Welcome to the table,
My childhood was a wreck. Between the bullies at home and at school, I was always worried something was going to catch me off guard and leave me broken in one way or another. I use to beg the powers above and below to let there be monsters under my bed who could come and take me away to some other shadowy place where I would be safe from kids at school who liked to toss me downstairs and take my crutches away, or family who liked to heap on other types of life experiences that I could have gone a lifetime without.
With all this going on, in my small childlike mind that had very little to go on but comic books, forced attendance church sermons, and Saturday morning cartoons, I stopped holding out for a hero to come and save me. I had a genetic mutation but Charles and his beautiful school of gifted youngsters were not coming to take me away. Kal-El, who could be anywhere faster than a speeding bullet was not coming to help me. I lost my faith in heroes in a way I have seen most sitcoms talk about the day you stop believing in Santa.
It was around this time when I was feeling abandoned by the mythos of all manner of things that I stumbled across Ghost Rider and my love of comic book monsters really began.
This guy named Danny, whose skin would melt off as his skull became wreathed in flame rode a motorcycle and could summon spikes and chains and glair at people making them face everything they had done to others. His hellfire-fueled powers were super cool and flashy and they looked rad as hell, but the first time I saw him use the penance stare, that ability to lock eyes with an abuser and make them face all the damage they had done, that was the moment that I knew Ghost Rider was my favorite Marvel Character.
When Marvel announced that they would be putting out a new Ghost Rider series focused on Danny, I knew I wanted to read it. The nostalgia alone was enough to pull me in even if I have been a little unimpressed by recent “flaming skull man” offerings.
Written by Howard Mackie, the guy who co-created Danny Ketch alongside Javier Saltares, with art by Daniel Picciotto colors by GURU-eFX, and lettered by VC’s Travis Lanham, the team seemed fairly strong to make sure this new chapter in the history of the Spirit of Vengeance was going to be a good one.
The story is a flashback set “Some Years Ago” and it honestly feels like that.
Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider is exactly the comic I’ve been looking for from Marvel. It’s a story of devilish deals and hellbound heroes set in a time before cosmic forces and assembled Avengers felt so commonplace. The new villain, “The Broke,r” feels like a fairly basic wish-with-a-price granting creature and he is dressed like something that marched proudly out of a 1980s goth club and headed straight to the Waffle House for 3 am hashbrowns.
The color and the art seem to fight from time to time and I’m not sure if my love for the character is making me more forgiving than I should be on some fronts. There is a lack of consistency in how Danny looks but the more I read my digital copy the more I am wondering if the resolution is just wonky as all the lines feel like they lack crispness. I’ll have to order from a LCS and report back once the issue arrives on that front.
As far as the comic as a whole goes, I am very much into this book. Danny Ketch: Ghost Rider is a return to everything great about classic Marvel horror heroes. Its classic tone with a fresh new story will make fans of Ghost Rider, new and old, excited to follow all the twists and turns this amazing adventure brings.
Until next time, the flashback in this book is such a good recap of the 1990 Ghost Rider #1. I would read this book monthly if it was ongoing.
Welcome to the table, My childhood was a wreck. Between the bullies at home and at school, I was alwaysCOMICONRead More