Writer: Jason Aaron; Artists: Esad Ribic, Steve McNiven, Chris Samnee, Russell Dauterman, Alex Maleev, Ed McGuinness, Stuart Immonen, Pepe Larraz, Jim Cheung, Daniel Acuña, Greg Land, Mike Deodato, Jr., and David Marquez; Letterer: Cory Petit; Colorists: Matthew Wilson and Daniel Acuña; Assistant Editor: Alanna Smith; Editor: Tom Brevoort; Editor-in-Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Joe Quesada
One million years ago, during the Stone Age of the Marvel Universe, a group of heroes assembled by Odin (including the original incarnations of the Black Panther, Phoenix, Starbrad, Iron Fist, and the Sorcerer Supreme) have been in battle with a giant alien Celestial. The last of the "Prehistoric Avengers" is the Ghost Rider, who swears vengeance upon the Celestial for the death of his mammoth. When the Celestial stirs, Odin and the others charge forward to attack.
In the present day, Robbie Reyes is asleep in his car before being awakened by a police officer demanding to see his identification. Robbie speeds away, confused when he realizes he drove in his sleep to Cape Town, South Africa. He's attacked by the current wielder of the Starbrand, Earth's "energy defense system", who claims that they have been drawn to the area to find something. While Robbie has no idea what Starbrand is referring to, the attacking hero states that no one can be allowed to find and claim it. Robbie transforms into the Ghost Rider and fights back, with their fierce battle taking them to an archaeological excavation site overseen by SHIELD. Starbrand dismissively murders the SHIELD agents and the battle moves on, allowing the surviving archaeologists to descend into the excavated cave. Inside, deep in the earth, they find the Celestial buried by Odin, which kills them with its giant hand. Back on the surface, Ghost Rider is able to finally defeat Starbrand by giving him the Penance Stare. Consumed by the pain he has caused others, Starband dies in a massive explosion. Robbie transforms back to his human form and is extremely confused that he was able to utilize the Penance Stare. As he gets in his car and drives back toward Los Angeles, the Asgardian trickster god Loki arrives in the cave as the "inheritor" of the Celestial.
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| # Legit |
THE ROADMAP
Robbie Reyes last appeared in The Unbelievable Gwenpool # 15 and appears next as a cameo in Iceman (2017) # 7.
The Stone Age Spirit of Vengeance is now the earliest Ghost Rider to be shown on panel; before this, the earliest was the insane Spirit of Vengeance of Thule from Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch (2008) # 3. How this all fits with the Biblical origins of the Spirits of Vengeance from Ghost Rider (2006) # 33 is unknown at this time. His origin story is told in Avengers (2018) # 7.
This issue seems to state that Robbie Reyes is in fact possessed by a Spirit of Vengeance, what with his use of the Penance Stare and him being identified by Starbrand as a "descendant" of the Stone Age Ghost Rider. Prior to this, Robbie's possessing spirit was his evil uncle, Eli Morrow, a Satanist serial killer that used black magic to become a supernatural entity as revealed in All-New Ghost Rider (2014) # 8.
There are, of course, many other plotlines and characters running through this comic, I just decided to only focus on the parts relevant to Ghost Rider. Other notable events include the Avengers teaming up to stop some Frost Giants and the return of Wolverine.
CHAIN REACTION
Marvel Legacy launches the publisher's revamped line of titles with this special giant-sized one-shot that surprisingly features a whole lotta Ghost Rider.
I admit, I wasn't prepared for how much attention and love Ghost Rider was shown in this comic. I knew from interviews and preview art that the prehistoric Avengers team introduced here was going to feature a Spirit of Vengeance (on a woolly mammoth no less), and I believe writer Jason Aaron may have mentioned getting to write Robbie Reyes for the first time. Still, though, I had no idea Robbie would wind up getting a starring role, let alone the main action sequence of the book. I considered it a very pleasant and welcome surprise.
I suppose I shouldn't have been too surprised, given Aaron's history with Ghost Rider. The writer had a long tenure with the Spirit of Vengeance over ten years ago, his run on the character is easily one of the highlights in Ghost Rider history, and seeing him return in any capacity is a reason to celebrate. It's also not surprising that a team of "prehistory Avengers" would include a Spirit of Vengeance, considering that it was Jason Aaron who introduced the Ghost Riders throughout history lineage during his run on the series. The Stone Age Ghost Rider introduced here, though, was a huge disappointment. The run-up to this comic was filled with press releases and art teases for this team of characters, that this was the big introduction to them, and I remember the huge fan reaction to the mammoth riding Spirit of Vengeance. Then, the issue comes and the team of heroes get only a few pages of introduction, and the mammoth has been killed off panel. For such hype that was thrown at fans, the prehistoric Avengers were a big, fat goose egg. Here's hoping Aaron gets to revisit them at some point (and in all honesty, that's probably an inevitability), and I'll try not to hold any of the unfulfilled hype for this issue against him.
Amidst all of the subplots and character check-ins that he has to include in this comic, I was really happy to see Aaron include the touch-stone fight scene between Robbie Reyes and Starbrand. Another surprise, that Aaron went with Reyes instead of Blaze for this issue's Ghost Rider, though I suppose it does fit with the "legacy" motif. See, also, the other main focus of the comic surrounding Falcon Captain America, Jane Foster Thor, and Ironheart, all inheritors of their respective legacies. For better or worse, Reyes is here to stay as a Ghost Rider, and it was really refreshing to see him in the hands of a writer other than his creator, Felipe Smith. Robbie was still the same character, easily recognizable, but Aaron's take on the character shows a sharp contrast to what Smith had been doing. In his appearances before this, Smith had taken great pains to differentiate Robbie from Blaze and the other Spirits of Vengeance, making him in essence a Ghost Rider in name only. In this comic, however, Aaron seems to be pulling back on those differences by making Robbie's Ghost Rider more in line with what's come before. It allows Reyes to fall more naturally under that "legacy" umbrella, because without it he'd be a completely unrelated character to the group that Aaron introduced in the Stone Age opening to this comic. I'm really curious to see where Reyes goes from here, what with his newly-acquired Penance Stare; I hope it gets flagged up as the inconsistency that it is, instead of future writers just shrugging their shoulders and writing him as another version of Johnny Blaze.
Esad Ribic has become Marvel's go-to-artist for world changing and universe defining storylines, from Aaron's initial run on Thor to the Secret Wars event series from a few years back. His painted pencil work has this mythical, ethereal quality to it that really lends itself well to stories like this. While other artists are drafted in for other subplots and story pages, the important chunks of the comic are handled by Ribic, and they look magnificent. The Stone Age Avengers all look decidedly caveman-esque while still retaining visual nods toward their descendants, though the Spirit of Vengeance just looks like a guy with his head on fire. There's no skull, just a halo of fire around his head, and that's a little underwhelming. He didn't even get to draw the damned flaming mammoth! He makes up for it with the fantastic Ghost Rider/Starbrand battle, though, which is simultaneously epic and personal for the characters involved. The panel that shows Robbie just as he's transformed into Ghost Rider is one of those "fuck yeah!" moments that every book like this needs.
So, even though the Legacy relaunch kind of fell apart after a few months, this was still a pretty wicked kick-off to it. Ghost Rider gets some time in the big league spotlight and Jason Aaron leaves readers wanting more. All in all, this was a damn good time for Ghost Rider fans.
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| Penance Stare, please! |
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