Cover Date: January 1995; On Sale Date: November 1994
Writer: Len Kaminski; Artist: Mark Buckingham; Inker: Kev Sutherland; Letterer: Richard Starkings w/ Comicraft; Colorist: Christie Scheele w/ Heroic Age; Editor: Evan Skolnick; Group Editor: Bobbie Chase; Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco; Cover Artist: Kyle Hotz
Zero Cochrane is surfing through cyberspace, searching for the Ghostworks, the artificial intelligence programs that transformed him into the Ghost Rider. After discovering that they had altered his programming to stop him from talking about their existence he is determined to find them, but after 6 days has had no luck. He unplugs himself from the matrix and remembers a virus program he has at his old crash pad that could track down the Ghostworks for him. In Cyberspace, the Ghostworks have been observing Zero's search for them, and though they admit that given sufficient time he could conceivably track them down they are aware of coming events that will serve to distract him from that goal.
Zero makes his way to a part of Transverse City called Little Calcutta, where he meets with an old friend and street vendor named Pak. During their conversation, Pak tells Zero that several people have been gruesomely murdered by a "horrorshow monster with teeth". Zero makes his way to the crash pad, but quickly realizes that D/Monix ransacked the place and took away all of the discs that were there. He gets lost in a memory of his dead friends and punches the wall, saying it wasn't his fault that he lived when they died. Suddenly, the crash pad explodes. Meanwhile, Pak is murdered by the "horrorshow monster".
Zero emerges from the rubble of the crash pad in his Ghost Rider form and is confronted by Jeter, former leader of the Artificial Kidz. Zero had severed his cybernetic limbs from his body in his last encounter and he has since paid the Bone Mechanix to attach his torso to several tanks. After a brief fight Zero gets the upper hand, decapitates Jeter, and throws his severed head into a fire. Later, Zero wanders by a crowd that has gathered around Pak's mutilated body and Zero decides he needs to find the killer.
Mark Buckingham and Kev Sutherland return to the art chores for a done-in-one story that acts as a bridge between two arcs.
As much as I enjoy Kyle Hotz's work on this series, seeing Buckingham and Sutherland come back for one last issue is so, so welcome. This was the visual style that defined the book's first arc, and though it's not quite Chris Bachalo it's awfully damn close. So close, in fact, that having Buckingham continue the art chores with issue # 6 onward would have been as visually consistent and tone appropriate as the creative team could have got. From what I understand, Buckingham was offered the full art chores on the series following that first arc and he turned it down, presumably to go work with Bachalo on Generation X, so it's probably a lucky break that he was able to come back for even this issue.
Just look at the artwork, though, it's magnificent! Buckingham might not have the grit that Bachalo brought to the first couple of issues, but it's polished and grimy at the same time. The attention to detail in Little Calcutta, from Pak's severed fingers (he was Yakuza, of course) to the various booths and knick-knacks scattered around each panel, Buckingham makes Transverse City come to vivid life. He doesn't have the body horror HR Giger detailing that Hotz brings to the series, something that's going to work out very well visually in the next few issues, but he can still bring the shocking when he has to. Pak's murder at the hands of the creature is particularly gruesome, with the guy's face getting shredded off, on panel no less. The only downside to the artwork is with the end fight against Jeter, where some of the clarity is sacrificed and it's hard to tell exactly what's happening in a few panels.
With me gushing so much about the art, you might think I don't have much to say about this issue's story, and you'd be kinda right. Kaminski's scripting is still absolutely on point with this installment, filling it with all of the biting humor and intriguing world building that this series is accustomed to, such as the travel guide to Little Calcutta written in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. Zero's character gets some pathos in this one, too, with him finally showing some remorse over what happened to his friends at the onset of the series. It's just the plot itself is really inconsequential: Zero goes to get a McGuffin, bad guy comes back for revenge, bad guy gets killed, the end.
The plot itself is a little too stock to make this one special, even with sharp scripting and really nice artwork. It's worth reading, of course, to keep up with the title's ongoing plot threads, but it's not a standout of the series.
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