Dan Ketch, shared. John refuses to believe in the vision, thinking it an hallucination brought on by Dan's death, until the Rider grabs him and forces his Penance Stare upon him...sharing the vision of Lilith and her children. Convinced that the vision is real, Blaze agrees that Lilith must be stopped, but says that he needs to regroup at home before he decides to involve himself.

 

Meanwhile, in Northern Greenland, two explorers uncover an ancient leviathan from the ice. As they examine it, a hand bursts forth from the creature's flesh, killing one of the two men. Lilith is reborn from her prison, and immediately kills the second explorer as well. Using the gore and entrails of the leviathan, she creates a vision of the future, seeing her children slain by the Ghost Rider and Blaze. Realizing that the order of champions must be broken, she calls out to her children...and, immediately after, a portal is slashed in the air, signaling the coming of Pilgrim, who takes his mother to another place.

 

In Rhode Island, Blaze and the Rider approach the grounds of the Quentin Carnival. The carnies are waiting as if they expect to attack, but upon seeing John they let their guard down. Leaving the Rider with the carnival workers, Blaze rides to his trailer where his wife - Roxanne - and two children are waiting for him. She asks what's wrong, to which he replies "nothing I want you involved in."

 

In New York, Pilgrim tells Lilith that most of her children were either killed or went into hiding after her banishment, and that some even live among humans to breed with them. The two then teleport to a church, where another of the Lilin, Creed, sits and prays. Using his ability to separate his body parts into autonomous sections, Creed attacks Pilgrim...but stops when he sees his mother. Despite his protests, Creed has no choice but to obey Lilith, starting his service with an attack on a voyeur that's spying on them through the window. Lilith stays Creed's slaying hand, recognizing the man - Blackout - as one of her grandchildren.

 

Back at the Carnival, Blaze has nightmares of his family being murdered by demons while he is unable to save them. He wakes up and gets dressed, making his way over to the trailer of Clara Menninger, the Carnival's eyeless psychic. She sits John down and gives him a psychic reading, telling him that the walls between dimensions are crumbling. She tells him that he and the Ghost Rider will be responsible for hunting down the demons that have already crossed over into our world. Despite her warnings, John refuses to listen to her and angrily leaves her trailer. He makes his way over to a tent, where the rest of the carnies (and the Ghost Rider) are hanging out. John approaches his friend, the dwarfish acrobat named Wolf, and asks to talk with him.

 

On the Carnival grounds, Pilgrim, Creed, and Blackout arrive. Creed is obviously finds their actions distasteful, but tells the other two that he will succeed in his mission out of familial obligations. Back in the tent, John hears Roxanne scream. He runs out, but is picked up by the Ghost Rider who carries them both on his motorcycle to Blaze's trailer. After a short skirmish with Blackout, Creed takes John's son and has Pilgrim teleport them away. John runs into his trailer and grabs his shotgun, telling the other carnies to stay away from the fight. He straddles his cycle, and he and the Ghost Rider ride into the nearby hills where the Lilin await them.

 

They find the demons in a clearing, and the fight begins immediately. With John's son hostage, Creed tells the two heroes that one of them must die for his obligation to Lilith to end. Deciding that conversation is pointless, Creed blasts the Ghost Rider with mystical energy, thinking that Blaze will let him die. John surprises Creed by blasting him continuously with hellfire until he is broken into his different body parts. With his son in his arms, John tells him that he once made a similar deal with the devil a long time ago and lived to regret it. Deciding to run and fight another day, Pilgrim teleports himself, Blackout, and Creed's severed head back to Lilith.

 

Later, at the Carnival, John packs Roxanne and the children into a van with two of the fellow carnies - George and Mari - and tells them that they'll be safer if he can't find them. Clara then tells Blaze that she had a vision to guide him on his quest: New York, a woman named Martine Bancroft, at the Paramount Hotel. John comments that it's back to New York as he and the Ghost Rider ride away, not noticing the presence of Dr. Strange, who is watching them leave.

You crossed a line, John!

THE ROADMAP

Rise of the Midnight Sons continues unofficially in Ghost Rider (1990) # 29 and officially in Morbius the Living Vampire (1992) # 1.

 

Blaze acquired his hellfire powered motorcycle in Ghost Rider (1990) # 28, which had been created by the Ghost Rider in the Ghost Rider/Wolverine/Punisher: Hearts of Darkness special.

 

This issue marks the first speaking appearances of Roxanne Simpson-Blaze and the children, Craig and Emma, in the modern Ghost Rider series. Roxanne was last seen in The New Defenders # 147-148, and the entire family was seen on-panel in Ghost Rider (1990) # 22. The Quentin Carnival was last seen, in a different incarnation, in Ghost Rider (1973) # 80, though brief glimpses of the Carnival were shown in Ghost Rider (1990) # 26.

 

George, Mari, Roxanne, and Blaze's children are next seen in Blaze: Legacy of Blood (1994) # 2.

 

Dan Ketch had his throat ripped out by Blackout in Ghost Rider (1990) # 25. He survived in the void by transforming into the Ghost Rider at the moment of his death.

 

CHAIN REACTION

Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance was the first of the four new Midnight Sons title to debut, and I can see the desire to lead the pack with a spin-off of Ghost Rider, the origin point and source for the new "family" of titles. I've complained ad nauseam about the creation of the Midnight Sons books in my review of the first chapter of "Rise...", so here I'll just concentrate on Spirits by itself.

 

While Ghost Rider was burrowing itself deeper and deeper into mediocrity with go-nowhere mysteries and plots crafted by the seat of Mackie's pants, Spirits easily overcame the Midnight Sons mantra and became THE Ghost Rider series worth following. Since John Blaze's reintroduction to the new Ghost Rider series, the character had quietly sat in the background, with only glimpses provided here and there as to his new life with the Quentin Carnival. So when Spirits was conceived, it was decided that it would focus on John Blaze as the star, with the Ghost Rider remaining a background co-star much as Blaze had done in the regular Ghost Rider series prior to this.

 

With the Carnival came John's supporting cast already in place, and from the first issue a few of them immediately stand out. Wolf, the midget confidant, and Clara, the eyeless psychic, are immediately likeable and believable as members of Blaze's troupe. We're also given our introduction to John's family, the long-missing Roxanne Simpson and the children, Emma and Craig. It's unfortunate that Mackie writes Blaze's family out of the series at the end of the first issue, but it's understandable why he did so - having a wife and children to constantly look after could put a kink into Blaze's nomadic traveling with the Ghost Rider.

 

This issue also moves the "Rise of the Midnight Sons" story onward, with Lilith's rebirth on Earth and her desire to see the nine heroes dead before they can kill her (as seen in a vision). Mackie uses the Lilin, Creed in particular, to compare and contrast against Blaze, showing the different ways people can interpret family bonds. Creed acts for his mother only because of perceived family duty, while John offers to sacrifice himself for true love of his children.

 

In another aspect of compare/contrast, Adam Kubert comes on as the artist (while his brother, Andy, and father, Joe, take on Ghost Rider), and his work is nothing less than extraordinary. His rendition of the Ghost Rider and Blaze easily show that he was the natural successor to Mark Texeira, and each and every panel of the comic comes to life vividly. From the police chase in the beginning through to the final confrontation with the Lilin, I can't heap enough praise on Kubert. In particular, his designs for the Carnival members are equally striking, with the eyeless Clara standing out as a design that could have looked horribly unnatural (and not in a good way).

 

Spirits of Vengeance is off to a great start, beginning a run that rivals the first two years of Ghost Rider in sheer quality and dark fun. This issue, along with the first year of this series, is absolutely recommended.

 

MILF?