The Marvel Rundown: Revenge of the Ghost Rider Lore in Spirits of Vengeance #1

Welcome back, True Believers! The Beat’s Marvel team is back with your guide to the new and notable in the Marvel Comics universe! Our spotlight this week is on a new era for Ghost Rider and the Spirits of Vengeance in Spirits of Vengeance #1 by writer Sabir Pirzada and artist Sean Damien Hill. Stick around for the Rapid Rundown including thoughts on Avengers #18, Venom War: Venomous #2, and Ultimate X-Men #7 by superstar Peach Momoko.

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Excelsior!

SPIRITS OF VENGEANCE #1
Writer: Sabir Pirzada
Artist: Sean Damien Hill
Inkers: Craig Yeung and Jay Leisten
Colorist: Andrew Dalhouse
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
Cover Artist: Kendrick “Kunkka” Lim

It is undeniable that Ghost Rider is one of the great concepts and visuals in superhero comics. The man who sold his soul to the devil  while damning himself to be a flaming skull riding a hellfire motorcycle and punishing evildoers forever is a purely absurd concept. That absurdity allows creators to go absolutely wild with far-out ideas while simultaneously probing profound philosophical and theological ideas of good, evil, damnation, and salvation. With that visual, no drama is too melodramatic, no stakes too high or unbelievable. There’s something purely cool about the character in his simplicity. 

Yet, like all characters with decades of serialized storytelling history to their name, the Spirit of Vengeance, has been saddled with immensely complex history and revisions, with multiple people taking the mantle. Part of that history was exciting coming into this first issue of Spirits of Vengeance. Initial solicits made the series sound as if it was a major cross-generational team up that would see each of the Ghost Riders gather together in a big, cool as hell crossover. For all the weight of continuity, the cool factor would far outweigh any need to know much about the concept and personal histories. Instead, Spirits of Vengeance is strangely bright (visually and thematically) book that focuses solely on the original Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze and reintroduces a villain that has not been seen in decades. We are introduced to Blaze in a silly misadventure that cheekily but specifically calls back to one of the character’s earliest adventures from before the time of the character was nailed down. It’s a fun but disposable scene that really shows nothing about who Blaze or Ghost Rider are. It is the problem with this first issue as a whole—this is a book for people who love this character and his winding history, not for people who want to rock with a story about a skeleton man with a flaming skull riding a motorcycle fighting demons and the dregs of humanity. 

Sabir Pirzada’s script relies on readers having a bachelors’ in Ghost Rider history for any of its teases or revelations to be meaningful or interesting. That’s not inherently a bad thing in superhero comics but Ghost Rider is such a pure concept that it feels like a waste. Worst of all, the book doesn’t deliver on its apparent premise of a big Ghost Rider team up. 

Credit to penciler Sean Damien Hill, who goes all out every time the Spirits of Vengeance light up their skulls. The whipping flames and inhuman angles that Blaze contorts himself into on that motorcycle are incredibly rendered and undeniably cool. The layouts rely on the vertical composition of the page, eschewing widescreen action to instead give the daredevil Johnny Blaze and the whipping flames of his skull room to soar and crackle toward the horizon.

The inking team of Craig Yeung and Jay Leisten are indistinguishable from one another and keep the art looking crisp and clean without overly detailing or embellishing the effects work. The colors in the issue from Andrew Dalhouse don’t serve the linework, though. Most of the story takes place in bright blue skies and empty cornfields, which provides little to no contrast to the Ghost Rider’s flames. It saps the character of some of his imposing nature. This is a character inherently designed to be a creature of the night. The daytime settings are probably not totally on Dalhouse, as the script likely indicated the action to take place during the day. The book is clearly going for an incongruous, lighthearted tone but it winks a few too many times at the reader in an attempt to be clever—and the returning villain lacks gravitas as a result. The letters by VC’s Travis Lanham attempt to give the demon some additional visual edge, which is appreciated.

It is hard to make a bad Ghost Rider comic. The character’s fundamentals are too solid and archetypal. This is a solidly constructed issue with moments of pure absurdity. But it simply has little to offer to readers not already invested in the arcane history of Marvel demonology.

Final verdict: BROWSE 

RAPID RUNDOWN

• Avengers #18
  • If you ever wondered what a mashup of The Authority and Star Trek would look like, read this issue. The forgotten superhero Hyperion, from the Avengers 2021 story arc Heroes Reborn, decides to end his existence and take the world out by smashing into Earth at near-light speed. To avoid these catastrophic results writer Jed MacKay and artist Valerio Schiti have the Avengers plan a fatal solution to Hyperion’s threat in the most authoritative fashion, reaching out to allies and combining their powers and abilities to set a devastating trap for him. Adding to the threat is the countdown clock of 5 hours for the Avengers to enact their plan and this is the strength of the issue, MacKay moves the characters around in a fashion that is logical and easter egg nerdy at the same time grounding the Avengers in the Marvel Universe with emotional connections. Add Schiti linework and color artist Bryan Valenza‘s beautiful rendering and the artwork is dynamic, lush, and powerful for the best type of Trek ending you could get in a superhero comic. – GC3
• Venom War: Venomous #2
  • Tie-in comics are a Big Two oddity in comics and require tact and skill to be deemed minutely successful or worth the cover price. Thankfully, of the many tie-in minis Marvel is pumping out for Venom War, Venom War: Spider-Man and Venom War: Venomous feel like the only required reading; or rather, that reading the main crossover title is required to parse the tie-ins themselves. See, what Erica Schultz started in Venomous #1 between Natasha, Sliver, and Flash, has suddenly been thrust into a Liz Allan/Misery side-plot directly spilling out from Venom War #2. So while other Venom War tie-ins can narratively dillydally, Venomous and Spider-Man have stuck to the crossover continuity as it happens, so they feel like the load-bearing tie-ins that are careful with their developments at the cost of limiting their wiggle room for other narratives to form. While Schultz finds as natural a way as possible to spin Misery into this Black Widow book, the most we get out of being here last time is in the anti-venom storyline that runs perpendicular to Venom War’s central antagonist, Meridius’ evil plan. Other than the normal headache of being a tie-in, Schultz provides some cheap buddy action that scratches the itch and gives some great laughs at the expense of Flash Thompson. Luciano Vecchio may draw Flash far more stiff than Natasha or Misery, but his linework rigidity amplifies some of the slapstick gags cooked up here. Beyond a couple spreads to visually mimic how action stutters in a montage of violence, Venomous #2 moves at a near constant pace with little down time, so it can feel cheap on a month-to-month read, but should feel more consistent in trade; sadly. Rachelle Rosenberg continues to utilize primary hues to help divide areas of interest or punch up moments, but the compositional focus takes a hit with how bright the palette is all together. Rosenberg’s ability to create atmosphere has evaporated between Venomous #1 to #2– she mostly employs an underlit gradient set to glow or screen to separate foreground and background layers, but it’s difficult to unsee once you’ve seen it several times over several pages in the same issue. This is more a fault of where Marvel colorists fall in the production pipeline for high demand books that feature too many characters to articulate atmosphere with verisimilitudinous precision. VC’s Ariana Maher gets more back-forth banter to split into bubble stacks with swinging bridge-tails, though I’m personally obsessed with the little scarred tails that chortle out of symbiote balloons. If y’all have been reading Maher’s work on DC’s Absolute Power, then you’ll be able to trace the stark contrast between how the current Marvel Comics limits letterers to art-ignorant uniformity whereas DC Comics fosters letterer creativity even on their high demand books; hell, they both pay, so whichever is most fulfilling, I’ll say. All in all, Venomous continues to be the standout tie-in for Venom War in all regards even if it’s only that classic Marvel schlock you’ve come to know [and possibly love]. — Beau Q.
• Ultimate X-Men #7
  • Peach Momoko and her J-horror influenced take on Marvel Mutants in Ultimate X-Men continues to surprise with each issue. The big draw with this book continues to be the freaky visuals. This issue she gets to draw some scenes reminiscent of Japanese horror icons Takeshi Miike and Junji Ito (a briefcase and giant eyeball are involved). Her use of water colors and fluid brushwork grounds her horrific images. She’s as expressive conveying human emotions as she is the fantastic. They also finally connect this series to the story of the Ultimate universe with the introduction of the Children of the Atom cult. It seems Emperor Sunfire has an interest in cultivating a group of young mutants and this cult exists to do that. Momoko seems more interested in what it means to be a mutant than remixing the basic concepts of a more traditional X-Men book. Their take on the concept seems wholly inspired by the books’s old tagline “The strangest teens of all time!” The focus on everyday life and eschewing of traditional superheroics in favor of horror remains refreshing. These are ordinary kids caught up in the extraordinary and terrifying. How they handle that kind of conflict is far more fascinating than folks beating each other up. -D. Morris