Cover Date: October 2023; On Sale Date: August 2023
Writer: Benjamin Percy; Artist: Geoff Shaw; Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham; Colorist: Rain Beredo; Editor: Mark Basso & Darren Shan; Editor in Chief: C.B. Cebulski; Cover Artist: Ryan Stegman
At a motel somewhere in New York, Johnny Blaze reads a newspaper article about a ritualistic killing at a small house. He travels there and encounters Wolverine, who tells him that "it's happening again" and this time they're going to do something about it.
Years before, social worker Ada Flores arrives at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters with a young boy named Bram, hoping to find help for the child. They're met by a hostile Wolverine, who is called off by Xavier. While Bram mingles with the X-Men, Xavier speaks with Flores, who tells him that Bram is an orphan and the other children at the orphanage are terrified of him. Xavier scans Bram's mind and is attacked by a supernatural force inside the boy, prompting the Professor to ask Flores and Bram to leave. Meanwhile, at New York Coliseum, Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson prepare to put on their motorcycle show for a sold out audience. During the show, Johnny gets a vision of a demonic creature, which causes him to crash his bike.
Bram is returned to the orphanage, where he murders all of the other children and forms their bodies into a grotesque statue. Bram returns to the Xavier school where the demonic creature inside him nearly kills the X-Men. When Wolverine cuts Bram, having deduced that he is connected to the demon, the creature escapes with the child into the night. At the Coliseum, Johnny wakes up and tells Roxanne about his vision, then transforms into the Ghost Rider and goes in search of the demon he saw. Ghost Rider comes across two cars on fire, the passengers fused into another demonic statue, and is then attacked by Wolverine, who believes the Rider to be the same demon that attacked the X-Men. Bram, meanwhile, is found on the road by Flores, who takes him away to try and help him.
Returning to the present day, Blaze and Wolverine discover that one of the bodies found in the empty house was Ava Flores, who had raised Bram as her own over the intervening years. Wolverine asks Blaze if he's ready to finish what they started years before, and Johnny transforms into the Ghost Rider, riding side by side with Wolverine to find Bram.
THE ROADMAP
This story continues next in Ghost Rider (2022) # 17.
Ghost Rider and Wolverine last encountered one another in Ghost Rider (2022) # 6.
The flashback sequence is hard to pinpoint when it comes to continuity, as it doesn't really fit anywhere. For Johnny Blaze to still be doing the cycle show with Roxanne Simpson, it would have to take place in the six month downtime in the middle of Ghost Rider (1973) # 4, circa the same time as Marvel Team-Up (1972) # 15. Wolverine's flashback appearance, however, falls just after the Dark Phoenix Saga around Uncanny X-Men (1963) # 138, which was published years later when Johnny Blaze was a nomad travelling around the mid-west.
CHAIN REACTION
Ghost Rider and Wolverine come together for their inevitable crossover, considering that both titles are written by Benjamin Percy.
I wonder how long in advance Percy had this story planned, because when he had Wolverine guest-star in an earlier issue of the Ghost Rider series he portrayed them as being old friends when in reality the two have had very little contact with one another. The Ghost Rider that Wolverine had the history and connection with was the Danny Ketch version, the one that co-starred in Hearts of Darkness and the like with him in the 1990s. So for Johnny Blaze to suddenly have this untold history with Logan was an interesting continuity kerfuffle that this crossover hopes to correct.
Percy has history with Wolverine, much more extensively than with Johnny Blaze, and the characterization shows. He has a handle on Wolverine, making him the volatile force of wild nature that the character was back in the days of the flashback sequence, much more so than he does on Blaze and that character's history. It's hard to get continuity right, I can see that perfectly, but it's the little things like Johnny's relationship with Roxanne and his time as a stunt rider that ring true while his status quo as the Ghost Rider doesn't quite work. Back in the days of the flashback sequence Johnny was still in control of the demon inside him, and the "vengeful spirit" motif had yet to be established. I think I'm just nitpicking, but when you're setting things in such specific eras of the character's history the details should matter.
Geoff Shaw is an artist I'm very familiar with, given his status as the co-creator of Cosmic Ghost Rider and his work with writer Donny Cates on numerous projects over the years. His artwork here certainly doesn't disappoint, as it gets across the visceral nature of Bram and his grotesque body horror statues without going over the top with the gore. He draws a fantastic Ghost Rider, really capturing the aesthetic of the 1970s incarnation of the character, and his Wolverine is appropriately ferocious. This comic is dark, in every sense of the word, and the artwork reflects that perfectly.
I'm certainly interested in where this storyline goes as the present day part kicks in, especially now that the necessary flashback portions are out of the way. Solid stuff from Percy and Shaw.
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