In the Hills, the Circuses

[shakalooloo]

Ghost Rider #4 (legacy #247)



I think I've finally worked out what I'm not liking about this current Ghost Rider series. Going for a horror-style approach is totally a valid take on the character, but given that he's a flame-headed motorcyclist, I don't think he's suited to a slow-burn (ha!) pacing. Each of these issues starts with several pages of Johnny monologuing to himself, dedicates a quarter of the page-count to the FBI agents pursuing him and takes a lot of panels to depict the GR transformation. Bonus points for when the monster of the month makes a cryptic statement about how GR is not prepared for what's coming.

It all combines to slow the momentum of the main plot to a crawl, and the individual issues aren't even satisfying in themselves; behold the climactic confrontation of this issue's clash with the Circus of Crime!







Also, I'm not convinced that too many of those innocents will be walking away from that experience...

Art by Cory Smith, Oren Junior and Bryan Valenza

Comments

[blues32]

Johnny, I don't want to tell you your business, but sending the mass of human flesh home doesn't seem like a sound solution.

[super_fly]

Just what I was thinking, because best case scenario, the fleshbeast falls apart leaving all the naked individual people to go their own ways, some of them aren't looking all that good.

[thezmage]

The ones on the feet aren't going to be coming away very well.

[jgraygaming]

The Brothers Grimm jumped ship from Night Shift to the Circus of Crime?

[icon_uk]

At a guess, those are creepier looking versions of the The Great Gambonnos, the Circus of Crime's regular acrobat members.

I have no idea who the guy in the horned animal mask is though.

[cainofdreaming]

Rest of his get-up looks like that of the Circus' fire-eater. He never used a mask before to my knowledge, though.

[bravest_spinja]

Looks like a Zodiac refugee.

[beeyo]

I don't know,these panels have compelled me to pick this up

[icon_uk]

Then our work here is done! :)

[shakalooloo]

It's not bad stuff, I just, personally, want a different tone and pace to my Ghost Rider stories.

[beyondthefringe]

I don't like this treatment of the Circus of Crime. They deserve better than to become demonically possessed monsters, or whatever's going on here.

Look, at their heart, they're just circus-themed criminals who job to whatever hero or team needs a quick fight, but I love how committed they are to the theme and how they just keep... doing circus and crime things. They exist on the same level as the Death Throws, Serpent Society, Wrecking Crew, U-Foes... tough enough to be a challenge, but they're not going to destroy the world. And I hate it when writers take these perfectly good villains and well, fuck with them.

Okay, I'm still bitter over the way Bendis casually slaughtered the Night Shift in Moon Knight a few years back.

[scorntx]

It's not helping that someone did the exact same thing with the Serpent Society (or Serpent Solutions, or whatever they call themselves this week) over in Avengers just the other month.

[icon_uk]

IIRC The Serpent Society were already somewhat screwed over by being affiliated, for some bizarre reason, with the Sons of the Serpent, the racist-centric, hate crime committing group.

Were they actually wiped out? That would seriously annoy me, the Serpent Society is a bloody brilliant team when done right.

[scorntx]

I think they just got beaten up pretty heavily, not wiped out.
But they were still turned into Mephisto-worshipping serial killers, which is usually a hard thing to come back from.
(Aside from just refusing to acknowledge it ever again.)

[icon_uk]

Sigh, this is why we can't have nice things...or at least ruthlessly mercenary things who all have very specific snake fetishs.

[beyondthefringe]

I always loved that when Gruenwald created the Serpent Society, he didn't just bring in all the existing snake-themed villains (even though several said nope), he created a bunch more... and then he even created MORE when Viper infiltrated the group for her own ends. Dude was determined to completely saturate the snake-themed villain market. :)

[scorntx]

Is it actually possible to saturate the snake villain market?

[beyondthefringe]

Only if you run out of good snakes.

[scorntx]

Well, when you've gotten down to the Puff Adder...
(okay, actually the Puff Adder is pretty damn scary.)

[mastermahan]

I've always loved the Serpent Society. Sidewinder had something few villains have - a solid business plan.* A supervillain trade union that hooks you up with jobs and yoinks you out of jail in exchange for a cut of the profits is just such a great idea.
It's one of those clever ideas that make a world seem real.

*See also Taskmaster's henchman schools and Hobgoblin's villain identity franchising.

[beyondthefringe]

Seriously, supervillain mercenaries with an actual plan don't get enough credit.
The smart ones -avoid- superheroes and revenge schemes in favor of going where the money is. I love how for a long time, Taskmaster's business plan was "train mooks for other people, run away when discovered."

Really, the villains who get bogged down in "try to kill Spider-Man for the 50th time" or whatever need to get their priorities straight. :)

[icon_uk]

He did WHAT?? Dansen Macabre? The Needle? THAT Night Shift?

Those guys were cool, in a weird, underground sort of a way.

[beyondthefringe]

I always thought so too. So weird. The old Spider-Woman series really helped plant the seeds for a kooky group of low-level oddball threats.

But in Moon Knight, a bunch of them were vaporized by Count Nefaria for failing at their mission.
But wait, it seems as though some or all have been seen again afterwards...
They also got better after being turned into zombies in one of the Marvel Zombies series. So I guess perhaps being supernatural/supernatural-adjacent might be working in their favor for returning from the dead.

[cainofdreaming]

Digger is a fellow horror story host, but we don't all have the security clauses as yours truly. I think they came back from the zombie thing because of a Faltinean intervention. Hood was doing resurrections with the assistance of Dormammu during that time after all.

[beyondthefringe]

Digger's pretty resilient. He's gotten cut in half before and sewn back up so...

Anyway, Digger and Dansen got better after being fried by Nefaria, even if Tick Tock, Misfit, Needle and Tatterdemalion haven't returned yet. But I hope they do. I love how weird they are, especially the last two.

[phantomfo]

I had a similar reaction to the way they killed off Red Ghost's super-apes.

[beyondthefringe]

I really hope they find a way to bring back Red Ghost and his apes. They're such a delightfully goofy concept.

[blues32]

They weren't really all that goofy back in the day. It really got silly when the apes gained super intelligence and Red Ghost basically became Lenny from "Of Mice and Men", playing with rabbits.

Prior to that, they were quite dangerous.

[bravest_spinja]

Unfortunately, Circus of Crime hit a little bit of a wall where phasing out their animal intensive acts has rendered them less evil than lot of traditional circuses, and hypnotizing and robbing their audiences only makes them slightly more evil than Ticketmaster

[donnblake]

I see what you did there with the Barker reference, and I appreciate it.

[shakalooloo]

The one story I would certainly say is unfilmable.

[blues32]

Are we talking about "In the Hills, the Cities"?

[shakalooloo]

Yep. THAT is one thing we'll never see in a live-action incarnation.