Cover Date: December 2019
On Sale Date: October 2019
Writer: Jason Aaron
Artist: Stefano Caselli
Colorist: Jason Keith
Letterer: VC's Cory Petit
Assistant Editor: Shannon Andrews Ballesteros
Associate Editor: Alanna Smith
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor in Chief: C.B. Cebulski
Cover Artist: Stefano Caselli
In Hell, Robbie Reyes confronts his evil Uncle Eli Morrow, who is currently possessing the body of a Dark Celestial. Robbie gets the upper hand and is joined by the Avengers, who arrive in a flying boat powered by Vibranium and accompanied by Cosmic Ghost Rider. Johnny Blaze rides toward the finish line, thinking to himself how he can't become like Mephisto while simultaneously telling the demons around him to bow in his presence. Blade and Thor attack Blaze, destroying his motorcycle, but Blaze reassembles the broken pieces of his bike into a hammer and leads his demons in battle against the heroes. The flying ship soars by, taking Robbie closer to the finish line with a boost from She-Hulk's gamma power. Cosmic Ghost Rider arrives carrying the severed head of Eli's Celestial body and Blaze orders his demons to swarm the Avengers as he rebuilds his motorcycle.
Blaze nearly reaches the throne of Hell and the end of the race, but Robbie uses hellfire to power up the flying ship and win the race. Robbie punches Blaze in the face and tells him that he's abdicating the throne, leaving Johnny stuck in Hell without the power he needs to rule. Cosmic Ghost Rider tries to get revenge on Blaze, but Johnny simple sinks into the ground and disappears. The Avengers are unable to find Blaze but do locate Robbie's Hell Charger and return it to him after he says goodbye to the souls of his deceased parents. Later, while Robbie tells his brother Gabe that he's staying with the Avengers after all, Cosmic Ghost Rider departs Earth and heads off into space. Finally, Iron Man, who is investigating a mysterious cave, is teleported back in time to the Stone Age.
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| "Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself!" |
THE ROADMAP
Johnny Blaze is seen next as the King of Hell in Ghost Rider (2019) # 1. Blaze remains the ruler of Hell until giving back the throne to Mephisto in King in Black: Ghost Rider # 1.
Cosmic Ghost Rider makes his next appearance in the back-up story in Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider (2019) # 1, which shows what happens right before he leaves Earth at the end of this story.
CHAIN REACTION
"Challenge of the Ghost Riders" comes to a frankly baffling conclusion that really doesn't resolve anything. But hey, at least its fun to read!
Jason Aaron's take on the Ghost Rider mythology is very divisive for fans; on the one hand, he seems to genuinely love the characters and goes out of his way to give them attention and respect, while on the other hand he only seems to pay respect to the parts of the character that he himself created and cultivated. I'm honestly okay with that when it provides an entertaining story, I'm not all that concerned with whether the canon matches up or not (really, Ghost Rider continuity is an unintelligible mess, so why get bent out of shape over it?). What I do expect, though, is some internal consistency and a resolution that makes sense.
We don't really get those things here so I'm going to try and lay out all the pieces of the puzzle. Johnny Blaze, as the King of Hell, invoked the Challenge of the Ghost Riders, which is something that has happened throughout history. What the goal of the Challenge is or what the victor receives isn't spelled out, but it's something that seems to have dire stakes for the loser, such as when Chief Hellhawk and Noble Kale "raced for the fate of the New World". In this specific case, Blaze issues the Challenge to Robbie Reyes with the prize being Hell's throne, which will somehow give Blaze the power he needs to defeat Mephisto. When Robbie wins, though, he doesn't receive any kind of power upgrade and pretty easily abdicates the throne, which Johnny seems unable to do even when he wants to. The other Ghost Riders of the past have all been pulled to Hell at Johnny's behest (I think?) and are actively aiding Robbie, saying bad things will happen if Blaze wins. It's all kind of a mess, especially when Cosmic Ghost Rider is there for vague reasons (he's a Ghost Rider, why isn't he racing Blaze and where is Danny Ketch?).
Now, that doesn't mean that it isn't extremely entertaining because Aaron and Caselli know how to produce an exciting action comic. There are so many small moments, such as Blaze's dichotomous and incongruent personality showing how Hell is affecting him; Robbie's confrontation with Eli; Cosmic Ghost Rider being treated as a really dangerous joke by pretty much everyone; and the idea that Johnny is doomed by his own hand, slapping away anyone that wants to help him. There's so much to like about this story, I just wish it hung together better. Ultimately, this is a futile and pointless story that doesn't do anything to advance any of the characters other than maybe Robbie if you squint really hard.
The artwork, though, is top notch work. Avengers has had a bit of a "house style" with its assortment of artists, and Caselli fits in that mold with David Marquez and Ed McGuiness pretty well. He draws a great Ghost Rider, though his Robbie has a lot smaller amount of flames surrounding him than I'm used to seeing. Love his Johnny Blaze, though, and he does a great job with keeping the action of the story moving and the momentum high. I'd say that without Caselli's art setting the pace this issue could have been a trudging effort to get through.
I wanted to love "Challenge of the Ghost Riders", but all I can really say is that I didn't hate it. It had lots of small parts that worked really well, they just didn't add up to much of a whole.
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| Stop...hammer time! |
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