Cover Date: November 1995; On Sale Date: September 1995
Writer: Len Kaminski; Artist: Ashley Wood; Inker: Jim Daly; Letterer: Richard Starkings and Comicraft; Colorist: Christie Scheele w/ Violent Hues; Editor: Joey Cavalieri; Editor in Chief: Bobbie Chase; Cover Artist: Ashley Wood
L-Cypher has taken control of Thrillsville, a holographic theme park, and has transformed into a literal representation of Hell. While SHIELD watches from a camera feed, Ghost Rider is confronted by the Arch-Fiends, humans corrupted by L-Cypher to be his followers. The five beings - named Reaper, Pyre, Serpentine, Shambler, and Misery - are absolutely devoted to their master and quickly attack the Ghost Rider. L-Cypher watches and muses about how he has used the park's solidigram programs to make himself a solid body, and how the Ghostworks created and then locked him away on the Internet. While he was imprisoned he came up with the plan he is now implementing, and the transformation of the Arch-Fiends are but the first step.
Meanwhile, Kabal's group of mercenaries are engaged in a firefight at the Vault of Forbidden Sciences. They grab what items they can and escape, prompting the guardian of the vault to contact Kellerman at D/Monix to report the break-in. While Kellerman is pleased that his forced compliance to President Doom does not mandate him to relinquish control of the vault, he is unaware that the battle broke the seals on a chamber that houses a collection of severed heads in cryogenic storage that have come back to awareness.
Back in Thrillsville, the Ghost Rider continues his fight against the Arch-Fiends. Elsewhere in Transverse City, Dr. Neon is contacted by the mysterious hacker that is determined to destroy the Ghost Rider and a partnership is forged between the two. Kabal's mercenaries report back to him about the fiasco at the vault, and he assumes that they were betrayed by Anesthesia Jones. Finally, Synergy is visited in SHIELD custody by Heartbreaker, who kills him out of revenge. Ghost Rider loses his battle against the Arch-Fiends, and his damaged body is brought to L-Cypher.
 |
| Did his arm just turn into a fork? |
THE ROADMAP
The "One Nation Under Doom" storyline was a loose crossover event between all of the 2099 titles of the time, focused on Doom's takeover of the United States as its new president.
Ghost Rider became the Federal Marshal of Transverse City in Ghost Rider 2099 (1994) # 14.
Heartbreaker tried to kill Max Synergy and failed in Ghost Rider 2099 (1994) # 16.
CHAIN REACTION
Ghost Rider fights the Arch-Fiends while some arguably more interesting things take place around the city.
Okay, I'm going to get this out of the way up front. I've been more than charitable about Ashley Wood and Jim Daly's artwork on this series; Wood started out relatively strong, because while there were some definite clarity issues the style carried things along nicely. Once he slipped behind on deadlines and Jim Daly was brought in as finisher, things took a major turn. Each issue has become progressively worse and this time it looks like the pages were drawn with crayons. I'm not even sure who's at fault, because while it would be easy to blame Daly I imagine it could not have been easy to be an inker for an artist as idiosyncratic as Ashley Wood. The finished product, however, is garish and borders on being unreadable. The action sequences make no sense, and I find myself staring at pages trying to decipher what's happening. I look back at this title's early days with longing, because issue-long fight scenes with scary monsters looked amazing when Kyle Hotz drew it. Here, it's just painful.
I'm also losing patience with the Thrillsville arc on the writing side as well, because Kaminski devotes the majority of the issue to an action brawl that the art can't convey at all. That leaves pages upon pages of nothing happening while the artists scribble furiously. The only bits of interest come in the subplot pages, but even those struggle to keep my interest. Kabal's raid on the archive vault feels like it's been going on for a dozen issues at this point, which hits upon probably my biggest problem with where the series has drifted: too many characters. Transverse City was always one of the most interesting aspects of this series, but Ghost Rider himself is now being pushed out of his own narrative. There are no fewer than 13 supporting characters in this issue, all of varying degrees of importance to the plot, and you almost need a spreadsheet to keep up with everything.
Now, of course, with all that being said this is still a good series. Kaminski is really good at characterization (even though the Arch-Fiends are incredibly bland), and I do enjoy reading his dialogue. I respect his ability to juggle so many moving parts and still keep the story coherent, but by this point I'm starting to tune out. I want the US Marshal arc to wrap up so the series can move on to better things, but it feels like there are so many plates spinning that it will take a considerable amount of effort on the part of the creators and the readers in order to get there.
This series has major problems and it's nowhere near the quality of the first year. I just so badly want it to work, there was so much potential!
 |
| Does not compute! |
No comments:
Post a Comment