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| Cover Artist: Felipe Smith |
Original Price: $3.99
Title: "Four on the Floor", Part 3
Writer: Felipe Smith
Artist: Danilo S. Beyruth
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Jesus Aburtov w/ Federico Blee, Morry Hollowell, & Dono Sanchez Almara
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso
SYNOPSIS
In the Hillrock Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, the Totally Awesome Hulk and All-New Wolverine are confronted by Ghost Rider, who sees the Hulk and thinks he's another by-product of Mr. Hyde's strength-enhancing pills. He drives his car into the Hulk, who barely manages to hold the vehicle back, and a ring of fire opens up beneath them. At the same time, the pink alien monster erupts from the ground and attacks Wolverine, just as Ghost Rider and Hulk disappear, teleported by Robbie to the Arizona Desert. Hulk and Ghost Rider fight to a stale-mate, but Robbie starts to lose control and transforms briefly into a more demonic form. Robbie is able to regain control and turns back to his human self, telling Eli that Hulk has a "pure soul". Robbie tells Hulk that he thought he was threatening his neighborhood and needed to be stopped somewhere away from innocent people. Realizing their misunderstanding, Robbie teleports them back to Hillrock Heights, where they find Wolverine hanging out with "El Perro Ribioso", who Eli recognizes as the ex-convict working at Canelo's Auto Shop. The alien monster left as soon as Ghost Rider and Hulk disappeared, as if it was disinterested in staying in the area. Hulk and Wolverine invite Ghost Rider to help them find the monster, but he simply drives away without saying a word.
The next morning, Robbie complains to Mr. Canelo about "Mad Dog", but Canelo tells him that before he complains about other employees he should consider leaving his little brother Gabe with a babysitter instead of bringing him to work. Meanwhile, Hulk and Wolverine have used their flying truck to track the monster to a casino in Las Vegas, where it has mutated once again and is now able to shoot webbing. They are again unable to defeat the alien, which again escapes, and in the rubble of the casino they find the spider-powered hero Silk, who has been vacationing and attacked out of nowhere. Silk agrees to join them in finding the alien and tells them that she has some friends that can help. In the Mojave Desert, the three heroes are joined by Agents Coulson and May of SHIELD.
ANNOTATIONS
This issue was released with a variant cover by Rahzzah.
Robbie mistakes the Hulk for one of Mr. Hyde's minions, who attacked Hillrock Heights in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 5 and again in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 10.
Wolverine encountered two previous Ghost Riders, Johnny Blaze and Alejandra Jones, during the "Circle of Four" storyline that began in Venom (2011) # 13.
Podcast Review: Inner Demons Episode 2 - "All-New Fantastic Circle of Four on the Floor" (Click to Listen)
Smith and Beyruth continue their team-up series, which now includes Silk as the Spider-Man stand-in for their "New Fantastic Four" homage story.
You know, had this been its own mini-series, like "All-New Fantastic Four" or something similar, I would be far more forgiving about the story's faults. Amadeus Cho would still be an absolutely insufferable character to read, whose dialogue somehow gets worse with each issue, but I could then at least understand the off-kilter pacing that's inexplicably making it to the page each month. As it stands with this issue, at least Ghost Rider gets the first 11 pages of his own comic before fucking off to wherever while his guest-stars once again take control of his comic. That's like a 50% increase in his time spent on-panel, and this time actually as Ghost Rider!
I want to like this series. I'm all in for Robbie Reyes and I think Felipe Smith is a writer capable of making a great Ghost Rider series, so what the hell is going on? There has to be something happening behind the scenes that would allow the main character to be buried behind an onslaught of superhero guest-stars. I do realize that I'm beating this over the creative team's head with each review, but it's THAT BIG OF A PROBLEM. I, and I imagine most readers, want to read a Ghost Rider comic that's about Ghost Rider, NOT the Hulk, NOT Wolverine, NOT Silk, and NOT the Agents of SHIELD. In fact, had this story led with the Agents of SHIELD as the main guest-stars, I would at least understand the reason behind that decision, considering the associations with the television show. Now, though, it's just more clutter messing up what should be a sweet Ghost Rider series.
I understand that it's an homage to the Simonson/Adams "New Fantastic Four" story, but that's also the comic's biggest problem. The "New FF" update has been done to death in the past several years, the culmination of which was the "Circle of Four" crossover just five years ago. It was a novel idea that has passed its sell-by date and needs to be stopped, because there's nothing more to say about it that's interesting. The point of the New FF was a satire of popular comic characters being thrown together as a sales gimmick, which doesn't work when you don't actually have Spider-Man or Wolverine to use. Instead, it's a wink and a nod toward a story while simultaneously missing the point of the original.
At least what we get to see of Ghost Rider this issue is quality material, giving us stuff that should have been there since the first issue. Robbie gets to strut his stuff against the Hulk while also moving forward with the "evolution" angle of his powers, showing off some really disgusting slag vomit in the process. I really like the first half of this comic, with Robbie in character and calling back appropriately to the events of All-New Ghost Rider's fights with Mr. Hyde. If the rest of the comic, and the first two issues for that matter, were more like the first 11 pages then I would feel overwhelmingly positive about the series. But no, the book continues to show disregard for its main character, because obviously Totally Aggravating Hulk is who the readers really want to see.
Danilo Beyruth, at least, continues to turn in a pretty good job on the book's artistic front. His Hulk varies, especially in size and facial expression, but damn does he draw a wicked Ghost Rider. His work lacks the kinetic dynamism that Tradd Moore brought to the table, but you can tell that Beyruth is trying to recapture some of that during the fight with the Hulk and the way the car moves in and around the battle. See, I knew that if he actually got a chance to draw him Beyruth would do a killer Ghost Rider, glad the opportunity finally presented itself.
This book will not survive if it doesn't get its act together. This issue at least had some steps in the right direction, but I personally cannot wait for "Four on the Floor" to finish so we can move on to better things.
Grade: C-
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