So let's join him for his review of Ghost Rider #10
Stars of Blood
Credits: Howard Mackie (writer), Javier Saltares (artist), Gregory Wright (colourist), Mark Texeira (inker)
Overview: Ghost Rider tracks a serial killer.
Cultural references: A victim of the penance stare references the tagline of Hellraiser.
Review: Today we have another interesting villain thrown at us:
Zodiak, a serial killer who murders youths and leaves astrological markings at
the crime scene. I think he is perhaps named after the Zodiac Killer although the
similarity between the two ends at the name. Ghost Rider is always more
interesting when he takes on street crime and giving him a serial killer to go
toe to toe with is a fantastic idea.
Although Dan accepted The Ghost Rider as a necessary force for good in the world he still
doesn’t fully understand what motivates it. Seemingly nor does the Rider which has begun
questioning its own actions since the Obsessions issue. So, what do we know, as readers, so far? Well, it is a conscious being compelled by urges to seek revenge
for reasons that have been made mysterious and endowed with powers from an unknown
force. I was fine with there being no explanation for any of this before and simply considered the monster/creature /whatever it could be called an elemental force, but it is presented here as some complex mystery. I don’t really understand why it needs to be one. But, here, the narration boxes promise me there will be a payoff for it as soon as distractions like
this serial killer are taken care of. It seems the serial killer is merely the sugar-coating
for an up and coming potentially revealing origins plot.
Unfortunately for Dan, he is still struggling to understand
how exactly his powers work and, frankly, so am I. Now he can't even transform into Ghost Rider at a murder scene. Instead, the daemon possesses him when he
passes by a less interesting, albeit volatile, event involving a gang of teenagers
in an alley. When he tackles them - doing his usual thing of dragging the
knife wielding leader up the side of a building to the roofs - he discovers the thug teenager
knows where Zodiak is hiding seemingly by happenstance.
Did the daemon take over him sensing that this criminal knew the killers location or because
it sensed a murder was about to take place? Perhaps more the former, we’ve
already seen it waits until a death or mutilation has happened like in
issue three before fully possessing its host. I hope to have a concrete
explanation for this handed to me soon because it’s really starting to bug me. At
the very least, I should be thankful that even Dan is confused here. I know it helps to create the sense of the Rider as a competing identity that acts on its own agenda seemingly at will. But, even in the Spider-man comic we have had it unloading a beating on a seemingly random criminal to find out this criminal knows the headquarters or hangouts of the big bad. Do all the villains, even the minor ones, just know everything about each other?
As if you answer my question, Deathwatch contacts and hires H.E.A.R.T. because - I assume - they
display aptitude for being the perfect goons given how brain dead, violent and
reactionary they’ve been behaving since their introduction - I’m sure every overlord
in town is lining up single file to sign them at this point - and Linda Wei continues linking the Ghost
Rider with every major crime in the city whilst delving into the history of the
original character. We see a strange, shadowy figure
watching the report who makes it his own personal mission to hunt Dan down. At
the end of the issue, we see him again, only now he is riding a bike. I’m going
to assume this is Johnny Blaze and, if it is, those letter pages need to start
saying spoiler alert.
Dan talks a lot about being changed by his experiences in recent
issues and I believe him now that he has become more involved in the comic. He tried to remove the bike from
his life, reluctantly used his power to end the weapons threat in the city and
finally came to terms with what he had become and accepted his role as host; I
hope he will begin to answer some of the secrets the writer is keeping from us
soon after this serial killer arc has ended. Becase, ten months in, we really need to be beyond the origin story soon.
Speaking of the killer, we find
out his only a smaller part of a bigger conspiracy. It turns out he only masquerades
as a lunatic with an astrology themed modus operandi and, in actuality, is
attempting to misdirect police of his covert assassinations of drug smugglers
for his and their employer. And it doesn’t say who that is here but I’m
guessing it’s Deathwatch again who is gradally becoming the Red Skull or Ra’s
al Ghul of this series. While all of this sounds good the killer does look kind
of crummy, rather than a human character it seems Mackie has gone for a Scooby-Doo type villain in a mask or some sort of alien.
He is armed with an array of astrology themed gadgets such as his Sagittarius arrows and his robot bodies of Gemini – which he can apparently only create in June – this comics version of the Doom bots. I guess they ran out of ideas when it came to thinking up Aquarius as all he does is spray the Ghost Rider with a hose. Incidentally, the Gemini body is what Ghost Rider was actually fighting the whole issue, while the real killer leaves the scene on a flying platform.
He is armed with an array of astrology themed gadgets such as his Sagittarius arrows and his robot bodies of Gemini – which he can apparently only create in June – this comics version of the Doom bots. I guess they ran out of ideas when it came to thinking up Aquarius as all he does is spray the Ghost Rider with a hose. Incidentally, the Gemini body is what Ghost Rider was actually fighting the whole issue, while the real killer leaves the scene on a flying platform.
Odd moments aside, this was surprisingly a fun and enjoyable issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment