Cover Date: March 1994; Publication Date: January 1994
In Brooklyn Heights, New York, police detective John Logan is thrown from a window by an assassin named Dread, who has killed Logan and several other cops under the orders of a man named Hellgate. An hour later, Michael Badilino and Jim “Ski” Sokowalski investigate the scene of Logan's death, as he had been a former co-worker of Badilino's. Michael sees Dread on a nearby rooftop and runs inside the building to reach the roof. When he gets to the roof, he's attacked by Dread, who says that Badilino is on Hellgate's assassination list. Dread misses with his first energy blast, and while under cover Badilino transforms into Vengeance. Dread and Vengeance have a brief battle on the roof, but the assassin escapes just as the rest of the cops arrive, leading them to believe that Vengeance is the person responsible for killing Logan. Even though they're firing at him, Vengeance refuses to fight the police, forcing him to flee.
Two hours later, Badilino meets with the rest of his task force. Ski thinks that this new Ghost Rider is the assassin, despite Badilino telling him to let it go. Michael leaves and decides to let off some steam as Vengeance. He goes on a rampage through several known criminal hideouts, looking for information on Anton Hellgate. After everything he does, he still comes up empty.
Later, at his apartment, Badilino is visited by Stacy Dolan, who wants to talk to him about Dan Ketch and the Ghost Rider. They're interrupted by Ski and the task force, who have discovered that Michael once served on a task force with the cops who had been murdered, so he figured that Badilino would be next on the list. When the lights go out, they realize that Dread is in the building's basement. Michael leaves Stacy, Ski, and the others in the apartment to look for Dread himself, and by the time he transforms into Vengeance he hears gunshots coming from his apartment. When he gets back, he sees Stacy trying to keep Ski from dying while the rest of the men are already dead. Vengeance chases after Dread and catches him outside; after a brief fight, Vengeance breaks Dread's arm. Before he can get any information from the assassin, the police arrive forcing Badilino to run. Dread is content to be arrested, certain that Hellgate will get him out of jail.
THE ROADMAP
Vengeance last appeared in Marvel Comics Presents (1988) # 151.
Vengeance became the “new” Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider (1990) # 46 following Dan Ketch's death at the hands of Zarathos in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 18.
Badilino and his team were assigned the Ghost Rider case in Ghost Rider (1990) # 21.
Hellgate makes a cameo appearance in Ghost Rider (1990) # 48 and his first full appearance is in Ghost Rider (1990) # 50.
CHAIN REACTION
CHAIN REACTION
Following his indoctrination as the “new Ghost Rider” last issue, a new story-arc starts with Vengeance as the star.
The most interesting thing about this story, to me anyway, isn't so much that it's the first “real” story-arc with Vengeance in the lead but that it goes out of its way to not involve anything supernatural. The supernatural/horror concept had really taken over this book following the start of the Midnight Sons era, which is exactly what Mackie had wanted to avoid when he started writing this series. With Ghost Rider dead, no matter how temporarily, it looks as if Mackie really wanted to get back to the more “street-level” status quo the book enjoyed at the beginning. Dread specifically says that he's a psychic mutant, who stopped believing in ghosts and stuff when he was a kid.
It is good to see that the change in lead characters has also changed the type of stories Mackie is telling. Had he just done another riff on Dan Ketch with Badilino, it would have been terribly inappropriate. Using his police connections is a solid way to involve Vengeance in new stories, especially since his past was essentially a blank slate at this point. Unfortunately, Badilino is also pretty dull by himself. He's little more than “what if the Punisher was Ghost Rider?”, and that's a concept you can only take so far. When he's being used as a villain or even just as Ghost Rider's antithesis, he's far more interesting than when he's rehabilitated as a hero. Hell, even before Vengeance came about and Badilino was just a normal cop, he was still treated more as a villain than a supporting character.
Ron Garney is an artist I've always enjoyed, and he certainly draws a great looking Vengeance - that's one of Vengeance's strengths, in fact, having such a strong visual design courtesy of Adam Kubert - but I have to say that by this point I'm starting to get bored with his work on Ghost Rider. I think its that his work, regardless of how good it is, will always remind me of the “Road to Vengeance”/”Siege of Darkness” period of the book's history, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth so to speak. Still, Garney's a solid superhero comic artist, and his work on this issue is no exception. I'm just ready for him to move on and allow someone new to take over.
This is a decent enough start to Vengeance's run as the book's star, as short-lived as that may have been. It just strikes me as a bit “by the numbers”, and I think Mackie was just phoning it in until he was allowed to bring the real Ghost Rider back from the dead.
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