Cover Date: June 1993; Publication Date: April 1993
Writer: Ann Nocenti; Artist: Steve Lightle; Letterer: Jon Babcock; Colorist: Steve & Marianne Lightle; Editor: Terry Kavanagh; Editor in Chief: Tom DeFalco; Cover Artist: Steve Lightle
In the realm of madness, Typhoid has attempted to commit suicide by hurling herself off a cliff, which has resulted in the spirit of Mary Walker to start fading away in the real world. The innocent souls of Danny Ketch and Eve attempt to revive the dying Mary, while in the madness realm Ghost Rider carries Typhoid's broken body. With the prayers of the people gathered inside the mall giving them strength, Ghost Rider, Typhoid, and Eve rise up through the realm of madness and reappear inside the mall, where each of them merge with their pure souls again. Mary wakes up as her Typhoid persona and tearfully thanks Danny for saving her life.
Dusk, however, has followed from the realm of madness and takes corporeal form inside the mall, creating waves of insanity in his wake. While Typhoid flees in terror, the civilians in the mall fight back against Dusk's manifestations. Dusk focuses on Father Louis, chasing him into a bathroom where he is nearly caught and killed before Ghost Rider arrives to save him. Ghost Rider wrestles with Dusk, who is weakened by being on the mortal plane, but is eventually overwhelmed. Father Louis refuses to leave and Ghost Rider tells him to bless something to help drive away the demon. The pastor blesses the water in the toilet, turning it into holy water, and Ghost Rider shoves Dusk's face into the bowl. The holy water destroys Dusk, his threat ending when Ghost Rider flushes him down the toilet. Typhoid, meanwhile, has fled back to her home and the safety of her pills. Ghost Rider muses that it is not madness that drives him, instead it is vengeance.
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| It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world |
THE ROADMAP
This issue of Marvel Comics Presents also contained stories featuring Wolverine, American Eagle, and Iron Fist.
Typhoid Mary appears next in Marvel Comics Presents (1988) # 150, when she sends out a psychic distress call to Danny Ketch that is intercepted instead by Vengeance.
CHAIN REACTION
"The Walking Wounded" concludes with a highly satisfying ending that really illustrates that this was not, in fact, a team-up story after all.
I don't think there's much debate that this was the best Ghost Rider story to run in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents, because just from a technical standpoint the writing and the art are top notch all around. I can certainly understand if some of the themes of femineity and the role of women in society aren't what one is looking for in a Ghost Rider story, of course, but I appreciate that Ann Nocenti is willing to weave such heavy and potentially divisive concepts into her narrative. While most people would probably point to Longshot as Nocenti's biggest contribution to Marvel I'd personally have to give the nod to Typhoid Mary. You can tell from this and other stories that the character is one that Nocenti is very fond of and likely identifies with in some ways. She's too nuanced to not be based at least somewhat in reality, and that fits pretty ironically in a story that's all about madness and unreality.
The other big heavy concept of this serial has been the thin line between madness and vengeance, and how easily Ghost Rider can cross the line from one to the other. I like the dénouement at the end of this chapter, where Ghost Rider decides that madness doesn't in fact drive him, even though he's just flushed a demon down a toilet filled with holy water. Nope, that's perfectly sane right there. I really love that ending on a lot of levels, where it utilizes the crisis of faith that the pastor has gone through in earlier chapters as the actual weapon to defeat Dusk. I also really love that Typhoid chooses to just run away instead of standing and fighting with Ghost Rider against Dusk. This isn't a team-up story, it's a story about victims and how individuals react differently to trauma. Typhoid lashes out and eventually runs in the face of her own insanity, while Ghost Rider just doubles down and denies it completely.
Steve Lightle, where to end things in my discussion about him and his artwork? He's as much a defining creator on Typhoid Mary as Nocenti at this point, having illustrated both this and the previous Wolverine crossover serial, and his work fits things perfectly. His artwork has this haunting beauty to it, where Typhoid looks like a deranged supermodel and Dusk cheerfully breaks the page construction with his hallucinations. Lightle's Ghost Rider also looks amazing, he pulls off the gritty edge of the character without making him look like a harsh contrast to Typhoid and her world. Just amazing work on every level.
A lot of Marvel Comics Presents was filler. I mean, a LOT of it. So to have a story like this play out in those teasing 8 page installments was like being given a beautiful birthday present. Sometimes you got to fight through the desert to reach the oasis, you know?
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| Flushed away, all his plans gone down the drain |
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