Blackout Kills Danny Ketch

[mrosa]

I don't know if people here loved the '90s Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch. I loved the first years of the series and then it turned into a mess with bad writing and incomprehensible art. For me the best story of the series was the ongoing feud between Ghost Rider and the vampire Blackout.

Blackout first showed up in #2, working for the crime boss Deathwatch; he had to recover some canister containing a biotoxin that could kill millions of people, blah blah blah. I don't think these early stories were very strong, but Blackout's brutality and viciousness always impressed me, starting with his first appearance:





Even for the series, this was pretty violent. Later in the issue he butchered another family:



And had his first fight with Ghost Rider:







Then in their second meeting, it went from strictly business to deeply personal when this happened:





To make matters worse, Blackout found out Ghost Rider's secret identity and did what you'd expect a psychopath with a grudge would do: he started killing his family and friend, starting with Danny's comatose sister, Barbara:





Blackout's slaughter of his friends and family was an ongoing story for over a year until it reached its climax with #25. Finally emerging from the shadows he contacts Danny and begins a sinister cat-and-mouse game with him:



Ha ha, yeah right:



Oh shit, he actually thought this through!

Danny realizes just how serious Blackout is when he kidnaps his mom practically in front of his eyes:



Powerless, Danny goes meet the villain at his own house and the inevitable happens:





His line - "Maybe. Maybe not. You'll never know, Danny. You'll never know." - is utterly creepy.



For my young mind this was mind-blowing, the villain actually killing the hero. I had never seen anything so amazing in comics! Then the stories got stranger and too bizarre for my taste and I lost interest in the series. But this arc became impressed on my mind. Whenever I think of really successful villains, it's not Magneto or Dr. Doom that comes to mind, but Blackout biting Danny's throat in his own front lawn. What a horrible, sordid and inglorious way for a hero to go.

Comments

[cainofdreaming]

And his brother should have been Ghosty before her.

[icon_uk]

IIRC his brother WAS Ghost Rider before him, since Johnny Blaze was Danny's sibling.

[cainofdreaming]

Yup, but not that particular Ghostie. Their mother made it so that Johnny evaded the Kale line curse, so Mephisto made him a host for Zarathos instead.