Cover Date: October 1995; On Sale Date: August 1995
Writer: Len Kaminski; Artist: Ashley Wood; Inker: Jim Daly; Letterer: Richard Starkings and Comicraft; Colorist: Christie Scheele w/ Malibu; Editor: Joey Cavalieri; Editor in Chief: Bobbie Chase; Cover Artist: Ashley Wood
The holographic entertainment complex Thrillsville has been taken over by L-Cypher, a digital entity that had been imprisoned on the internet by the Ghostworks and has now escaped. Thrillsville has been transformed into a simulation of Hell and has repelled all of SHIELD's attempts at entrance to save the hundreds of innocent victims inside. Ghost Rider arrives at SHIELD's request and enters the complex, only to be met by the demonic Cyberus. Ghost Rider easily destroys Cyberus, recognizing the solidogram technology as coming from the Ghostworks, who are watching the events unfold. Meanwhile, the person responsible for releasing L-Cypher intercepts a message on the net from Doctor Neon, who is attempting to tell SHIELD Ghost Rider's true identity of Zero Cochrane.
At the secret Vault of Forbidden Science, Kabal's infiltration team consisting of Coda, Ice-9, and Warp Angel arrive to loot the facility of 20th century technology. The vault's cybernetic guard wakes up and unleashes a squad of cyborgs to kill the intruders. Kabal, in radio contact, deduces that their detection means they have been betrayed by a member of the Undernet. Back at Thrillsville, in the center control room L-Cypher experiments on people, splicing them with bits of his own source code to create monsters. Ghost Rider fights his way through various demons until he is confronted by L-Cypher's personal servants, the Archfiends.
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 became the Federal Marshal of Transverse City in Ghost Rider 2099 (1994) # 14.
CHAIN REACTION
Ghost Rider 2099 enters a digital representation of Hell itself as the L-Cypher arc kicks off to a roaring start.
It's interesting to me how writer Len Kaminski is able to divorce this title so thoroughly from anything resembling the traditional Ghost Rider motif (hell, demons, the supernatural) while still giving us stories like this one, which takes all those traditional elements and filters it through a digital/technological filter. With the visual representations shown in this issue, this could easily be Johnny Blaze taking a trip through Hell to fight Satan; but it's also completely different and hinges totally on archetypes and some very literal translations of Hell. L-Cypher is given the narration boxes this issue and he's an interesting creation, squatting at the heart of Thrillsville like a giant spider in the middle of a cybernetic web.
Less interesting are the side plots that take up a large chunk of this issue. I'm not as invested or as enamored with Kabal and his group of flunkies as Kaminski seems to be, as multiple pages are given over to their side of the story. The whole Undernet subplot is one I could do without, to be honest, as it takes away from the truly fascinating parts of the 2099 world, namely Ghost Rider himself and Transverse City as an entity. I guess the "corporate espionage" angle is in-line with Zero's new status as a Federal Marshall, but it actually grinds the comic's momentum down to a screeching halt.
What's also less than thrilling is the artwork by Wood and Daly, who are seemingly having difficulties with deadlines. Compare the artwork from even the last issue, let alone the ones where Wood was illustrating solo, to the art in this issue. There's a downgrade in visual comprehension, with characters sometimes just floating in amorphous white or black space without much in the way of backgrounds behind them. Everything is scratchy and scribbled, and while that's part of the charm of Wood's art at its best doesn't lend itself to readability when it's rushed. They do a nice job on things like Cyberus and the hellish vibe of Thillsville, but I'm not digging the shorthanded nature of some of their pages.
This issue is a good start to what will hopefully be a solid arc, provided the script focuses on what works versus what doesn't and the artwork picks itself up off the ground. Hesitantly recommended.
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