On Sale Date: August 1992
Writer: Howard Mackie
Artist: Adam Kubert
Inker: Chris Warner
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor In Chief: Tom DeFalco
Cover Artist: Adam Kubert
Lilith and her two servants, Pilgrim and Blackout, arrive at a small farmhouse in New York that is owned by one of the Lilin named Skinner. When Pilgrim and Blackout attempt to talk to Skinner, he chases them into the woods, saying that he has left the Lilin behind and now has a human wife and child. When he sees Lilith he stops, and she tells him that it is his duty and obligation to help her; she is his mother and the humans inside the house are not his family. Skinner reluctantly agrees and goes inside his house; minutes later he exits dressed for the hunt. Lilith sends him after John Blaze, who had shot her in the arm during their last battle. When asked about his human family, Skinner alludes to the fact that he has killed them.
Elsewhere, Ghost Rider and Blaze are on the trail of another Lilin, Nakota, who they think will lead them to Lilith. While Ghost Rider continues tracking her, Blaze splits off to get some food. Skinner is teleported to the area and he begins the hunt for Blaze, which ends at a small diner with Skinner crashing through the window and immediately taking a hostage. He tells Blaze that he doesn't want to just kill him, he wants to hunt him, and gives him a head start to run without his mystical motorcycle. Blaze finds a regular motorcycle and steals it from a biker, then rides to a nearby hilltop and sends the motorcycle crashing off the cliff as a signal fire. Meanwhile, Ghost Rider has almost caught Nakota when Pilgrim appears to tell her that he is sending her to Boston, then teleports her away. Ghost Rider overheard the obvious trap, and now knows that Lilith is in Boston.
Skinner tracks down Blaze, who is waiting for him on the hill. Skinner blames Blaze for being dragged back to his old life, though John says that he should be angry with Lilith and not him. Blaze shoots Skinner with hellfire, catching him on fire, and as he burns he tells Blaze that his children were halfbreed Lilin, like Blackout, and to keep Lilith from using them he killed his entire family in their sleep. Blaze turns to walk away, but Skinner attacks, now a skeleton completely stripped of flesh. The skin on his body came from his victims, and he had been wearing the skin of his family as his only memento; now their flesh is gone, burned away by Blaze. Ghost Rider arrives and saves Blaze, pinning Skinner against a tree while John blasts hellfire at the Lilin repeatedly, calling him a monster for murdering his own children and wearing their skin as a trophy. Believing Skinner to be dead, Ghost Rider and Blaze leave for Boston to find Lilith. After they leave, Skinner crawls from the ashes and vows vengeance on both Blaze and Lilith.
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| Now THAT'S a choke hold! |
THE ROADMAP
This story takes place between chapters 4 and 5 of the "Rise of the Midnight Sons" crossover. Blaze and Ghost Rider last appeared in Darkhold: Pages From the Book of Sins (1992) # 1 and appear next in Nightstalkers (1992) # 1.
Lilith was shot in the arm by Blaze's hellfire shotgun in Darkhold: Pages From the Book of Sins (1992) # 1.
Skinner makes his next appearance in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 14.
CHAIN REACTION
"Rise of the Midnight Sons" takes another 1-issue detour, allowing Mackie and Kubert to introduce one of the most disturbing and sad villains in Ghost Rider history.
From what I remember from interviews at the time, Howard Mackie had recently become a father while writing Ghost Rider and the spin-offs, and you can tell how that experience shaped the way he wrote John Blaze once this series started. The character's emphasis on his family and how his life and decisions affect his children has been at the forefront since the first issue, but it's really given a huge focus here with a villain that plays directly to the fears that any father (especially a new one) would have. Blaze himself echoes the idea that he's a failure as a father because of his circumstances forcing them to go on the run and be away from him, though it was the only option he had to keep them safe. In this issue he's faced with that idea of keeping your children safe no matter the cost taken to a horrifying extreme, and it makes for an absolutely captivating comic.
Skinner is a reprehensible character who does ghastly things with the excuse of obligation, but he's so tragic that his pathos almost make him understandable, if not truly redeemable. Mackie has said that Skinner is his favorite creation from his time on Ghost Rider, and I can see why, because he's a fantastic character with layers upon layers of nuance and tragedy that make him so much more than some of the other one-note one-dimensional villains that Ghost Rider faced during his run (looking at you, Slaughter Boy and Choam). By tip-toeing around the fringe of the huge crossover going on around it, Spirits of Vengeance was able to take the concept of Lilith and her demon offspring and turn it into something compelling instead of just a villain creation engine. Skinner is torn between the life he wants and the life he left behind and is now forced to live again, which is a common enough trope, but its the ambiguity behind his decisions that elevates it into something more. Mackie used a similar conflict in the first issue of Spirits with another Lilin, Creed, who joined with Lilith the same way as Skinner, against his wishes. If taken at face value, that Skinner chose to join Lilith of his own free will to protect his family, that makes the character seem almost noble. He was the retired gunslinger forced back into service, and in order to keep his children from becoming a monster like him he had no choice but to join back up with his old family. That he took things that extra step too far, killing them in their sleep and wearing their skin, that's where the tragedy comes into play. Not only is Skinner responsible for killing his family he's also unwilling to accept the consequences of his decision, instead blaming first Lilith and then Blaze and not accepting his own responsibility.
I could talk about Skinner forever, he's one of the best villains Ghost Rider ever faced, and he's a perfect counterpoint to John Blaze. I think that's why the character only really worked when it was Blaze that he was interacting with, when he did make appearances later to just fight Ghost Rider that personal connection wasn't there anymore. It's already evident, though, that Spirits of Vengeance was going to focus much more on Blaze than it would Ghost Rider, and that was necessary to make the book more than just an afterthought beside the regular Ghost Rider series. Introducing characters like Skinner, and later Vengeance, was what made this book such a success in its first year and definitely highlighted what was going wrong with its sister title (which was busy introducing more of those one-dimensional villains like Succubus and Death Ninja).
The artwork is, as always, phenomenal on this series. Adam Kubert was initially paired with inker Chris Warner, who I always remember as the artist on the initial Predator comics from Dark Horse in the late 1980s, and the two work wonderfully together. Kubert's design for Skinner, as this hulking brute of a man that looks much more at home in the mountains than he does as a normal city-dwelling person is fantastic. The creepy aesthetic of Skinner using his own bones as blades (huh, I wonder if that's where the X-Men comics got the idea for Marrow?) looks wonderfully disgusting, as does the reveal of Skinner's true form. That's the only part where the art falls down a little, though, because the way the character is drawn in that reveal panel makes it look like he has no legs. It took some really intense study of that page to realize that yes, he does have legs, they just look really bizarre. Still, Adam Kubert was the perfect artist for this series and he's by far the definitive artist for John Blaze in this era.
The first year of Spirits of Vengeance are must-read comics for Ghost Rider fans, and this issue in particular is one of the best Ghost Rider comics ever, period.
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| I miss Johnny Blaze the family man. |
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