Cover Date: October 2021; Publication Date: August 2021
In Arizona, Johnny Storm (the Human Torch) accompanies the Thing to a shoe store. When the Torch goes into the back room of the store he finds himself seemingly transported to Hell. There he finds Johnny Blaze, who explains that they're not actually in Hell but instead trapped in some kind of illusion. Blaze suddenly hits Storm in the face and the two begin fighting, until they are interrupted by a group of demons. While Storm realizes the demons are actually innocent humans, Blaze transforms into the Ghost Rider and attacks the Human Torch. Deciding not to fight, the Torch flies away, while Ghost Rider finds a van and transforms it into his hellish ride to give chase.
While flying through "Hell", the Torch finds a train seemingly full of demons, including a ferocious looking cat demon. Ghost Rider catches up and tackles the Torch, crashing both of them into the train. The Torch attempts to flee again but is attacked by the cat demon, which he uses as a distraction against Ghost Rider. The Torch then ties Ghost Rider's chain around a heavy food cat and tosses it off the train, dragging Ghost Rider along with it. Having won the fight, the train and the landscape change back to normal, revealing that they've been in Chicago the whole time. The Human Torch is then teleported and frozen in front of Agatha Harkness, who congratulates him on winning the battle.
Johnny Blaze made his last appearance in Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Weapons of Vengeance Omega (2023) and appears next in Ghost Rider (2022) Annual # 1.
Surprisingly, this is the first time Johnny Blaze and the Human Torch have appeared in a comic together. The Human Torch has had interactions with the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider, most notably in Fantastic Four (1961) # 374.
CHAIN REACTION
Ghost Rider fights the Human Torch for seemingly no reason whatsoever in an extremely disappointing issue-long fight scene.
The selling point of this comic is obviously the fight between two heroes, echoing back to the original "Contest of Champions" from the 1980s, but there's no explanation given as to WHY the two heroes are fighting outside of a mention of Agatha Harkness and the Darkhold on the recap credits page. I'm all about hero-on-hero battles, they're a staple hallmark of Marvel Comics, but there at least needs to be a good reason for them. I'm sure in the overarching storyline of "Contest of Chaos" there IS a good reason for the hero fights, but this comic right here doesn't supply that and it makes one of those heroes look really bad.
Johnny Storm and Johnny Blaze are both hotheads known to throw punches before sitting down to think things through, but having Blaze start a fight for seemingly no reason with a known superhero makes him look recklessly antisocial. The fight is incredibly contrived and not as enjoyable to read as one would hope. I mean, it has its moments, sure, such as Ghost Rider's hippy van and the Human Torch deciding to fly away both times he's confronted by his woefully more powerful opponent. That does bring me to the cringe finish to the story, though, with the Human Torch beating Ghost Rider with something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. I get that writer Zac Gorman had a mandate to make the two heroes fight each other, and probably was told which one had to win, but I can't get behind the mechanics of it all.
Then there's the artwork by Alan Robinson, last seen in the New Fantastic Four mini-series earlier in the year. I think I appreciated his artwork more during that series than his work here, though it's certainly more than appropriate for an issue of Fantastic Four. He does a good job differentiating the potentially similar Johnny Blaze and Johnny Storm, and his Ghost Rider is drawn appropriately well, there's just something missing from the action sequences. I can't even really put my finger on what it is, it just looks a little lifeless to me. And whoever decided to saddle Johnny Storm with that god awful handlebar moustache needs to have a talking to about it, because it looks ridiculous.
So, it's a rather lackluster crossover Annual appearance in another title where Ghost Rider is almost guaranteed to be the butt of a joke in comparison to the Human Torch. It is what it is, I suppose.
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