Writer: Rob Williams; Artists: Lee Garbett & Emanuela Lupacchino; Inker: Guillermo Ortego; Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles; Colorist: Robert Schwager; Editors: Sebastian Girner & Ellie Pyle; Senior Editor: Stephen Wacker; Editor In Chief: Axel Alonso; Cover Artist: Blankas
Alejandra, the Ghost Rider, bursts into a strip club and decapitates the Seeker, the zombie that was responsible for giving her the Spirit of Vengeance (though he's quick to point out that Zarathos chooses his host, not him). She is determined to go to Hell and rescue the souls of the Nicaraguan village that she was responsible for damning, and the Seeker tells her to find Adam for the power boost she needs. She teleports to the desert and pulls Adam through a portal, positioning him high above a building. He agrees to give her the power she needs, happy that it will allow her to spread vengeance to Hell. Meanwhile, Johnny Blaze is having a conversation with Doctor Strange about the Ghost Rider, with Blaze agreeing that Alejandra needs to be stopped after she turned against them to side with Blackheart. Strange opens a portal to Hell, but Blaze shoots him in the foot and rides into the portal alone, saying that the Ghost Rider is his responsibility only.
In Hell, an armored Alejandra storms the gates of Mephisto's realm, slaying her way through an army of demons. Blaze follows her trail and is besieged by more demons, who are forced to back off when he produces the contract he has with Mephisto, which the demons claim is a "great weapon". He continues on through Hell and finds a giant-sized Alejandra fighting Mephisto in a lake of fire. While the two fight, Blaze transforms the contract into a shotgun shell. Mephisto gains the upper hand against the Ghost Rider, but before he can claim victory Alejandra punches her hand into his chest and rips out of his heart. She threatens to destroy his heart, which will consequently destroy Hell and all of creation, if he does not return the Nicaraguan souls. He does so, but Alejandra decides to destroy his heart anyway, and is only stopped when Blaze fires his shotgun through her skull. She shrinks down and falls, grabbing onto a ledge above the lake of fire. When Blaze tries to save her, she lets herself fall while the Spirit of Vengeance returns to Johnny. He plunges into the fire after her, and as the Ghost Rider he pulls her burnt body to safety and makes his way back to Earth. In Nicaragua, Blaze as the Ghost Rider explains that while Alejandra is no longer the Spirit of Vengeance she has retained some of its power. He shows her that she was successful in her gambit against Mephisto, the souls have been returned to the people she wiped the sin from, but that's not good enough for her. She claims that she is due revenge on Blaze for what he helped do to her, and the two part ways, with him telling her to come find him when she's ready.
In Hell, an armored Alejandra storms the gates of Mephisto's realm, slaying her way through an army of demons. Blaze follows her trail and is besieged by more demons, who are forced to back off when he produces the contract he has with Mephisto, which the demons claim is a "great weapon". He continues on through Hell and finds a giant-sized Alejandra fighting Mephisto in a lake of fire. While the two fight, Blaze transforms the contract into a shotgun shell. Mephisto gains the upper hand against the Ghost Rider, but before he can claim victory Alejandra punches her hand into his chest and rips out of his heart. She threatens to destroy his heart, which will consequently destroy Hell and all of creation, if he does not return the Nicaraguan souls. He does so, but Alejandra decides to destroy his heart anyway, and is only stopped when Blaze fires his shotgun through her skull. She shrinks down and falls, grabbing onto a ledge above the lake of fire. When Blaze tries to save her, she lets herself fall while the Spirit of Vengeance returns to Johnny. He plunges into the fire after her, and as the Ghost Rider he pulls her burnt body to safety and makes his way back to Earth. In Nicaragua, Blaze as the Ghost Rider explains that while Alejandra is no longer the Spirit of Vengeance she has retained some of its power. He shows her that she was successful in her gambit against Mephisto, the souls have been returned to the people she wiped the sin from, but that's not good enough for her. She claims that she is due revenge on Blaze for what he helped do to her, and the two part ways, with him telling her to come find him when she's ready.
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| She's beautiful when she's angry. |
THE ROADMAP
Alejandra and Blaze both appeared last in Venom (2011) # 14, which was the conclusion to the "Circle of Four" crossover. During that storyline Alejandra turned against the other heroes and joined with Blackheart, who promised to return the souls of the Nicaraguan town that she sent to Hell in Ghost Rider (2011) # 3.
The Seeker and Adam both last appeared in Ghost Rider (2011) # 7, where Adam mystically teleported Alejandra to Japan for a fight with Steel Wind and Steel Vengeance.
Blaze made his contract with Mephisto in Ghost Rider (2011) # 4, where he sold his soul for a "space bike" that would allow him to travel to an orbital space station commandeered by Adam and Alejandra.
Alejandra was killed by Blackheart in Venom (2011) # 13.2. She was sent to Hell and made a deal with Mephisto be resurrected in Venom (2011) # 13.3.
Blaze appears next as the Ghost Rider in a one-panel cameo in Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) # 19 then makes his next full appearance in Uncanny Avengers Annual # 1.
Alejandra makes her next appearance in Absolute Carnage: Symbiote of Vengeance # 1.
This issue contains an afterward text piece written by Rob Williams addressing the title's cancellation.
CHAIN REACTION
Alejandra ends her brief time as the Ghost Rider by way of a bullet to the head and a mercy killing cancellation of her title, just when things were finally getting interesting.
After the events of the "Circle of Four" crossover in Venom, Alejandra has crossed the line from morally grey anti-hero to outright villain. Naturally she's wanting to do right by the people she harmed, but her way of doing so is actually making her into a fairly fascinating lead character. She's the extreme opposite of the original Blaze/Zarathos duo, where instead of the demon being wild and out control it's the human host that allows her recklessness to endanger not just innocent lives but all of creation. In his text piece at the back, writer Rob Williams laments that he didn't have Alejandra's character down from the beginning, and I agree with him when he says it took this many issues to make her fully fleshed out and interesting as a protagonist. The early issues featured a lead character that was flat and static and ultimately boring as hell to read about. This evolution of Alejandra, from innocent victim to supernatural juggernaut that keeps making just the worst choices possible, makes for a nice character arc. Naturally, it doesn't do much to make her likable, she was a horrid character during "Circle of Four" and that extends here as well. Her attempt at atonement, her sacrifice that returns the Spirit of Vengeance to Blaze at the end, is even undercut by her blaming him for "taking away" the power that she gave up. Alejandra sucks as a person, but I guess that's kind of the point?
Anyway, this series ends the only way it really could, with Alejandra kicked to the curb and Johnny Blaze back in the saddle again as the Ghost Rider (despite all the talk in the early issues about that could never ever ever EVER happen, naturally). Alejandra becomes, at best, a footnote in Ghost Rider history that will only be brought up in crowd shots or whenever a writer wants to reference obscure continuity. Felipe Smith got a lot of mileage out of her in Ghost Racers, though, which goes to show that Alejandra can be pretty badass in the right context. This series was far from being that, though, and Alejandra's delayed characterization was a big part of that.
The most egregious part of this series, though, was the treatment of Johnny Blaze, who I don't feel Williams ever had a handle on. He was just "weird redneck", which now that I think about it isn't too far off from the Nicholas Cage film portrayal. Maybe that's the vibe Williams was going for with Blaze, but it hit way off the mark, making him a buffoonish cartoon instead of the southern badass that Jason Aaron wrote so well. Blaze gets handled a little better in this issue, though, because he does at least acknowledge that this entire series was predicated by his bad decision to give up the Spirit of Vengeance (though it's a false sense of responsibility, since it was a near character-breaking mistake to have Johnny willingly condemn another person to his curse, but I've talked at length about that plot point in earlier reviews of this series).
So Williams hits the big reset button after a confrontation with Mephisto, one which really just feels like the writer trying to make his character do something big and important before shuffling off to what will essentially be comic book limbo. The Mephisto fight does at least feel somewhat earned, though, given everything that happened in the title's first arc and in the Venom crossover. I still say it would have made much more sense to have "Circle of Four" be the crossover it was intended to be and allow this series it's own chapter, but instead we got what we got and this final issue came out two months after the one before. It makes for a weird disconnect from what went before, like "Circle of Four" was the title's real end and this is just some strange epilogue or coda. So much stuff was still left up in the air, even with the extended page count for this issue, like Adam and the Seeker both still being out there in the world. I never much cared for those two and the way they were implanted into an already confusing mythology for the Spirit of Vengeance, but I'll be surprised if they ever get referenced again.
The artwork for this issue is split between two artists: Lee Garbett, who had become the de factor lead artist on the series after Matt Clark left, and Emanuela Lupacchino, who I'd seen on some X-Factor stories around this time. Garbett was the glue that really held this title together, his work was always a welcome sight and he does a great job on the opening and final pages of this issue. I wish he'd got a chance to draw the male Ghost Rider more, because he does a great job on the design at the end. I always appreciated that Garbett was able to make the Alejandra Rider look feminine without trying to make a flaming skeleton look sexy. Lupacchino comes in to draw the middle section, which involves the big fight against Mephisto, and it's all okay I suppose. Her work is very clean and soft, it lacks the edge for a story like this, but it tells the story perfectly well.
When all is said and done, Alejandra Jones and her time as Ghost Rider was a colossal failure. Marvel seemed really keen on replacing Blaze with new characters, and though this first attempt didn't quite work they were able to use the formula to much greater success a few years later with Robbie Reyes. I'll be very interested to see if Alejandra makes a comeback in a decade's time, much like Danny Ketch did during the mid 2000s. Let's hope she's developed more of a personality by then.
After the events of the "Circle of Four" crossover in Venom, Alejandra has crossed the line from morally grey anti-hero to outright villain. Naturally she's wanting to do right by the people she harmed, but her way of doing so is actually making her into a fairly fascinating lead character. She's the extreme opposite of the original Blaze/Zarathos duo, where instead of the demon being wild and out control it's the human host that allows her recklessness to endanger not just innocent lives but all of creation. In his text piece at the back, writer Rob Williams laments that he didn't have Alejandra's character down from the beginning, and I agree with him when he says it took this many issues to make her fully fleshed out and interesting as a protagonist. The early issues featured a lead character that was flat and static and ultimately boring as hell to read about. This evolution of Alejandra, from innocent victim to supernatural juggernaut that keeps making just the worst choices possible, makes for a nice character arc. Naturally, it doesn't do much to make her likable, she was a horrid character during "Circle of Four" and that extends here as well. Her attempt at atonement, her sacrifice that returns the Spirit of Vengeance to Blaze at the end, is even undercut by her blaming him for "taking away" the power that she gave up. Alejandra sucks as a person, but I guess that's kind of the point?
Anyway, this series ends the only way it really could, with Alejandra kicked to the curb and Johnny Blaze back in the saddle again as the Ghost Rider (despite all the talk in the early issues about that could never ever ever EVER happen, naturally). Alejandra becomes, at best, a footnote in Ghost Rider history that will only be brought up in crowd shots or whenever a writer wants to reference obscure continuity. Felipe Smith got a lot of mileage out of her in Ghost Racers, though, which goes to show that Alejandra can be pretty badass in the right context. This series was far from being that, though, and Alejandra's delayed characterization was a big part of that.
The most egregious part of this series, though, was the treatment of Johnny Blaze, who I don't feel Williams ever had a handle on. He was just "weird redneck", which now that I think about it isn't too far off from the Nicholas Cage film portrayal. Maybe that's the vibe Williams was going for with Blaze, but it hit way off the mark, making him a buffoonish cartoon instead of the southern badass that Jason Aaron wrote so well. Blaze gets handled a little better in this issue, though, because he does at least acknowledge that this entire series was predicated by his bad decision to give up the Spirit of Vengeance (though it's a false sense of responsibility, since it was a near character-breaking mistake to have Johnny willingly condemn another person to his curse, but I've talked at length about that plot point in earlier reviews of this series).
So Williams hits the big reset button after a confrontation with Mephisto, one which really just feels like the writer trying to make his character do something big and important before shuffling off to what will essentially be comic book limbo. The Mephisto fight does at least feel somewhat earned, though, given everything that happened in the title's first arc and in the Venom crossover. I still say it would have made much more sense to have "Circle of Four" be the crossover it was intended to be and allow this series it's own chapter, but instead we got what we got and this final issue came out two months after the one before. It makes for a weird disconnect from what went before, like "Circle of Four" was the title's real end and this is just some strange epilogue or coda. So much stuff was still left up in the air, even with the extended page count for this issue, like Adam and the Seeker both still being out there in the world. I never much cared for those two and the way they were implanted into an already confusing mythology for the Spirit of Vengeance, but I'll be surprised if they ever get referenced again.
The artwork for this issue is split between two artists: Lee Garbett, who had become the de factor lead artist on the series after Matt Clark left, and Emanuela Lupacchino, who I'd seen on some X-Factor stories around this time. Garbett was the glue that really held this title together, his work was always a welcome sight and he does a great job on the opening and final pages of this issue. I wish he'd got a chance to draw the male Ghost Rider more, because he does a great job on the design at the end. I always appreciated that Garbett was able to make the Alejandra Rider look feminine without trying to make a flaming skeleton look sexy. Lupacchino comes in to draw the middle section, which involves the big fight against Mephisto, and it's all okay I suppose. Her work is very clean and soft, it lacks the edge for a story like this, but it tells the story perfectly well.
When all is said and done, Alejandra Jones and her time as Ghost Rider was a colossal failure. Marvel seemed really keen on replacing Blaze with new characters, and though this first attempt didn't quite work they were able to use the formula to much greater success a few years later with Robbie Reyes. I'll be very interested to see if Alejandra makes a comeback in a decade's time, much like Danny Ketch did during the mid 2000s. Let's hope she's developed more of a personality by then.
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| Amen, Alejandra. |
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