Cover Date: March 1995; On Sale Date: January 1995
Writer: Larry Hama; Artist: Henry Martinez; Inker: Bud LaRosa; Letterer: Bill Oakley; Colorist: John Kalisz; Editor: Bobbie Chase; Cover Artist: Henry Martinez
The light of an opening door appears in a dark room, allowing John Blaze to step through into the darkness. Suddenly, three figures - a woman with an axe, a maniac with a chainsaw, and a soldier with a rifle - attack him before freezing in their tracks. Blaze is approached by the Mad Monk, a robed man whose Murderama attraction, including the animated statues, is under review for addition to the Quentin Carnival. While Blaze is wary of signing him up, the Monk shows him something that might interest him personally: the actual chair that electrocuted Ice Box Bob and a sarcophagus containing the mummified remains of a High Priestess of Baal the Unspeakable. Curious as to how he knows so much about his personal life, John signs the Monk onto the Carnival and tells him to park his rig on the midway of their compound.
Blaze exits the Mad Monk's traveling rig and confers with Kody and Wolf, who are concerned about the fact that no one has ever heard of the Monk's "Murderama" attraction. John shrugs them off by saying that he'll hire on every freak, grifter, and psi-talent in the country to find his missing children. Blaze walks through the Carnival and thinks about the misery of his life while a police helicopter buzzes the Carnival in the sky above. Blaze's thoughts are interrupted by Clara, who is once again wearing the Eyes of the Kristal Starrer and an outlandish leather outfit. She blames John for her inability to control the Eyes, that it was him who made her use them to help find his children. John enters her trailer, unaware that he's being spied on by Princess Python - who in turn is discovered by Kody. The two talk about their feelings toward their co-workers: Python has fallen hard for Blaze, while Kody has long been in love with Clara. They hear a scream coming from the Mad Monk's trailer and decide to investigate, while the cops in the helicopter notice the Monk's truck shaking.
Inside the trailer, the Mad Monk - actually the assassin named Arcade - is held by an arm produced from the Priestess' sarcophagus. The Priestess tells him that their contract demands Blaze's death while Arcade begs for one last shot to murder him. Kody and Princess Python bust into the trailer and are rendered unconscious by Arcade's gas-filled boutonniere. Back in Clara's trailer, John's attempts at fighting off his friend's sexual advances are halted when they see the Mad Monk's trailer transforming into something new. The Carnival members assemble outside the reconfigured trailer, which is now a bizarre funhouse with "Murderworld" written on a large sign. Wolf tells John that Arcade is an assassin that's given carnies a bad name for a long time, then tosses John his shotgun.
Blaze enters and finds Arcade at a podium, directing him toward one of three doors. Unwilling to play the game, Blaze simply fires his hellfire at Arcade, nearly destroying the robotic double of the assassin. Instead of choosing a door, he follows a large coaxial cable into the wall, where another gunshot reveals the hidden Arcade. The assassin pulls a lever and opens all three doors, allowing the three killer robots from the Monk's attraction to attack. Blaze simply tosses his gun over his shoulder and fires, destroying the robots with one shot. Afraid for his life, Arcade opens a door to reveal Kody and Python held in the grasp of the Priestess, who says that she has waited three millenniums as an undead being for Baal's return, only for it to have been halted by Blaze. Blaze fires his gun, blasting the undead creature with hellfire and causing the sarcophagus to fall to the ground. While Kody helps Python outside, Blaze grabs Arcade and tosses him into the sarcophagus with the Priestess and locks it. He goes outside as the funhouse transforms back into a rig and tosses the keys to Wolf, telling his aide to drive the truck into the desert and just lose it. While Wolf drives away in the truck, the police helicopter hovers overhead, announcing futilely over a loud speaker for Blaze to stop where he's at.
THE ROADMAP
Blaze and Clara found out about Kody's true feelings for the blind psychic in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance (1992) # 21.
John halted Baal's attempt at returning to Earth in Blaze (1994) # 6.
Arcade will survive this issue and reappear next in the Wolverine/Gambit: Victims mini-series.
CHAIN REACTION
Larry Hama continues to surprise me with this series as he takes a villain widely thought of as a joke and drops him seamlessly into the ongoing plotline. Thankfully, the characters react to Arcade in much the same way as the readers, not very seriously.
Arcade was a character created back in the late 1970s by Chris Claremont, using him against characters like Spider-Man, Captain Britain, and the X-Men. While some good stories have certainly been told with the villain, it's hard to argue with the common conception that Arcade isn't much of a threat when it comes to most super heroes. He's an assassin who uses a deathtrap filled circus/funhouse to play demented games with his victims. For Spider-Man, and even the X-Men if it's taken in a lighter tone, Arcade fits just fine. But John Blaze as Arcade's protagonist? I wouldn't have thought it could work, but Hama proved me wrong.
While it's never really explained how Arcade came into possession of the Baal sarcophagus, a pretty big plot hole that doesn't even attempt to connect the dots of why Arcade is here in the first place, this issue is such a fun read that I honestly didn't pay that problem much of a mind as I was enjoying it. The part that really sells this story is that Blaze - a character who has faced every sort of demon imaginable - treats Arcade like the joke that most heroes should see him as. Instead of playing along with the Murderworld maze and game that are a staple of Arcade stories, Blaze simply shoots his way through. He effectively undoes all of Arcade's plans with a few pulls of the trigger, and the villain's almost juvenile "no fair!" reaction is priceless. This is encapsulated the best with the last panel on page 17, where John destroys Arcade's secret weapons without even turning around, his gun tossed casually over his shoulder. It's a fantastic moment, and it made me love this issue even more.
Another great thing about this story is that despite the unconventional antagonist it still manages to connect back to the book's overall storyline about John's children. We're also given more subplot moments with Clara and her cursed eyes, and the revelation that Princess Python has fallen in love with Blaze (a subplot that unfortunately goes nowhere when the book is cancelled a few issues after this, a true shame).
But the main shining moment of this issue - and truthfully all of the issues in this series - is Hama's characterization of John Blaze. Through the groundwork established by Howard Mackie, Hama has turned Blaze into a true character independent of his Ghost Rider roots and made him a fantastic lead character, something I had doubts about before this book debuted. I was only a marginal fan of Hama's work on Wolverine, but Blaze was an A+ effort on the writing front month in and month out.
Something unfortunate for the series, however, is that this is the final issue for artist Henry Martinez. This was an artist who came in on very shaky legs with his first few issues of Spirits of Vengeance, but he improved with leaps and bounds on each and every issue of Blaze. His depiction of John matched Hama's characterization perfectly, and the book lost a considerable amount of quality when he stepped down. I'm not sure what happened to Martinez after he left this series, and it's a true shame that he didn't become the A-list talent that he was quickly evolving into.
With a healthy dash of humor added to the normally dark atmosphere of the series, this issue of Blaze is a great piece of work. It's unfortunate that such a quality series was cut down in its prime due to factors beyond the creative team's control.
No comments:
Post a Comment