First things first: I love that Tony “The Walking Dead” Moore is drawing this arc. He’s perfect for it.
We start with the aftermath/recap of the last big arc, where Team Ghost Rider lost the battle for Heaven, Zadkiel assumed the throne, Caretaker died, and the Spirits of Vengeance were removed–leaving folks like Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze significantly depowered.
I wasn’t clear as I read through the extended summary whether anything was new or just restated, but having it all set forth in a single narrative was helpful.
Writer Jason Aaron takes us through many of the Ghost Riders of the past and explains that the Spirits of Vengeance were created by God to serve as a counterbalance for mankind’s evil nature.
Each spirit inhabited a mortal body, and Zadkiel’s job was both to manage them and to keep their origin a secret.
This seems like a good time to acknowledge that I have not given every Spirit of Vengeance a character tag–some only appear once or for a few panels and they’re just not important enough to tag.
The Caretaker, now dead, learned those secrets–and now Sister Sara (his daughter) must protect them.
The Deacon and Blackout are after her and the surviving Ghost Riders, and have murdered all the nuns in her convent. They’re looking for “bastards” to help them murder Danny Ketch, on behalf of Zadkiel–the new ruler of Heaven.
I think there are only three Spirits of Vengeance still bonded to humans after the big war on Heaven–Danny, Johnny Blaze, and Deputy Kowalski (aka Vengeance–who worked for Zadkiel during the war).
The Ghost Riders of the Future arrive to help Sara…Sent by her future self. They don’t do anything yet–just appear and look cool.
Each issue of this three-issue arc focuses on one of the three main characters. Sara gets the first issue. #34 gives us a Danny story in which we see the death of the demon trucker from the old U.S. 1 series.
Very nice touch. I never tagged the characters from that book, just the titular hero, and I’ve included that character tag below since completists of that cult classic will want to see this story.
In the final issue of the series, #35, Sara tracks down Johnny Blaze as he defeats a demon called “Skin Bender.” Sara convinces him to keep fighting–that Zadkiel hasn’t won yet.
On the final page, Skin Bender–who was fused into a gruesome ball by Ghost Rider–emerges on a ship. He’s not dead after all.
To close this series out, Jason Aaron promises us great adventures to come in a few months in Ghost Riders: Heaven’s On Fire.
All of this is set up. Nothing very important happens in these three issues. But it’s all great fun to read. Jason Aaron has taken the patchwork mythology of Ghost Rider and made it a coherent narrative–and if it takes three issues to set up the next big chapter in that story, it’s worth the wait.
English (US) · 