Cover Date: February 1994; Publication Date: December 1993
A badly injured John Blaze, who had a knife buried in his face by his former friend George, crashes his bike into a hospital emergency room in search of his gravely wounded wife, Roxanne. He instead finds Seer, who tells him that Roxanne was kidnapped by Regent. Seer teleports them to the shack where the remaining members of the Quentin Carnival are currently residing. After Wolf and Kody pull the knife from Blaze’s face, Quinn is able to help him control the hellfire and heal his wound. After he has recovered, Blaze orders Seer to tell him all she knows about Regent, that he is a member of the Blood that held a rivalry with Caretaker. Seer is able to locate Regent and Blaze goes alone to confront him.
In the snow covered Colorado Mountains, Roxanne Simpson and her children are brought before Regent by members of the Hidden. Regent senses Blaze approaching, riding his mystical motorcycle across ski lift cables. The cable snaps, sending Blaze into a snowdrift, where the Hidden are waiting. Regent arrives and confronts Blaze, telling him that he has been guiding his life since birth. In order to gain the power of the hellfire inside him, Regent had Roxanne purposely breed with John to produce their children for Regent to raise. Regent removes the metal plate from Blaze’s face, revealing the burning skull beneath. Blaze shoots his shotgun at the mountain above them, triggering an avalanche to bury them all.
THE ROADMAP
Blaze blames the Blood for the death of Dan Ketch in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 18. (which was published after the release of this issue). John learned that he and Dan were brothers in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 16.
The details of Roxanne's arrangement with Regent is revealed in Blaze: Legacy of Blood (1993) # 4.
The details of Roxanne's arrangement with Regent is revealed in Blaze: Legacy of Blood (1993) # 4.
CHAIN REACTION
“Legacy of Blood” continues on with a rather dramatic twist that “promises to change everything!” but really changes nothing.
This issue was the closest John Blaze came to being the Ghost Rider again in the 1990s (well, other than Crossroads, of course) and it was honestly the only time the metal face mask look paid off as something other than an eyesore. By this time, most of the plot elements in this series had long worn out their welcome; Blaze’s “new look”, the Blood, retcons in the origin story, all of those things had been worn into the ground over the last six months of comics. So, it’s a genuine surprise that Mackie, Wagner, and Rourke are able to take all those ill-fitting parts and construct a series this compelling.
First, the artwork, which is gruesome and stands out in your mind long after you’ve read it. I often wonder what happened to Ron Wagner, who should have had a much greater career in comics than he did. He was apparently difficult to work with, at least according to his writer on Morbius the Living Vampire, Len Kaminski, so who knows? His work here with Howard Rourke is immediately engaging, and that image of Blaze with the knife stuck in his face down to the handguard is something to be seen.
This issue is the dramatic crest before it all crashes down at the end, and it supposes some interesting ideas. The first, naturally, is that Roxanne is actually in collusion with Regent, the villain of the piece. We get some more nonsense with the Blood, but at least Seer continues to be a bright spot in that particularly dismal corner of Ghost Rider lore. Then there’s the confrontation with Regent and the “revelation” that the villain has been manipulating Blaze’s life since before he was even born. Was he responsible for Blaze’s mother leaving, his dad dying, and the Simpson family meeting their untimely ends? According to Regent, it was all so he could get Blaze and Roxanne to knock boots and spit out some kiddos as heirs to John’s hellfire powers. I don’t much care for all this, it’s one of those attempts to make what should have been a normal person before the origin story into something pre-destined or part of a lineage of powers. Comics do that kind of stuff all the time, and it rarely works to the character’s advantage.
The money shot, of course, is that image with Blaze sans mask, with the flaming skull showing up. I almost wish they would have kept that design, with the half-skeleton face and fire pouring out, but I can obviously see why it wouldn’t have worked in the long term. It’s an undeniably strong image, though, and it nearly justifies Blaze’s revamped design.
This series is a high point when the rest of the line was drowning in a mire of crossovers. Mackie seems so much more invested here than he does on the monthly titles.
No comments:
Post a Comment