Ghost Rider and his weird Cameos!

[shakalooloo]

For those wondering what happened to Skrymir's corpse after Immortal Thor #1, or pondering where Danger is during this whole fall of Krakoa business, turns out they're in Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance #1 this month, an overall very strange issue.






For context, the issue opens with the most blasé transfer of the Ghost Rider powers since Johnny just gave them away to some dude in a bar back in Volume 7. Mephisto just strips them from him. Yeah, turns out Mephisto could have done that at any time, which makes one wonder why he never did all the times that GR has thwarted his plans?

Anyway, Zarathos goes flying around the world and even into space, briefly possessing other people before moving on. He even possesses a BROOD at one point, so I guess they have souls now or something?

Naturally, he stops off to take control of a headless frost giant corpse.




So... Skrymir's vengeance was somehow justified since he was raging against an imposed monarchy?

Zarathos can also possess mechanoids, it seems.




Yeah, just a casual mass-murder on Danger's hands, no biggy.

The issue ends with Zarathos finding purchase in who I assume will be the host for the rest of this mini, and while I shan't post it here, the design really does look just like Spawn got a flaming skull head for himself!

Art by Danny Kim, coloured by Bryan Valenza

Comments

[blueprintstyles]

Interesting use of Danger, feels like that should warrant at least a one-shot.

[shakalooloo]

Yes! There surely needs to be some resolution to the "and then..?" that results from her coming to her senses once back in control of her rage.

And surely True Orchis must be interested in a mechanoid so close to the X-Men!

[beyondthefringe]

These definitely feel like they deserve more attention than just brief snippets. Like… the spirit of vengeance possessing Skrymir feels like a big deal.

[cainofdreaming]

So, we're back to Mephisto controlled Zarathos, instead of Heaven's shock troop? I guess they ran out of origin retcons and had to resort to rehashes.

[scorntx]

Either that or the retcons have reached critical mass and collapsed in on themselves.

[numeronone]

X-Men: "So, thanks to Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel helping out, we've eliminated that Orchis backdoor in the Krakoan medicines that was making otherwise blameless humans attack each other and jump out of buildings!"

Johnny Blaze: "......yeah, um, about that......"

[numeronone]

Polaris: "Broo, you have total control over all Brood in the known universe, right? If I borrow some to do a little mass-murder, it won't spill over or anything?"

Broo: "Of course. Why would you think otherw--"

Zarathos: "FUNNILY ENOUGH,"

[numeronone]

I'd do a third joke re: the last page of this issue, but there's only so many times you can pull the "Stop trying to make Fetch happen" reference before it gets tired.

[super_fly]

Gotta know how you write demonic code, do you grab a damned soul who worked for a tech company when they were alive?

[blues32]

...so every human looking at a screen just got penance stared?

[cygnia]

...would that that worked over on 4Chan...

[dan_ingram]

So we're in "Somehow, the Emperor returned" territory, huh?

[shakalooloo]

With a side-helping of "Mephisto did it!"

[bruinsfan]

Hadn't they reverted Ghost Rider/Johnny Blaze to being a product of Daimon and Satana Hellstrom's father again rather than Mephisto? I'm sure I've at least seen references to them being two separate beings in somewhat recent years rather than using Mephisto as a placeholder for everything infernal.

[cainofdreaming]

If you're thinking of what I'm thinking then that wasn't Satan (of "Son of" fame) but Lucifer. Totally different guys, apparently.

[bruinsfan]

Ugh, it's like musical chairs. I guess it's Thog's or Satannish's turn to be the demon responsible next?

[cainofdreaming]

To be fair, I don't remember whether Lucy actually claimed to be behind the curse. He might just have been the first one on the site when it came time to pull Blaze's ass into hell.

[shakalooloo]

If they had, then they reverted it right back again in this issue: it is explicitly Mephisto that both gave and took away the Ghost Rider.

[scorntx]

On the one hand, yay, Danger's still alive.
On the other, this is not a step up.