Cover Date: December 1994; On Sale Date: October 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 and Warpath are in a fight with a college student named Darryl Licht, who bartered the souls of murder victims to an entity he believed to be a Native American trickster god. The entity is actually the same one that kidnapped Blaze's children, and he has bestowed supernatural power to Licht, transforming him into a six-armed buffalo demon. Licht easily defeats Blaze and Warpath and uses magic to transport them inside a nearby mesa. Wyatt Wingfoot, Clara Menninger, and the rest of the Quentin Carnival arrive too late to see where Blaze and Warpath have been taken, finding only Blaze's abandoned motorcycle and shotgun.
Meanwhile, in the the dimensional prison formerly inhabited by the deceased Ice Box Bob, the entity locks away Blaze's children, Craig and Emma, and they are soon visited by someone entering their cell through the floor. The visitor is Jesse Pinto, who was given to the entity by Licht. He has a plan to escape and seek revenge using the magic nail file used to kill Ice Box Bob.
Back inside the mesa, Licht rants to the mystically bound Blaze and Warpath, while outside Clara uses the eyes of the Kristall Starrer to find their location. While Warpath breaks free of his bonds and attacks Licht, Clara and Princess Python ride Blaze's motorcycle toward the mesa, bringing the shotgun with them. Blaze concentrates his hellfire to escape his own bonds, while in the prison dimension the Wendigo appears riding mystical rails, taking the nail file with him from Jesse before disappearing again. The Wendigo appears inside the mesa and hands the nail file to Blaze just as Clara and Princess Python arrive, giving the shotgun back to him as well. Blaze sticks the nail file through a 12-gauge round and shoots it through his shotgun at Licht, which when combined with the hellfire disrupts the entities magic and transforms Licht back into his human body. The mesa disappears and Blaze threatens Licht, wanting information on who he made his deal with and where he can find his children.
THE ROADMAP
The identity of Icebox Bob's master who kidnapped Blaze's children is revealed in Blaze (1994) # 6.
The origin of the magic nail file comes from Blaze (1994) # 3, when the ghost boy Holden Carver used it to kill Ice Box Bob, stating that the file is a "piece of steel with the number 7 on it", which gives it mystical power.
CHAIN REACTION
"Apache Autumn" continues as the Blaze series soldiers on valiantly.
It's a damn shame that not many folks, even among Ghost Rider fans, acknowledge the Blaze series for what it was trying to do at the time. This was when Howard Mackie was steering the main Ghost Rider series away from the supernatural, and to balance that Larry Hama and Henry Martinez leaned hard in the opposite direction. This comic is weird, like four-armed buffalo man weird, and it gleefully revels in its weirdness. Its actually really endearing.
Even with all the bizarre stuff happening, Hama is somehow able to keep things relatively grounded. He's able to do that mainly through his characterization of John Blaze, who takes everything in stride as just another Tuesday in a haunted mesa. Blaze is a rock around which Hama has all the other elements revolve, naturally since he's the title character, but he has Blaze treat it as so deadpan that it creates an even more surreal tone than if everything was just weird upon weird.
This is also a very complicated comic with lots of jumps to different characters and strange locations. Hama tries to bring potential new readers up to speed, but god help anyone who picked this up as their first issue because it is severely dense. It does an excellent job of building on the issues preceding it, utilizing things like the magic nail file and the jar of eyeballs in ways that continue to justify their recurrence. It hinges a lot on coincidence, sure, but that's part of what makes this issue hang together so well. Its providence instead of convenience when the Wendigo walks through dimensions with the magic macguffin.
Henry Martinez is the real MVP of this series, and his work has come such a long way since he first came on board Spirits of Vengeance. His work has this ethereal quality to it that makes all the supernatural stuff look just out of place enough that it creates dissonance instead of a time clash. The proportions of Licht in his buffalo form don't quite work, but I can't imagine that being easy to draw from a description.
Blaze was a very brief highlight in the 1990s. More people should be talking about it.
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