Cosmic Ghost Rider (2018) # 5

Cover Date: January 2019
On Sale Date: November 2018

Writer: Donny Cates
Artist: Dylan Burnett
Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles
Colorist: Antonio Fabela
Editor: Jordan D. White
Assistant Editor: Annalise Bissa
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski

Cover Artist: Geoff Shaw

In the reality dominated by a Thanos who was raised to become the Punisher, Frank Castle finds himself again faced with the decision to work as Thanos' herald. Frank chooses to fight and blasts Thanos into the city slum nearby. Frank tells toddler Thanos to remember that he has a choice in how he turns out in life, then jumps down into the city as well. Castle ruthlessly attacks Thanos and then tells him that it's time for "penance". Thanos smirks and reminds him that the Penance Stare does not work on him. Frank burns the flesh from Thanos skull, rips it from his shoulders, and crushes it in his hands. He then says that in this case "penance means punishment". Frank goes back onto the grassy hill and takes toddler Thanos through one of Cable's time portals.

After returning toddler Thanos to his crib on Titan, Frank is confronted by Death, who tells him that she will never let Thanos go. Death also states that she chooses many children, including Castle himself. Frank leaves and flies out into space on his motorcycle, searching for redemption.

THE ROADMAP

Cosmic Ghost Rider makes his next chronological appearance in Cosmic Ghost Rider Destroys Marvel History (2019) # 1, which reveals that instead of traveling forward in time through artificial means he instead lived through the centuries to the dawn of the Heroic Age of the Marvel Universe.

Awfully smug for a guy that just got his ass kicked.

CHAIN REACTION

Cosmic Ghost Rider concludes with more pathos and heart that I think anyone expected, grounding the ridiculousness of the previous issues with a deep dive into the soul of this particular version of Frank Castle.

I don't think it can be argued that this wasn't a highly entertaining and engaging series, even with the abrupt gear change that happened last issue, dragging it from farcical comedy into a heartfelt exploration of redemption and justice. This issue does a lot of heavy lifting to justify that swerve into melodrama, elevating what came last issue in hindsight by treating it as a natural extension of Frank Castle's ongoing trauma. A lot of readers, myself included, went into this series with a nagging criticism that this version of Frank Castle was too out of character for the Punisher, a well-established personality that has existed for decades. By the end, however, the differences between Cosmic Ghost Rider and the Punisher are really brought to the forefront in a serious attempt to differentiate them while still keeping their cores intact as the same person. Cosmic Ghost Rider is a Frank Castle that took all of the self-determination and damn-near unstoppable sense of focus out of the Punisher and replaced it with self-doubt and an inability to make rational decisions. 

I mean, the Punisher as he stands today is a poster-child for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, he's a acting out his trauma by blaming the world around him and clamping down his own emotions. Cosmic Ghost Rider is the other side of expressing that trauma, full of guilt and wearing his emotions on his sleeve. He cries twice in this series, which is something that just doesn't happen with the Punisher. Cosmic Ghost Rider, for all his lunacy and psychosis, is a Frank Castle with humanity injected back into him, in some respects pouring out uncontrollably. His mood swings wildly based on the situation, there is no calmness or attempts to be stoic. He's a mess, just like the Punisher, just one worn down by a million years of having all that empathy crushing down on top of him.

It continually amazes me that Donny Cates was able to take what should have been a joke, one-note interpretation of a character and turn him into such a nuanced portrayal of mental illness. Cosmic Ghost Rider became his own character by this issue, no longer a weird deviation of the Punisher but an intriguing protagonist in his own right. This particular issue is ultimately what sells that, allowing Castle to literally slay his biggest inner demon and take a stand, giving back his independence as a free-thinking and not just a toadying slave of a genocidal godlike being. This one is all about catharsis, and it works well, even with the inevitable affirmation by Death that no matter what happens, Thanos and Castle are both hers forever.

My opinion on Dylan Burnett's artwork has completely turned around as well. With the first issue of this series I could only see the differences in his work from that of Geoff Shaw, the character's artistic creator. Like Frank stepping out of the shadows of both Thanos and the Punisher (I don't think it's a coincidence that Cosmic Ghost Rider not only kills Thanos here but a version of the Punisher as well, all in one stroke), Burnett has fully differentiated himself from Shaw and turned in some definitive work on the character. His facial expressions and portrayal of body language is fantastic, giving each character their own presence on the page. Burnett went on to draw a rather great run on X-Force after this, and I hope he gets another chance with a Ghost Rider related series in the future. 

This issue takes all of the small negative parts of the previous issues and justifies them all. It's a great end to a great series, consider my doubts to have been put at ease. Definitely highly recommended.

A bitter reunion, a fond farewell with Maria Castle.