Review – Ghost Rider #1

Review -Ghost Rider #1

Review – Ghost Rider #1

Writer: Benjamin Percy

Artist: Cory Smith

Colorist: Bryan Valenza

Letterer: Travis Lanham

Cover Artist: Kael Ngu

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Release Date: February 23, 2022

Variant Cover Artists: Everyone in the Universe!

Review -Ghost Rider #1

Breakdown

Johnny Blaze has a perfect life: a wife and two kids, a job at an auto repair shop and a small-town community that supports him… But Johnny isn’t doing well. He has nightmares of monsters when he sleeps. And he sees bloody visions when he’s awake. This life is beginning to feel like a prison. And there’s a spirit in him that’s begging to break out! Benjamin Percy (WOLVERINE, X-FORCE) and Cory Smith (CONAN THE BARBARIAN, CAPTAIN MARVEL) are going back to basics with the Spirit of Vengeance!

Writer: Benjamin Percy

Johnny Blaze is a mess! He tells his therapist he can’t sleep, when it comes he dreams of endless roads so he drinks to forget. His perfect life seems to be shattered by a bike accident that has left him with a massive scar on his head. But Johnny is also hallucinating, he keeps seeing demons and horrific glimpses of hell out of his sight. When a night magician, Zeb, turns up in the town Johnny’s blocked spirit of vengeance explodes from his subconscious to wreak havoc on this that trapped him.

Percy’s script takes a well-loved character and tries to wipe the slate clean with a hell dimension tale that literally explodes off the page when the Rider finally appears. Elsewhere the FBI hires a monster hunter to inspect supernatural activities. It’s a go-to first issue with a couple of slow pages to ramp up the tension. Of particular interest are the descriptions of trauma and PTSD where Johnny lashes out at everyone around him for no reason.

Artist: Cory Smith

Smith’s artwork suits the Rider’s style with lots of horrors slowly creeping through the pages before bursting out when the Rider finally escapes his prison. The demons and monsters are very 1970s style with more teeth and eyes than out and out horror.

Overall Thoughts

The slow burn of the first 10-12 pages will frustrate some GR readers who will want the actual to start fast and furious, but it works from the point of view of Johnny as a victim of both the Rider and the creatures that are torturing him.

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As usual, have at our preview of the first few pages to whet your appetite

Michael Lennox

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T'was a cold dark night in East Kilbride... and below the roundabouts, something old and ancient began to shudder awake. The world would rue the day that it gave the Green Jaguar comics to read!

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