On Sale Date: April 1991
Title: "Spirit of Vengeance"
Writer: Jim Valentino
Artist: Jim Valentino
Inker: Steve Montano
Letterer: Ken Lopez
Colorist: Evelyn Stein
Editor: Craig Anderson
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Cover Artist: Jim Valentino
The 31st Century Guardians of the Galaxy are orbiting above the planet Sarka, recovering from their recent adventures and scanning for a bomb that they believe was left behind by one of their enemies. When the bomb explodes in their ship's gymnasium, two of their members Vance Astro and Aleta are caught in the blast. Meanwhile, on the planet's surface, an outlaw priest named Autolycus that is waging a war against the Universal Church of Truth believes that the Guardians' ship contains the Church's Black Knights. He transforms into the Spirit of Vengeance and departs on his flying death-cycle toward the orbiting ship.
On their ship, none of the Guardians have been harmed by the explosion, but they realize that repairs will have to be made. They track an incoming bogey from the planet and one of the Guardians, Starkhawk, goes into space to intercept the Spirit of Vengeance. Still believing the Guardians to be members of the Universal Church, the Spirit impales Starhawk on the front of his death-cycle and leaves him to die floating in space before continuing on to the ship. Vance Astro, who hails from Earth's 20th century, recognizes the Spirit of Vengeance as "some kind of Ghost Rider". When they find that their ship is unable to destroy the Spirit's cycle, Aleta flies out to meet him. She is able to convince the Spirit that the Guardians are not part of the Church he boards their ship to meet them. The Spirit tells the Guardians that he is trying to free his planet from the the Universal Church's oppressive regime that corrupts the innocent and sends Black Knights to destroy him. They are interrupted by the youngest member of the Guardians, a shapeshifter named Replica, who denounces the Spirit as a demonic murderer of priests that they must kill. The Spirit, seeing the symbol of the Universal Church on Replica's necklace, believes that the Guardians were lying to him and that they all must now die at his hands.
On their ship, none of the Guardians have been harmed by the explosion, but they realize that repairs will have to be made. They track an incoming bogey from the planet and one of the Guardians, Starkhawk, goes into space to intercept the Spirit of Vengeance. Still believing the Guardians to be members of the Universal Church, the Spirit impales Starhawk on the front of his death-cycle and leaves him to die floating in space before continuing on to the ship. Vance Astro, who hails from Earth's 20th century, recognizes the Spirit of Vengeance as "some kind of Ghost Rider". When they find that their ship is unable to destroy the Spirit's cycle, Aleta flies out to meet him. She is able to convince the Spirit that the Guardians are not part of the Church he boards their ship to meet them. The Spirit tells the Guardians that he is trying to free his planet from the the Universal Church's oppressive regime that corrupts the innocent and sends Black Knights to destroy him. They are interrupted by the youngest member of the Guardians, a shapeshifter named Replica, who denounces the Spirit as a demonic murderer of priests that they must kill. The Spirit, seeing the symbol of the Universal Church on Replica's necklace, believes that the Guardians were lying to him and that they all must now die at his hands.
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| The FIRST "Cosmic Ghost Rider"! |
THE ROADMAP
This issue is the first appearance of Wileaydus Autolycus, the Spirit of Vengeance of the 31st century. He will go on to make several more appearances in the 1990s Guardians of the Galaxy series and makes his next appearance in Guardians of the Galaxy (1990) # 14.
CHAIN REACTION
CHAIN REACTION
The Ghost Rider of the far future is introduced in the pages of Guardians of the Galaxy!
The 1990 Guardians series was a strange piece of fruit for Marvel. It was the brainchild of writer/artist Jim Valentino, who cultivated the title into a solid success by filling it full of soap opera elements borrowed from Chris Claremont X-Men and future versions of established Marvel characters that popped up in nearly every issue. By this point in the series' history there had already been future X-mutant characters, Firelord, aliens inspired by Iron Man, Wonder Man and the Vision, and soon enough even the Punisher is going to get reference as a character inspiration. So it shouldn't have been any surprise at all when Valentino introduced a future Ghost Rider, considering how big a success the 20th century version of the character was at the time. It's a sales-boosting gimmick, sure, just like most of the Guardians issues, but it's also a really solid read.
I'm going to bypass discussion of the soap elements and character interaction, though they're all fairly interesting in their own right, in favor of skipping straight to the character of Autolycus and his version of the Ghost Rider. It would have been easy to just do a straight 90s Ghost Rider remix but Valentino takes the concept and bolts it onto something that I'm honestly shocked hadn't been used much before: organized religion. Taking a character that literally embodies Old Testament vengeance and making it outlaw faction fighting against the religious establishment is highly creative and a great dichotomy to hang the character's flaws upon. As shown in his interactions with the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Spirit of Vengeance is just as dogmatic and zealous as the Universal Church, going so far as to impale Starhawk on his awesome space skull-cycle and threaten to murder the people he's just met on nothing but a hunch. It takes the character to a pretty natural conclusion, with the twist that he's probably not much better than the oppressive regime he's trying to overthrow.
Valentino also did the artwork for the Guardians series, and while he wasn't the best or flashiest of the Image Comics exodus of artists he could certainly tell a story. His design for the Ghost Rider, with the "future space" flourishes and alien touches to the skull and cycle, is both refreshingly unique and familiar at the same time. His version of Ghost Rider looks mean and imposing without forgetting that he's in a science fiction story. The two-page spread of panels where he impales Starhawk, recreated on the cover as well, is particularly great.
Guardians of the Galaxy hung its hat on introducing supporting characters that drew in fans of other titles, it did it very regularly and sometimes to the title's detriment. In this example, though, the twist on the familiar Ghost Rider elements makes for an engaging story that doesn't just trade off its recognition factor.
The 1990 Guardians series was a strange piece of fruit for Marvel. It was the brainchild of writer/artist Jim Valentino, who cultivated the title into a solid success by filling it full of soap opera elements borrowed from Chris Claremont X-Men and future versions of established Marvel characters that popped up in nearly every issue. By this point in the series' history there had already been future X-mutant characters, Firelord, aliens inspired by Iron Man, Wonder Man and the Vision, and soon enough even the Punisher is going to get reference as a character inspiration. So it shouldn't have been any surprise at all when Valentino introduced a future Ghost Rider, considering how big a success the 20th century version of the character was at the time. It's a sales-boosting gimmick, sure, just like most of the Guardians issues, but it's also a really solid read.
I'm going to bypass discussion of the soap elements and character interaction, though they're all fairly interesting in their own right, in favor of skipping straight to the character of Autolycus and his version of the Ghost Rider. It would have been easy to just do a straight 90s Ghost Rider remix but Valentino takes the concept and bolts it onto something that I'm honestly shocked hadn't been used much before: organized religion. Taking a character that literally embodies Old Testament vengeance and making it outlaw faction fighting against the religious establishment is highly creative and a great dichotomy to hang the character's flaws upon. As shown in his interactions with the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Spirit of Vengeance is just as dogmatic and zealous as the Universal Church, going so far as to impale Starhawk on his awesome space skull-cycle and threaten to murder the people he's just met on nothing but a hunch. It takes the character to a pretty natural conclusion, with the twist that he's probably not much better than the oppressive regime he's trying to overthrow.
Valentino also did the artwork for the Guardians series, and while he wasn't the best or flashiest of the Image Comics exodus of artists he could certainly tell a story. His design for the Ghost Rider, with the "future space" flourishes and alien touches to the skull and cycle, is both refreshingly unique and familiar at the same time. His version of Ghost Rider looks mean and imposing without forgetting that he's in a science fiction story. The two-page spread of panels where he impales Starhawk, recreated on the cover as well, is particularly great.
Guardians of the Galaxy hung its hat on introducing supporting characters that drew in fans of other titles, it did it very regularly and sometimes to the title's detriment. In this example, though, the twist on the familiar Ghost Rider elements makes for an engaging story that doesn't just trade off its recognition factor.
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| An intense staring contest! |
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