Here's the review for
Ghost Rider: Finale posted tonight at
Vengeance Unbound, which also doubles as the site's 100th review! Caution, for here there be spoilers...
Review:
It's very appropriate that the site's 100th review is Ghost Rider: Finale, a book that finally gives fans a sense of closure for the comic series they followed for nearly a decade. You could almost hear the collective gasp and sigh of relief when Marvel released the news that this comic was finally being published...but did the end product live up to the near-mythical hype surrounding it?
Following the series' untimely cancellation and subsequent refusal to publish Ghost Rider # 94, the final issue, Ghost Rider fans were understandably at wit's end with Marvel Comics as a publishing company. While the details behind the comic's publication have been beaten to death by the online community, I find it odd that the book has finally been released at all. Of course it doesn't hurt that Marvel is trying like hell to pump out as much Ghost Rider material as possible in time for the upcoming feature film, but this still stands a strange entry for an editorial regime that seems bound and determined to make us forget that the Dan Ketch version of the Ghost Rider ever existed. With the focus now set squarely on Johnny Blaze as the demon's host once again, this comic stands as a strange bushiness move for the publisher.
But regardless of the reason, the release of this issue goes a long way to regain the fans that felt betrayed by the company's cancellation of the series' final issue after years of faithful purchases. Ivan Velez Jr., the writer of the series at the time of its cancellation, has since moved on to the world of independent comic production, and this issue stands as his final work for a major publisher. While many fans had their problems with Velez's run on the book, this issue finishes off the final arc of the series that was arguably the writer's best. As a final issue, it goes a long way toward wrapping up the dangling plot-lines left by the previous issue, but it still feels fairly unsatisfying for a number of reasons.
For one, many of the revelations in this story were rendered moot - if not outright disavowed - almost immediately after by editor Ralph Macchio and writer Howard Mackie in an issue of Peter Parker: Spider-Man. While that shouldn't affect one's ability to enjoy the story contained here, it does force the reader to accept things with a grain of salt when they know that none of the things finalized here have been mentioned again since the book's end. Dan Ketch is a blight on Marvel at the moment, and it remains to be seen whether or not current series writer Daniel Way will even attempt to revisit the character. Another unsatisfying aspect is that this issue, while originally intended to set forth a new status quo for the character, can by pretty boring to read in places. A lack of action doesn't necessarily make a book unreadable, but Ghost Rider as a character lives and dies by its visual appeal. What we're given for this final issue is essentially 22 pages of talking heads that are frantically trying to tie up every subplot in the allotted space, and it does come across as a little rushed.
What also seems rushed is the artwork, something that is honestly astonishing to me. Javier Saltares has had the art for this issue finished literally for years, lacking only inks and embellishes to finish things off before colors are applied. I'm assuming that the pages credited to Mark Texeira were done in 1997 before production on the comic was halted, and possibly the few pages inked by Saltares were done at the same time. The unfinished pages were completed by Klaus Janson, an inker that simply does not mesh well with Saltares' pencil work. Janson has the habit of making every artist he inks, no matter what their style is really like, look just like Klaus Janson artwork. Janson's inks really make the book spill into a nosedive in the last third of the issue, and it's a shame - I've seen Saltares' pencils for those pages, and they were gorgeous. What I fail to understand is why Janson had to be called in to begin with - both Saltares and Texeira are currently working on the new Ghost Rider series, and both recently took two issues off from the book. For internal consistency, it makes a lot more sense to have one of the two apply new inks over the unfinished pages...but who knows why this was ultimately decided other than the artists themselves? I do have to mention how good the colors look on # 94, however, especially compared to those of the reprinted issue # 93.
Of course, I say all of this with trepidation, because this is quite frankly a comic that Marvel did NOT have to publish. They did it to satisfy a fan base that felt abused by a previous editorial regime, and I have to give the current editorial staff - Joe Quesada, Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso, Jeff Youngquist, and others I'm sure - credit for putting out a book targeted at one small section of their readership. I'm thankful to finally have this comic in my hands after so many years of talking about it, and it ultimately doesn't really matter that the hype surrounding it eclipsed the actual product.
I'm still happy nonetheless.
Grade: B
page after page it was the worst story, the worst "planning" of a "legacy" I'd ever imagined. Everything that happened in hell was so unbelievable and stupid. A 8 yr old could've planned better and captivated more. His whole run was a low rent nightmare. For the life of me I can't understand why Marvel insisted on maintaining all that crap as official GR history.
