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| Cover Artist: Robert Brown |
Original Price: $1.50
Title: "Tower of Blood"
Writer: Chris Cooper
Artist: Reggie Jones
Inker: Fred Harper
Letterer: Ul Higgins
Colorist: Joe Andreani
Editor: Richard Ashford
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco
SYNOPSIS
In an office tower above Manhattan, Vengeance bursts into a penthouse room filled with armed terrorists. Vengeance attacks the terrorists, but discovers that he's too late - the soldiers, only moments before, infiltrated the building. With no demands for ransom, the terrorists mercilessly slaughtered every innocent person they could find. One of the terrorists attempts to kill Vengeance, saying "forget the apprehend orders", but instead finds himself held dangling out the window. The Spirit of Vengeance drops the man when he hears a voice behind him, which says all of this was done to get his attention. The leader of the terrorists, Psiphon, orchestrated the entire thing to lure Vengeance. Psiphon breaks the neck of his hostage, causing Vengeance to fly into a rage. The hero's spikes and hellfire prove ineffectual against the villain, who then uses his steel tentacles hair strands to pummel Vengeance into unconsciousness. One of Psiphon's men asks his boss why he doesn't kill Vengeance now that he's down - to which Psiphon replies "why would I want to kill the source of all my powers?".
ANNOTATIONS
Vengeance last appeared in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 19.
Vengeance assumed the mantle of the "new" Ghost Rider in Ghost Rider (1990) # 46. The original Ghost Rider and his human host, Dan Ketch, died in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 18
This issue of Marvel Comics Presents also contained stories featuring the Falcon, American Eagle, and the Masters of Silence.
REVIEW
Following Ghost Rider's death during the "Siege of Darkness', the ongoing Ghost Rider series was given over to Michael Badilino, a.k.a. Vengeance. Similarly, Vengeance was also awarded Ghost Rider's spot as the headliner of Marvel Comics Presents - but the approach to Vengeance's MCP stories is much different than it was for Ghost Rider.
Instead of breaking the stories into 4-8 issue arcs by various creative teams (and most likely being turned into Ghost Rider Team-Up feature Random Super heroes), the team of Chris Cooper, Reggie Jones, and Fred Harper were given the task of chronicling the ongoing adventures of Vengeance. But, with Howard Mackie doing the same thing in the pages of Ghost Rider, Cooper is left with the chore of writing stories that will more than likely be ignored in favor of the more high-profile competition.
And, of course, it doesn't help MCP any when the first issue of the new Vengeance serial is as poor as this one. I do certainly respect all of the writers who worked on MCP, because it must be incredibly hard to tell a complete story in just 8 pages. But it doesn't excuse the purely mediocre story and villain that Cooper crafts for Vengeance here. Psiphon is saddled with not just a stupid name but an incredibly stupid power - steel tentacles for hair, no matter how cool you try to make it, is just ridiculous. I could easily see this guy being laughed at by such loser villains as the Stilt-Man or the Matador, which says a lot. What's the most disappointing is that I expect so much more from Chris Cooper, who wrote the incredible Darkhold series and has proven that he can write intriguing stories with characters who don't come off as a stereotypical comic caricatures.
Following their work on the issues prior and during the "Siege of Darkness", Jones and Harper have acquired the full-time artistic spot on the Vengeance series in MCP. There are so many things to like about their work, but at the same time it always comes off as amateurish. But, as it did with Ghost Rider, their sketchy, rough style fits well with the character.
So, yeah, not a stellar start for Vengeance in MCP, and you can already tell that this series is going to play a weak second fiddle to the character's role in Ghost Rider.
Grade: C-
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