Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 20

"Picking Up the Pieces"

Cover Date: March 1994; Publication Date: January 1994

Writer: Howard Mackie; Artist: Henry Martinez; Inker: Bud LaRosa; Letterer: Bill Oakley; Colorist: John Kalisz; Editor: Bobbie Chase; Editor In Chief: Tom DeFalco; Cover Artist: Henry Martinez

John Blaze has returned to the former site of the Quentin Carnival, which has been taken over by the United States military, with the goal of erasing all the data on the supernatural members of the carnival that the government has collected. Once inside the base, John loses contact with his back-up team of Wolf, Quinn, and Kody. He then encounters the ghosts of his deceased friends from the carnival who have something they need him to do for them before they can move on. They lead Blaze to a lab where scientists have been performing tests on some of the Styge demons that survived the destruction of the carnival. While the Ghost Battalion holds off the incoming soldiers with their ghostly weapons Blaze enters the lab and kills the demons, despite the protests of the scientists. As he goes to leave, Blaze discovers the limbless body of Steel Wind, who also survived the carnival’s destruction. She asks him to kill her due to the pain she feels from Centurious’ magic, but Blaze instead chooses mercy and carries her out, hoping to help her. John says goodbye to his dead friends and exits the facility, on his way to rendezvous with Wolf and Kody.

 

THE ROADMAP

Blaze last appeared in Blaze: Legacy of Blood (1993) # 4, where he was reunited with his wife Roxanne and his children, Craig and Emma.

 

The destruction of the Quentin Carnival happened in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 10 and the site was taken over by the military in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 12.

 

CHAIN REACTION

Spirits of Vengeance starts its countdown to cancellation with the first of four vignettes tying up loose plot threads.

If this series had an important through line prior to being derailed for crossovers, it was the Quentin Carnival and how Blaze had inadvertently gathered around a crew of supernaturally empowered people around him. This was easily one of the most fascinating aspects of the series during the first year, with its focus on both blood and found family for Blaze and how his adventures with Ghost Rider were destroying both. Six months later, after an onslaught of crossover issues, Spirits finally gets back to what made it so successful in the first place. 

This issue really sells the guilt that Blaze feels for essentially dooming many of his friends to some rather gruesome deaths. Mackie’s Ghost Rider stories hadn’t really delved into government conspiracy or X-Files territory before this point, though both will come into play in upcoming stories. It works well here, with the government being this amorphous blob of a creature represented by some rather overzealous scientists. The Ghost Battalion is an interesting concept, allowing John to both say goodbye to the people he got killed and receive some form of forgiveness. Steel Wind and the Stygian demons are to provide John with choices, both of vengeance and of mercy.

Henry Martinez continues to improve by leaps and bounds with each new issue. There is still some rawness to his work, but his storytelling and character emoting are becoming more and more solid. Here he gets to sell both Blaze’s guilt and his rage and does both believably. The colors are vibrant, too, especially the eerie glow given to the Ghost Battalion.

This is overall a solid comic and finally a return to form for this series. Too bad it’s too little, too late to save it from being canceled.