Cover Date: November 1994; On Sale Date: September 1994
Writer: Larry Hama; 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 is an Apache "spirit kiva", where he has is experiencing a vision/hallucination of the Wendigo walking hand in hand with this two missing kids. During the vision he is confronted first by Icebox Bob and then by Bob's master, who claims to have met Blaze once before but is unrecognized by John. He claims to have Blaze's children and he'll be seeing him soon enough. John wakes up in the hut and is pulled free by Warpath and Wyatt Wingfoot, who believe Blaze to be a thief or even a killer that they're hunting for. When Blaze tells them about his vision of the Wendigo, Warpath and Wingfoot reveal that they too both had visions of the Wendigo that drew them to this area.
They show Blaze a grisly murder scene, where a family were the latest victims of a serial killer on the Apache reservation. All of the family's children had been killed but one, 5-year-old Jesse Pinto, who has gone missing. Warpath had received a vision of Jesse walking with the Wendigo, mirroring Blaze's own vision. At the local trading post, Blaze tries to convince Clara to use her magic eyes to find the kids, but she refuses, believing that the eyes are trying to corrupt her. Wyatt Wingfoot offers an alternative, and at his home he places the jar with the eyes in a magical basket, transporting himself, Blaze, Clara, and Warpath to the spirit realm. There they see the Wendigo, Icebox Bob, and hundreds of souls being devoured by a demonic entity. Once the vision ends, Wyatt gets a phone call that tells him there's been another murder and the killer is trapped inside.
Outside the trading post, they're told by the police that the killer may be a college student named Darryl Licht, who had been at the reservation studying Native American shamanism. Blaze and Warpath enter the store and are attacked by Licht, who has been transformed into a powerful new form by a mystical entity in exchange for the souls of the people he's murdered. Licht escapes out into the desert, and is followed by Blaze and Warpath. They find Licht being powered by the entity he made the deal with, who is using Licht to get a foothold into their realm.
THE ROADMAP
Blaze last appeared in a back-up story in Ghost Rider (1990) Annual # 2.
The identity of Icebox Bob's master who kidnapped Blaze's children is revealed in Blaze (1994) # 6.
CHAIN REACTION
The Blaze series kicks off a new arc, "Apache Autumn", which brings in a whole host of new characters to the ongoing search for John's missing kids.
It's been a helluva long time since I've reviewed an issue of the Larry Hama Blaze series, years probably, so going back to re-read this issue brought back a whole rush of memories about why I love this series so much. It certainly would have been easy for Hama to just fill up this series with call backs to the original Ghost Rider series. In fact, that's almost what it seems like is happening with the monster that's kidnapped the kids saying they've met before and Blaze just doesn't "recognize me in this form". That immediately made me think it was like Asmodeus or some other demon from the 1970s Ghost Rider series, which certainly would have been cool, if a little expected. When the demon does get revealed as a character we've never seen before it kind of throws the stuff in this issue out the window, though, so I wonder if there were some behind-the-scenes chicanery going on that caused some last minute plot changes.
Anyway, this issue starts "Apache Autumn", which is billed as a 3-parter but really only lasts for two issues and an unrelated story listed as part three. Hama brings in a lot of Native American mythology for this arc, such as the Wendigo and the Trickster God (that turns out to be just committing God Fraud by way of mistaken mystical identity), and characters like Warpath and Wyatt Wingfoot. I'm a little surprised we didn't get Danielle Moonstar thrown in for good measure, but I have no idea what her place in continuity was at this point in time. Come to think of it, damn, this would have been a perfect place to bring back Linda Littletrees! Oh well, even with the severe lack of Witch Women, Hama definitely did his research into the folklore, giving us an interpretation of the Wendigo that was new to me. Usually the Wendigo is treated as a man transformed into the monster for partaking in cannibalism, but here he's more of a "friendly woodland protector spirit". That's fine, because it fits the narrative, but it's a radical departure for what the character is usually used for. It's the details in this issue that really sells it, along with Hama's distinct way of writing dialogue for Blaze and the other characters. John comes off as macho but sensible, if that makes any sense at all, and I like how he's written in this series just as much as when Mackie was at the helm.
Henry Martinez continues as the regular series artist, and his work just gets better and better with each issue. When this guy started out on Spirits of Vengeance, his work was really raw and not quite ready for prime time, but wow has his skill improved and grown. He works with really thin lines to his figures, not a lot of heavy blacks or anything else to set the mood, which makes things look a bit sunnier and cheerier than you would expect. It totally works for the series, though, and he nails all of the weird and creepy things that Hama introduces, such as Darryl Licht's new body. He's got a second torso with arms stacked on top of the first set and the head of a demonic buffalo, that's gotta be hard to put on paper for the first time.
Blaze was such an overlooked gem of the mid-1990s, much like Ghost Rider 2099 from the same period, and I highly suggest tracking it down if you can find the run. Definitely worth the search.
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