Cover Date: January 1995; On Sale Date: November 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
In Washington's Cascade Mountains, John Blaze has tracked down the Wendigo, a Native America folk creature that is supposedly a woodland protector spirit. Before Blaze can shoot the Wendigo, he's shocked to see his children, Craig and Emma, riding on the Wendigo's back along with another young boy.
The day before, Blaze and the Quentin Carnival arrive in the local town just as Kody is confronting Clara over the eyes of the Kristall Starrer. A native woman named Eve Two Crows intervenes, demanding Clara be given back her property, which allows Clara to place the eyes inside her head. Realizing that Eve is the woman they were sent to meet by Wyatt Wingfoot, Blaze follows her inside her office, where she has compiled all known Wendigo sightings in the mountain area. Clara enters wearing a provocative new outfit and blasts the computer with her eyes, pinpointing the Wendigo's location.
In the dimensional prison of Ice Box Bob, the Wendigo enters the cell holding Craig, Emma, and Jesse Pinto. They grab onto the Wendigo's back and allow the creature to take them out of the prison, which is exactly what the demonic entity imprisoning them was hoping for. The entity follows the Wendigo through the portal onto Earth directly behind Blaze, who the children are screaming at the turn around. Seeing the entity's reflection in his motorcycle, Blaze fires behind him, but is blasted by the demon's eye beams. The entity identifies himself as Baal, who wanted to use Blaze's hellfire to free him from the dimensional prison he had been locked within for centuries. The children save Blaze using the magic nail file that killed Ice Box Bob, which wounds Baal. While Baal goes back through the dimensional portal, Craig and Emma check on their dazed father. Jesse Pinto and the Wendigo go to the portal, saying they're going to track down and finish Baal off before he can come back and kill them. Craig and Emma decide to go with Jesse, and John wakes up just in time to see his children disappearing yet again in front of his eyes.
THE ROADMAP
Craig and Emma Blaze disappeared in Ghost Rider (1990) # 50 after their mother was killed by Anton Hellgate. They were spirited away by Baal and held in the same other-dimensional prison as serial killer Ice Box Bob, who attempted to use the children to switch places with Blaze in the prison in Blaze (1990) # 3.
While spending time in an Apache "spirit kiva" in Blaze (1994) # 4, John Blaze had a vision of his children with the Wendigo.
The third child with the Blaze siblings, Jesse Pinto, was sacrificed to Baal by college student Darryl Licht in exchange for supernatural power in Blaze (1994) # 4.
The children and the Wendigo will catch up to Ba'al in Blaze (1994) # 11.
CHAIN REACTION
"Apache Autumn" concludes with a surprising yet ultimately unsatisfying twist.
While Larry Hama continues to have an excellent handle on the characters, especially Blaze, this issue contains some questionable resolutions to a few plot threads. There almost seems to be a weird disconnect between this issue and the last, like the details don't quite add up. For example, it was made very clear that the entity who kidnapped Blaze's kids had a history with Blaze, even being surprised that Blaze didn't recognize him. In this issue, though, the entity is revealed to be a demon names Baal, which doesn't fit at all. I understand Hama tended to just write things as they came to him without much of a structured plan, but the reveal of the big bad as a new character after several issues of build up for some kind of shared history is disappointing.
Hama also makes a few other odd decisions here, such as his interpretation of the Wendigo as a benevolent woodland protector, which is fine in this context but doesn't fit at all with the monster's depiction as it's appeared in the Marvel Universe. From its appearances in the Hulk and X-Men stories, the Wendigo is a man cursed to become a monster after eating human flesh, which obviously isn't the way Hama sees the beast here. Then there's the end with Blaze's kids choosing to leave their father, which is a gut wrenching twist. Unfortunately, its also way too close to the "almost had 'em!" end to issue # 3. I think that might be the biggest flaw in the series, because despite Hama's great characters and truly original plots, such as the floating eyeballs and Ice Box Bob, the tease of the kidnapped children is becoming extremely tiresome.
Henry Martinez continues to be simpatico with Hama, even to a fault. He is still growing into an amazing artist with each new issue, his action and character work are all very good. There's the problem areas though, such as the hugely uninteresting design for Baal, who is just a generic green demon. He was far more intriguing when his physical form was in shadow or distorted by dream worlds, in the real world fighting with Blaze he just comes across as boring.
This is still a good comic, but after five issues of great comics the flaws in this one are too much to not notice.
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