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| Cover Art: Francesco Francavilla |
Original Price: $3.99
Title: untitled
Writer: Felipe Smith
Artist: Juan Gedeon
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Colorist: Tamra Bonvillain
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso
SYNOPSIS
Robbie Reyes watches the television in horror as he discovers that his little brother, Gabe, has been transformed into a Ghost Racer and is preparing to enter his first race. The Spirit of Eli explains to Robbie that Gabe's Spirit of Ignition comes from their family genetics. The race begins, and all of the assembled Ghost Racers are targeting Gabe as he tries to outrun them to the finish line. Robbie teleports onto the track with the Battle Charger just in time to save Gabe from T-Rider Rex, which is a tyrannosaurus rex riding a flaming jet fighter. Robbie refuses to teleport himself and his brother away, telling Eli that the only way to truly be free is to defeat Zadkiel. Arcade releases Venus Compiler to kill the Reyes boys, and the robot biker cuts her way through the other Ghost Racers easily, forcing Robbie and Gabe to run for their lives. While watching from above the arena, Zadkiel warns Arcade that he can no longer control Reyes or his Spirit of Ignition, so they need to finish him tonight.
Robbie grabs onto Carter Slade and has him utilize the Penance Stare, forcing Slade and the other Spirits of Ignition to free themselves from Zadkiel's control. They work together to destroy Venus Compiler and then turn their attention toward their captors. Zadkiel catches Gabe just before he reaches the finish line and flies with him into the air, threatening to destroy the young boy. Eli uses his teleportation power to allow Robbie and Gabe to switch places, and Robbie sucks Zadkiel's soul into his mouth, killing the angel. The Racers then knock Arcade out of the sky, where he's caught by a vengeful Alejandra, who makes good on her promise to rip out the villain's eyes. Eli opens a teleportation portal, and the Ghost Racers run Arcade over as they make their way through the portal and out of the Killiseum. United as one force, they are Ghost Racers no more...now they are Spirits of Vengeance!
ANNOTATIONS
Ghost Racers was part of the 2015 Secret Wars event, which saw the Marvel multiverse destroyed with only a single world remaining under the rule of a godlike Doctor Doom. The planet, Battleworld, was comprised of dozens of domains consisting of fragments of alternate realities. This series takes place in the domain of Doomstadt, which is home of the Killiseum.
Due to the nature of Battleworld, none of the Ghost Riders featured in this series come from the established Marvel Universe; all of them hail from alternate realities, which explains the inconsistencies in characterizations.
The Ghost Racers featured in this issue include: Robbie Reyes (who first appeared in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 1), Danny Ketch (first appeared in Ghost Rider (1990) # 1), Carter Slade (first appeared in The Ghost Rider (1967) # 1), Michael Badilino (first appeared in Ghost Rider (1990) # 21), Zero Cochrane (first appeared in Ghost Rider 2099 (1994) # 1), T-Rider Rex (this is his first appearance), Johnny Blaze (first appeared in Marvel Spotlight (1972) # 5), Shoba Mizra (first appeared in Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch (2008) # 1), and Alejandra Jones (misnamed Alejandra Blaze in this series, first appeared in Ghost Rider (2011) # 1).
Zadkiel, who appears here as the handler for the Spirits of Ignition, was the angel responsible for the creation of the Spirits of Vengeance in the 616 Marvel Universe. He made his first appearance in Ghost Rider (2006) # 27.
This issue was released with an Alejandra Jones variant cover by Stacey Lee.
REVIEW
Ghost Racers concludes with a near-perfect ending that would have been a perfect set-up for a future series, which unfortunately never materialized.
Marvel's 2015 "Secret Wars" event was such a bizarre creature, bloated and unwieldy with so many tie-in titles that it was a damn near impossibility to collect the whole story. Thankfully, most of the better tie-ins were so far outside the boundaries of the main event story you could read them individually without much standing in your way of enjoying them. I read the main Secret Wars mini-series and several of the tie-ins via Marvel Unlimited, and there were several books that were really good. Marvel Zombies, Inferno, Years of Future Past, and Inhumans: Attilan Rising were all good to great comics (especially Marvel Zombies, holy shit was that a great story), but none of them were quite as good as Ghost Racers. That's not just because this is a Ghost Rider blog, people, I promise. Ghost Racers was just THAT FUCKING GOOD.
Doing an alternate reality mash-up story such as this one has its up side and its down side. One one hand, it's viewed as inconsequential to the character's continuity, since nothing in its pages "counts" toward anything in the larger scheme of Ghost Rider history. On the other hand, it allowed Felipe Smith to go as out-of-his-mind crazy with idea after idea as he could go while at the same time giving him carte blanche to mine the Ghost Rider chronology without seemingly nothing off limits. I know continuity is important to a lot of fans, but I'll take more stories like this over continuity wanking any time. This was a series that brought every Ghost Rider from Cater Slade to Zero Cochrane into one story, utilized the Secret Wars event to make it happen, and transformed a simple "Deathrace 2000" concept into a love letter to all iterations of the character. That this series worked as well as it did is god damned amazing to me.
Naturally, given that this was written by Felipe Smith, Robbie Reyes was the focal point of the story. It allowed Smith to hang the series on an emotional hook of brotherly love that the absence of which would have robbed it of any soul. It's easy to have a high-concept like this series, but if you don't have the character moments to go along with it then it feels empty and soulless. Granted, you could maybe have done this with a similar brotherly sibling take on Blaze and Ketch, but I think the Reyes brothers sell the drama better. Also, as I said in the review for issue # 3, I really liked how Blaze wasn't given much of a role in the story, with the major focus going to characters like Carter Slade and Alejandra Jones instead. Those two characters absolutely shone like diamonds in this issue, and it made me more interested in either of them than I have ever been in the past. Now, that's not to say that Smith doesn't push things too far, considering he introduces T-Rider Rex in this issue. Some people will think a Ghost Rider dinosaur with rocket fists that rides a jet fighter like a skateboard is the coolest thing ever, and some will think it's the dumbest. I think it's pretty idiotic, personally, but I admire that Smith was really willing to swing for the fences here. That kid's got moxie, and I dig it.
The perfect partner for Smith on this series was Juan Gedeon, whose action sequences in this issue are breathtaking. They're busy and detailed without being confusing, nor does it sacrifice clarity for character posing. Each Ghost Racer are given such personality in how they move on their vehicles, or how they relate to one another on the track. Carter Slade doesn't just move like he's riding on a horse, he hunches forward like he's constantly bearing down on someone, ready to snatch them up. Alejandra strikes like a snake while Danny Ketch drives through things like a freaking tank, turret on the front of his bike and everything. Gedeon's wild character designs are on display anew in this issue as well, with not only the aforementioned T-Rider Rex (which looks terrifying, ridiculous or not) but also with Gabe in his Spirit of Ignition vehicle that's really just a big wheel with him riding in the middle.
This series is one of my favorite Ghost Rider stories of the last decade, easily the best thing done with the characters since Jason Aaron finished his run. It ended so perfectly, with that last page "Spirits of Vengeance" gatefold image, and I am absolutely floored that Marvel didn't immediately follow this up with a series that featured all the Ghost Riders in one book. Smith's follow-up, the recently cancelled Ghost Rider series that was more about the Hulk than it was about Ghost Rider, was certainly an even bigger disappointment given how fantastically this comic ended. If you haven't picked up Ghost Racers for whatever reason, because of the event tie-in or because you don't like Robbie Reyes or again whatever reason, please rectify that mistake and read it immediately. I don't think you'll be disappointed, no matter which Ghost Rider is your favorite.
Grade: A+
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