J-Max was challenged to review 30 issues of Ghost Rider in (roughly) 30
days. Should J-Max succeed he shall earn his freedom (probably not). However
should he fail in this task then he shall be subjected to an attack by
Bees...DEADLY BEES.So let's join him for his review of Ghost Rider #23
Credits: Howard Mackie (writer), Mark Texeira (artist/inker), Gregory Wright (colourist).
Overview: Ghost Rider struggles to free himself as Deathwatch flees the scene.
1 DAY UNTIL Beemageddon!
Exhaustion. Fatigue. Despair. I must go on. I must
finish what I started. I have come too far alone on this journey to go back. I
cannot let Abe win. Allow my conscience and pride to be reduced to a seething
venom farm greater, far more potent than even a million stings. With less than
24 hours remaining on my clock, rest was not an option afforded to me. And so I
moved.
Ghost Rider has been buried alive. Following the
explosion at Deatwatch’s tower the villain has left him amid the charred rubble
of a former seat of power. Mackie’s writing paints the fine details to
accompany and compliment the utter misery of it all. The short burst sentences
conveying the suffocating weight of all the earth. The pain in the heroes every
movement. “So much death. It seeps through rock and debris. The innocent.
Deathwatch’s killers. All buried together. All dead.” In just three pages the narration
has summarised all a reader needs to know. In death we are all equal. Dirt in
the earth. And as Ghost Rider slowly. Laboriously. Curdles over jagged, broken
wood. All around him are the moans and wailings of the dying. All
unidentifiable. Not since issue 7 has such emotion leapt from the pages of this
comic.
Beneath the ground there is darkness, the unknown
and slow movement. Above it there is light, the answers and a fast moving
media. Linda wei begins her report and spin on the situation, the flames still
burning in the background. The camera reflects the fire in her eye and for a
moment maybe we see who she really is. The true demon in her heart as she
reports, bodies wheeled past on emergency bedding bound for a hospital or
morgue. Ghost Rider did this. He was the last person to enter it. The
charitable organization has been destroyed by him. The basement filled to
capacity with the homeless and the casualties are too high to be estimated.
“If there can be any solace found in a grievous
time such as this, it is that witnesses report that the ghost rider was
destroyed by his own hand.” Perhaps her sickest statement is referring to
Deathwatch, last seen in a fit of ecstasy, as unable to be reached “but reports
are that he is grief stricken at the loss of human life.”
By the time a reader has reached the 4th
page and sees Ghost Rider rising to his feet and punching through the earth in
rage shouting “NO!” the shift in the energy of the comic is immediately exhilarating.
Never before in four pages have I been so determined, so invested to see a hero
rise up and take control of his situation and destiny.
But Deathatch is already “tying up loose ends” he
murders his secretary and with the help of two new characters named Hag and
Troll he plans a raid on the prison holding all his men captured following the
assault on Jack’s house. Not to liberate them. To kill them. The stations power
is cut and the three work their way through slaughtering all. Tying
Deathwatch’s escape in with Dan’s entrapment really makes for compelling
reading in this issue.
Once more we also have none main characters
becoming involved in the action. Badilinio equips his men with night vison
goggles but they are too late to stop the three mutants who dodge all their
shots, save one shot that strikes Deathwatch in the shoulder, before
disappearing. Badilinio is still being sold to us this point as significant in
some way and I still wonder how he will tie into the larger mythology of the
book later.
Ghost Rider finds a dying woman who pleads with him
to save her babies. He knows he can’t but he remains with her while she passes
and this continues to fuel his desire to break free of the earth. Ghost Rider
has really removed himself from heroics at times in this comic and it is good
to see a more human side to him. Whether he is a demon, an elemental force or a
personification of something we have had progression out of him. In the past he
has slipped back into mindless “no escape” and “vengeance must be served” grand
standings and acted callous of hostage situations but the comic has used this
as a frmaing device for its humor. This issue is literally buried in agony and
through it we have the keener sense of Ghost Rider as an actual super hero. You
know, a character that we can care about.
He digs and digs until he finds a cove where
survivors crawl away from him opting to risk their lives in the unsteady earth
rather than face something the media has portrayed as a dangerous threat. The
earth gives way and begins to drown a young girl and in an instant he moves in
to save her. When he lifts her his mind flashes back to Barbra Ketch. He
freezes. “You will be safe” he says.
Linda Wei continue to report on the surface -
rescue workers are giving up – there is nothing but death here – the only
comfortable thought for all at home is that Ghost Rider is gone. Suddenly the
ground opens up and he appears carrying the young girl. Her report continues
live from the scene: the ghost rider has “taken a young girl hostage. Police
are moving in.”
Guns are aimed as he drives toward and ambulance
and places her in the back before driving back and pulling all the survivors
from the hole. The police are dumbfounded.
“Cut the live feed.” says Linda and shakes her
finger across her throat. The camera man can’t. The studio is demanding more
footage of this breaking news development. The fog is finally clearing.
Deathatch is at the airport and plans to head to
the middle east where a dictator – Saddam Hussein – pays anyone who can support
in the killing of men, women and children. But it turns out, through an
informant that he has one more loose end to take care of. And it’s now Ghost
Rider. Snowblind is still alive and in critical condition. Ghost Rider and
beats him there. Lifting up the crippled man he demands to know where
Deathwatch may be heading stating that he is going to make an exception in his
vow to never kill. Only for Snowblind to drop a bombshell on him. Deathwatch
has never been human
It’s never been officially stated in the series
that Deathwatch was a mutant telepath so I suppose he could be a deamon
telepath or alien telepath or whatever else he could be that would allow Mackie
to remove him from the series without upsetting the Marvel image too much.
Even with such an abrupt and awkward ending it has
to be said. What a fantastic issue.
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