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| Cover Art: Sam Keith |
Original Price: $1.50
Title: "Return of the Braineaters, Part 6: Showdown"
Writer: Chris Cooper
Artist: John Stanisci
Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti & Ken Branch
Letterer: Steve Dutro
Colorist: Fred Mendez
Editor: Terry Kavanagh
Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco
SYNOPSIS
Ghost Rider and Jack Russell are on the trail of the Braineaters, who are chasing the young boy Billy. Russell takes silver bullets and merges them with Ghost Rider's chain, which when thrown into the Braineaters prevents them from ever becoming werewolves again, causing their deaths if they attempt to transform. The gang's leader, Scuzz, arrives and battles Ghost Rider on the rooftop of a building, but allows himself to be impaled on a spiked fence rather than become a normal human again. Later, Dan Ketch and Jack Russell talk about how Billy has been reunited with his remaining family. Dan laments that he's unable to control the Ghost Rider, so before he leaves Jack tells him that if he ever needs a friend he just has to listen for the howling to know he's there with him.
ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
This issue of Marvel Comics Presents also contained stories featuring Wolverine/Typhoid Mary, Demogoblin, and Pip the Troll.
REVIEW
The Werewolf by Night team-up concludes in a strangely anticlimactic fashion.
I've been a big fan of this serial since jump street and was honestly surprised by how much trashy gold Cooper and Stanisci managed to conjure. This easily could have been a throwaway story, and it's not surprising that it hit its highest marks when it focused on the characterization of its grimy setting versus the action pieces. It was those action pieces that bogged the story down unnecessarily, almost like the creators were afraid to write a Ghost Rider story that hinged on mood and atmosphere instead of violence and fist fights. This conclusion plays to that weakest element of the story with an extended fight sequence and a conclusion that sacrifices all of the world building Cooper had maintained throughout most of the arc.
Stanisci struggles here, too, because he's out of his element with the action pieces. His art worked best when it was embracing the 1970s urban horror tone and when he's forced to drag the story into a fight scene his work really suffers. He still draws a nice Ghost Rider, his werewolves are still looking like feeble dogs, but there's nothing pulpy about this installment. He also really doesn't sell the twist of the heroes' plan to fuse the Ghost Rider's chain with silver bullets, which instead just looks like a bunch of bullets poked through the holes in the chain links.
I'm disappointed in this one, not because this concluding chapter was so much bad but because it threw away all the promise of the earlier installments. I'd still recommend it, just know that the middle part of the serial is the best it gets.
I've been a big fan of this serial since jump street and was honestly surprised by how much trashy gold Cooper and Stanisci managed to conjure. This easily could have been a throwaway story, and it's not surprising that it hit its highest marks when it focused on the characterization of its grimy setting versus the action pieces. It was those action pieces that bogged the story down unnecessarily, almost like the creators were afraid to write a Ghost Rider story that hinged on mood and atmosphere instead of violence and fist fights. This conclusion plays to that weakest element of the story with an extended fight sequence and a conclusion that sacrifices all of the world building Cooper had maintained throughout most of the arc.
Stanisci struggles here, too, because he's out of his element with the action pieces. His art worked best when it was embracing the 1970s urban horror tone and when he's forced to drag the story into a fight scene his work really suffers. He still draws a nice Ghost Rider, his werewolves are still looking like feeble dogs, but there's nothing pulpy about this installment. He also really doesn't sell the twist of the heroes' plan to fuse the Ghost Rider's chain with silver bullets, which instead just looks like a bunch of bullets poked through the holes in the chain links.
I'm disappointed in this one, not because this concluding chapter was so much bad but because it threw away all the promise of the earlier installments. I'd still recommend it, just know that the middle part of the serial is the best it gets.
Grade: B-
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