- Joined
- Jan 30, 2018
Both Kamala Khan and Spider-Gwen had early beginnings that I liked a lot... but then quickly went to shit.
Speaking of early beginnings I've wanted to get into Ghost Rider for a while so I decided to finally do that. I started at Johnny Blaze's earliest stuff and it's... not great. He has little personality and no real reason for being heroic. Someone clearly just had a cool visual idea for a character (in this case a motorcyclist with a flaming skull for a head) and worked backwards to set it up.
I know it eventually gets expanded and retconned and all that shit, but at this point in time Blaze's origin is as follows:
Johnny Blaze finds out his foster father has cancer. Instead of finding an expensive doctor, trying alternate medicine or even spiritual healing or anything like that, Johnny instantly decides to sell his soul to the devil. There's no real set up for Johnny being interested in the occult or knowing how to do this, he just suddenly decides its the best course of action and does it. The best part is that the devil fulfills the deal by having the foster father immediately die of something other than cancer, instead of curing it.
I might continue with it to see if it gets better but it's low in my reading priority right now. I know Howard Mackie (in a surprising bout of competency) writes a saga in the '90s that's considered good but before that Ghost Rider has a 80ish issue series spanning the 70s and 80s.
Speaking of early beginnings I've wanted to get into Ghost Rider for a while so I decided to finally do that. I started at Johnny Blaze's earliest stuff and it's... not great. He has little personality and no real reason for being heroic. Someone clearly just had a cool visual idea for a character (in this case a motorcyclist with a flaming skull for a head) and worked backwards to set it up.
I know it eventually gets expanded and retconned and all that shit, but at this point in time Blaze's origin is as follows:
Johnny Blaze finds out his foster father has cancer. Instead of finding an expensive doctor, trying alternate medicine or even spiritual healing or anything like that, Johnny instantly decides to sell his soul to the devil. There's no real set up for Johnny being interested in the occult or knowing how to do this, he just suddenly decides its the best course of action and does it. The best part is that the devil fulfills the deal by having the foster father immediately die of something other than cancer, instead of curing it.
I might continue with it to see if it gets better but it's low in my reading priority right now. I know Howard Mackie (in a surprising bout of competency) writes a saga in the '90s that's considered good but before that Ghost Rider has a 80ish issue series spanning the 70s and 80s.