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| Cover Artist: Joelle Jones |
Original Price: $3.99
Title: untitled
Writer: Chelsea Cain
Artist: Kate Niemczyk
Inker: Sean Parsons
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Editor: Katie Kubert
Executive Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Axel Alonso
SYNOPSIS
While her ex-husband Hawkeye is on trial for killing Bruce Banner, Mockingbird has accepted an invitation to go on a cruise. The person that invited her claims to have information that could exonerate Hawkeye, and against her better judgment Mockingbird has agreed to meet with him. She finds that her contact, a man in a horse head, actually has no real information for her, and she also meets up with her sometime partner Lance Hunter, another Agent of SHIELD, on the cruise. The man in the horse head is found dead in his cabin, and the investigation shows that he most likely murdered himself. When she realizes what's happening, she confronts the actual killer on the deck of the ship during a memorial for Bruce Banner. The killer is none other than the ghost of Lincoln Slade, the Phantom Rider, who has possessed two of his distant ancestors aboard the cruise ship.
Slade is still obsessed with Mockingbird, but she admits that he did not actually brainwash nor rape her as she had always claimed. Their relationship was consensual, but his controlling ways eventually drove her to leaving him. Still blaming her for his rejection and death, the Phantom Rider is there to kill Mockingbird, but the cruise ship guests all stand up for her and eventually convince Slade that he should give up. When she attempts to talk to him, Slade pushes them both over the side of the ship, and the electromagnetic interference of the Bermuda Triangle dissolves his spirit. She is rescued by a pack of "mer-corgis" and taken to a beach resort to wait for rescue.
Slade is still obsessed with Mockingbird, but she admits that he did not actually brainwash nor rape her as she had always claimed. Their relationship was consensual, but his controlling ways eventually drove her to leaving him. Still blaming her for his rejection and death, the Phantom Rider is there to kill Mockingbird, but the cruise ship guests all stand up for her and eventually convince Slade that he should give up. When she attempts to talk to him, Slade pushes them both over the side of the ship, and the electromagnetic interference of the Bermuda Triangle dissolves his spirit. She is rescued by a pack of "mer-corgis" and taken to a beach resort to wait for rescue.
ANNOTATIONS
This issue is a tie-in to the "Civil War II" crossover event.
Mockingbird's trip back in time to the late 1800s occurred in West Coast Avengers (1987) # 18-23. During her time in the company of Lincoln Slade, the Phantom Rider, she was drugged and brainwashed into loving him. When she broke free of his conditioning, she fought him on Spirit Peak and refused to save him when he fell to his death.
Slade returned as a ghost possessing his ancestor Hamilton Slade and tormented Mockingbird in the present day in West Coast Avengers (1987) # 33 until he was exorcised in West Coast Avengers (1987) # 41. He later returned to possess another ancestor, Hamilton's daughter Jamie, and attempted to kill Mockingbird in Hawkeye & Mockingbird (2010) # 1-5.
Mockingbird's trip back in time to the late 1800s occurred in West Coast Avengers (1987) # 18-23. During her time in the company of Lincoln Slade, the Phantom Rider, she was drugged and brainwashed into loving him. When she broke free of his conditioning, she fought him on Spirit Peak and refused to save him when he fell to his death.
Slade returned as a ghost possessing his ancestor Hamilton Slade and tormented Mockingbird in the present day in West Coast Avengers (1987) # 33 until he was exorcised in West Coast Avengers (1987) # 41. He later returned to possess another ancestor, Hamilton's daughter Jamie, and attempted to kill Mockingbird in Hawkeye & Mockingbird (2010) # 1-5.
REVIEW
Mockingbird has a new series, so that means the Phantom Rider is making an inevitable appearance.
Okay, a preface before I get started. It's going to sound like I am shitting all over these comics during this review, but I want to make it clear that I really REALLY enjoyed this Mockingbird series and I was sad to see it cancelled so quickly. I think Chelsea Cain was able to tell a highly original sequence of stories and shuffle them up in such a way that it kept me guessing from issue to issue. Mockingbird was a series that didn't just reward you for multiple readings, it straight-up demanded it, and I always felt like I was getting my money's worth for each issue. I've always liked Mockingbird a lot, and like the last series that focused on her (the similarly unfairly cancelled Hawkeye & Mockingbird series), this one did a lot to enrich Bobbie Morse as a character outside of just "Hawkeye's ex-wife".
This arc, which only barely counts as a tie-in to "Civil War II" (and that's a blessing, I say), comprises the final three issues of the series, and as a wrap-up to Cain's work on the character its disappointing. That's not to say it's a bad story, because it's got so many great moments that actually had me laughing out loud. The obsession with corgis, the "spy talk" between Bobbi and Lance, all of the little side jokes concerning the cruise and the Bermuda Triangle, it all works great. I'm a little unclear if the cruise guests that get spotlighted throughout the arc, and particularly in the last issue, are supposed to be real people. They get such specific things stated about them that I kinda have to think they are at least based on people that maybe the creators know. I was in the dark through a lot of that, but it didn't disrupt the fun of the story for me.
What DID disrupt the story for me, though, is the reason I'm reviewing this on a Ghost Rider blog in the first place, and that's the treatment of the Phantom Rider. I really like the Phantom Rider as a character, even with all of the creepy rape stuff that Steve Englehart saddled the character with in the 1980s, because he makes not only a great villain but also a perverse flip on the "Spirit of Vengeance" angle that every Ghost Rider should have. Yes he's after vengeance, but it's of a personal nature where he was totally at fault for his own death, which twists things grotesquely every time he's trotted out as Mockingbird's nemesis. He also makes for a great "whodunit" ghost mystery, because until the final pages of issue # 7 I had no idea he was the perpetrator (and admittedly, I'm not even sure how Mockingbird figured it out in-story, because I don't think all of the clues were there as they should have been, but I digress).
This story retcons the Mockingbird/Phantom Rider relationship in a way that kind of salvages Lincoln Slade's character but absolutely throws Mockingbird under the bus. I get that perhaps having a female protagonist being defined by a rape is problematic, but the way Cain changes the back story makes things so much worse. In the original story, Bobbie was kidnapped by the Phantom Rider, drugged, and brainwashed into thinking she loved him. When she broke free of the drugs, she fought Slade to the edge of a cliff. When he was clinging off the side of the cliff, she refused to pull him up and he fell to his death. That act led to the dissolution of Mockingbird's marriage to Hawkeye and brought back the Phantom Rider as a literal ghost to seek revenge for his own death. According to this story, however, that's not even close to the truth, because Bobbie and Lincoln had a consensual relationship that ended when he became too possessive and controlling. That led to the fight on the cliff and his deadly fall, with Bobbie still refusing to save him. A woman allowing a man to die because he drugged and raped her is totally understandable, but letting him die just because he was a bad boyfriend is not. It makes Mockingbird into not only a perpetrator of infidelity (which she admits in issue # 8, that Hawkeye divorced her not because she killed Slade but because she made a consensual act to cheat) but also a woman who let her boyfriend die just because he was kind of a dick. That makes all of the goodwill I had toward Mockingbird, a lot of which was built up by Cain during this very series, disappear. I don't much like Mockingbird as a character anymore, I'm sorry to say. I think I DO like the Phantom Rider a little more than before, even if he is still a huge douchebag.
Despite all of the story problems, the artwork by Kate Niemcyzk was top-notch as it has been throughout the series as a whole. I really loved all of the diagrams and page layouts that made the comics such a delight to go back and re-read to find all of the little jokes and easter eggs that were laid out in the background. I also really enjoyed her rendition of the Phantom Rider, whose Dick Ayers design always stands out as a classic.
I still really loved this series, but the last issue killed my enjoyment of reading about Mockingbird as a character. Instead of a hero who had worked her way through a terrible (if cliched in fiction) trauma that's faced against an foe that's immortal and terrifying she's become a hero who killed a man she claimed to love while cheating on her husband. Makes for a weird feeling, recommending a comic that effectively ended my desire to read the character, but there you go.
Grade: B+
Okay, a preface before I get started. It's going to sound like I am shitting all over these comics during this review, but I want to make it clear that I really REALLY enjoyed this Mockingbird series and I was sad to see it cancelled so quickly. I think Chelsea Cain was able to tell a highly original sequence of stories and shuffle them up in such a way that it kept me guessing from issue to issue. Mockingbird was a series that didn't just reward you for multiple readings, it straight-up demanded it, and I always felt like I was getting my money's worth for each issue. I've always liked Mockingbird a lot, and like the last series that focused on her (the similarly unfairly cancelled Hawkeye & Mockingbird series), this one did a lot to enrich Bobbie Morse as a character outside of just "Hawkeye's ex-wife".
This arc, which only barely counts as a tie-in to "Civil War II" (and that's a blessing, I say), comprises the final three issues of the series, and as a wrap-up to Cain's work on the character its disappointing. That's not to say it's a bad story, because it's got so many great moments that actually had me laughing out loud. The obsession with corgis, the "spy talk" between Bobbi and Lance, all of the little side jokes concerning the cruise and the Bermuda Triangle, it all works great. I'm a little unclear if the cruise guests that get spotlighted throughout the arc, and particularly in the last issue, are supposed to be real people. They get such specific things stated about them that I kinda have to think they are at least based on people that maybe the creators know. I was in the dark through a lot of that, but it didn't disrupt the fun of the story for me.
What DID disrupt the story for me, though, is the reason I'm reviewing this on a Ghost Rider blog in the first place, and that's the treatment of the Phantom Rider. I really like the Phantom Rider as a character, even with all of the creepy rape stuff that Steve Englehart saddled the character with in the 1980s, because he makes not only a great villain but also a perverse flip on the "Spirit of Vengeance" angle that every Ghost Rider should have. Yes he's after vengeance, but it's of a personal nature where he was totally at fault for his own death, which twists things grotesquely every time he's trotted out as Mockingbird's nemesis. He also makes for a great "whodunit" ghost mystery, because until the final pages of issue # 7 I had no idea he was the perpetrator (and admittedly, I'm not even sure how Mockingbird figured it out in-story, because I don't think all of the clues were there as they should have been, but I digress).
This story retcons the Mockingbird/Phantom Rider relationship in a way that kind of salvages Lincoln Slade's character but absolutely throws Mockingbird under the bus. I get that perhaps having a female protagonist being defined by a rape is problematic, but the way Cain changes the back story makes things so much worse. In the original story, Bobbie was kidnapped by the Phantom Rider, drugged, and brainwashed into thinking she loved him. When she broke free of the drugs, she fought Slade to the edge of a cliff. When he was clinging off the side of the cliff, she refused to pull him up and he fell to his death. That act led to the dissolution of Mockingbird's marriage to Hawkeye and brought back the Phantom Rider as a literal ghost to seek revenge for his own death. According to this story, however, that's not even close to the truth, because Bobbie and Lincoln had a consensual relationship that ended when he became too possessive and controlling. That led to the fight on the cliff and his deadly fall, with Bobbie still refusing to save him. A woman allowing a man to die because he drugged and raped her is totally understandable, but letting him die just because he was a bad boyfriend is not. It makes Mockingbird into not only a perpetrator of infidelity (which she admits in issue # 8, that Hawkeye divorced her not because she killed Slade but because she made a consensual act to cheat) but also a woman who let her boyfriend die just because he was kind of a dick. That makes all of the goodwill I had toward Mockingbird, a lot of which was built up by Cain during this very series, disappear. I don't much like Mockingbird as a character anymore, I'm sorry to say. I think I DO like the Phantom Rider a little more than before, even if he is still a huge douchebag.
Despite all of the story problems, the artwork by Kate Niemcyzk was top-notch as it has been throughout the series as a whole. I really loved all of the diagrams and page layouts that made the comics such a delight to go back and re-read to find all of the little jokes and easter eggs that were laid out in the background. I also really enjoyed her rendition of the Phantom Rider, whose Dick Ayers design always stands out as a classic.
I still really loved this series, but the last issue killed my enjoyment of reading about Mockingbird as a character. Instead of a hero who had worked her way through a terrible (if cliched in fiction) trauma that's faced against an foe that's immortal and terrifying she's become a hero who killed a man she claimed to love while cheating on her husband. Makes for a weird feeling, recommending a comic that effectively ended my desire to read the character, but there you go.
Grade: B+
HOLY CRAP! I never knew about this! What a crazy revelation...or retcon rather? Now at least it helps clear the Ghost Rider name for the haters out there.
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