Cover Date: August 1995; On Sale Date: June 1995
Writer: Len Kaminski; Artist: Ashley Wood; Letterer: Richard Starkings and Comicraft; Colorist: Christie Scheele w/ Violent Hues Malibu; Editor: Joey Cavalieri; Editor in Chief: Bobbie Chase; Cover Artist: Ashley Wood
At Max Synergy’s dance club, Ghost Rider is confronted by Heartbreaker, who has a vendetta against Synergy. Ghost Rider, who has his own business to conduct with Synergy, fights Heartbreaker and withstands her lethal “heart punch”. In return, Zero slashes her across the face with his electro-saw. With her face now scarred, revealing cybernetics beneath her skin, Heartbreaker retreats. Meanwhile, at the Bar Code, Anesthesia Jones talks with Kylie about them both knowing that Zero Cochrane is the Ghost Rider, unaware that a group of hackers, including Dr. Neon, have been listening in and now know the Ghost Rider’s true identity.
Back at the nightclub, Zero confronts Synergy over his dealing of the narcotic White Heat, which is turning the streets of Transverse City into a warzone. Synergy states that he cannot stop his dealing of White Heat due to it being part of a social experiment, and that Zero owes him a favor that he is now cashing in, telling him to walk away. Zero refuses and attempts to arrest Synergy, who uses a sonic attack to turn the club dancers into a violent mob. Elsewhere, Kabal of the Undernet assembles his team of operatives, which includes Ice-9, Neurodancer, Warp Angel, and Coda.
At the nightclub, Zero fights his way through the enraged mob and eventually makes his way to Synergy. Taking him into custody, Zero delivers Synergy to SHIELD despite Synergy’s warning that his reputation on the street will now be ruined due to him reneging on the deal they made. When Zero goes to Little Calcutta he is met with a crowd of people who see him as nothing but another “stinking blackboot”, unaware that a mysterious individual had already leaked his dealing with Synergy to the public.
THE ROADMAP
The "One Nation Under Doom" storyline was a loose crossover event between all of the 2099 titles of the time, focused on Doom's takeover of the United States as its new president.
Ghost Rider met Max Synergy in Ghost Rider 2099 (1994) # 6. The drug White Heat was first mentioned in Ghost Rider 2099 (1994) # 10.
CHAIN REACTION
Zero Cochrane really gets into his role as Federal Marshall and Heartbreaker continues her impressive debut.
The evolution of the title character into Judge Dredd continues (seriously, he even shouts “I am the law!” at one point) and it really grates on my nerves. I get where Len Kaminski is coming from with this change in the book’s status quo. Zero was never really a likable character, we just empathized with his plight as the underdog. His characterization hasn’t so much changed as it’s been given a new filter through which to view it. He was always a jerk and now he’s a jerk with a badge. Just like how he let the Ghost Rider power go to his head when he was fighting against the system, he’s allowing his newfound status as the law to pump up his ego even more.
This is readily apparent in his interaction with Max Synergy, who he previously had no problem doing deals with and owing a favor to until it clashed with his new position as marshall. Breaking his previously established deal with Synergy comes back to bite Zero at the issue’s end, which at least gives some balanced comeuppance to the character’s newfound hubris as “the law”. This is all fascinating stuff in its own right, it just doesn’t make for as entertaining a read compared to the first year of stories. Seeing Zero carve his way through fascist cops is satisfying, seeing him AS a fascist cop is problematic and kind of condemning the audience to root for the bad guy (or at least A bad guy, as the ones Zero is going after are arguably worse).
Ashley Wood enjoys his second issue on the series, though the art takes a dramatic shift in quality about 3/4ths of the way through when Jim Daly steps in for an uncredited art assist. Daly will be sticking around the series in an official capacity going forward, mainly to keep Wood on a monthly schedule. Unfortunately, the visceral artwork seen in this issue will take a major nose dive into near unreadability, as Wood’s work gets more and more sparse as the series goes along. This issue, though, produces some really memorable pages during the fight with Heartbreaker and especially the sequence where Zero has to fight his way through the insane dancers.
All in all, I’m still not sold on the new status quo, but Kaminski and Wood still provide enough meat on the bone for it to be a satisfying read.
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