Welcome back, true believers! The Beat’s Marvel team is back to bring you new and famous guides from the Marvel Comics Universe! This week our focus is on the new era of Ghost Rider and Spirit of Vengeance Vengeful Spirit #1 Created by writer Sabir Pirzada and artist Sean Damien Hill. Stick around for a quick rundown, including a review of Avengers #18, Venom Wars: Toxic #2and Ultimate X-Men #7 Created by superstar Momoko Momoko.
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Vengeful Spirit #1
writer: Sabir Pirzada
artist: Sean Damien Hill
Inker: Craig Young and Jay Reston
Colorist: Andrew Dalhousie
Writer: Travis Lanham of VC
Cover artist: Kendrick “Kunca” Lin
There’s no denying that Ghost Rider is one of the greatest concepts and visuals in superhero comics. A man who sold his soul to the devil while damning himself to become a flaming skeleton riding a hellfire motorcycle to punish the evildoers for all eternity is a purely ridiculous concept. This absurdity allows creators to go completely crazy in pursuit of far-flung ideas while exploring deep philosophical and theological ideas about good, evil, damnation, and redemption. With visuals like this, no drama is too over-the-top, no stakes too high or unbelievable. There’s something purely cool about the simplicity of this character.
However, like all characters with decades of series storytelling history, Vengeful Spirit is burdened with an incredibly complex history and revisions, undertaken by multiple people. Part of this history comes excitingly into the first issue Vengeful Spirit. Initial solicitations made it sound like the series would be a major cross-generational team-up, with each Ghost Rider coming together for a big, cool crossover. Despite the continuity, the cool factor goes far beyond knowing the concept and personal history. instead, Vengeful Spirit It’s an unusually bright (visually and thematically) book that focuses solely on the original Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze, and reintroduces a villain we haven’t seen in decades. We’re introduced to Blaze in a silly disaster that’s shamelessly yet uniquely reminiscent of one of the character’s earliest adventures, before the character was cast. It’s a fun but throwaway scene that doesn’t really show who Blaze or Ghost Rider is. That’s the problem with the first issue overall – this book is written for people who like the character and his checkered history, not for people who want a story about a flaming skull riding a motorcycle and fighting demons Written by a rock ‘n’ roll guy.
Sabir Pirzada The script relies on readers with a BA in Ghost Rider history for any teases or revelations to be meaningful or interesting. In a superhero comic, that’s not inherently a bad thing, but Ghost Rider is such a pure concept that it feels like a waste. Worst of all, the book offers no obvious premise for a Ghost Rider team-up.
credit to penciller Sean Damien Hillthey go all out every time the spirit of vengeance lights up their skulls. Blaydes’ twisting, whipping flames and inhuman angles on his motorcycle are all incredibly rendered and undeniably cool. The layout relies on the vertical composition of the page, eschewing widescreen action and instead allowing the intrepid Johnny Blaze and the whiplash fire of his skull space to soar toward the horizon.
Shangmo team Craig Young and Jay Reston They are indistinguishable from each other, making the art look crisp and clean without overly detailing or polishing the effects work. The colors in the question come from Andrew Dalhousie Don’t serve the lines, though. Much of the story takes place in bright blue skies and empty cornfields, which offer little contrast to the flames of Ghost Rider. It takes away from some of his impressive nature. This is a character that is essentially designed to be a creature of the night. The daytime setting may not be entirely Dalhousie’s, as the script may indicate the action taking place during the day. The book clearly adopts an off-kilter, light-hearted tone, but it winks at the reader multiple times in an attempt to appear clever—and as a result, the returning villain lacks gravitas. Letter by VC’s Travis Lanham Trying to give the demon some extra visual advantage is appreciated.
It’s hard to make a bad Ghost Rider comic. The foundation of this character is too solid and too typical. It’s a tightly constructed issue with some moments of pure absurdity. But for readers who aren’t already familiar with Marvel’s occult history of demonology, it has little to offer.
Final Verdict: Browse
Quick consumption
- Avengers #18
- If you are wondering what a mashup is authorityy and StarCraft Looks like, read the question. The forgotten superhero Hyperion in the “Avengers 2021” storyline Heroes Reborndecided to end his existence and take the world with him by hitting the earth at nearly the speed of light. To avoid these disastrous results the author Jed McKay and artist Valerio Schiti Let the Avengers plan a deadly solution to the Hyperion threat in the most authoritative way possible, contacting allies and combining their powers and abilities to set devastating traps for him. Adding to the threat is the five-hour countdown to the Avengers enacting their plan, and such is the intensity of the issue, McKay moves the characters around in a logical and Easter-egg nerdy way while keeping the Avengers grounded in an emotionally connected Marvel universe. universe. Join Schiti Line and Color Artist Brian ValenzaThe beautiful renderings and artwork are dynamic, rich, powerful, and the best type of Trek ending you can get in a superhero comic. –GC3
- Venom Wars: Toxic #2
- Tie-in comics are two of the great oddities in comics, requiring wit and skill to be considered highly successful or worthy of the cover price. Thankfully, among the many mini-series released by Marvel, venom war, Venom Wars: Spider-Man vs. Venom Wars: Venom It feels like the only book that is required reading; or rather, the major cross-titles need to be read to parse the tie-ins themselves. Look, what Erica Schultz Started with Toxic #1 The story between Natasha, Sliver, and the Flash is suddenly shoehorned into a Liz Allen/Misery subplot, straight out of Venom Wars #2. So while other Toxic Wars tie-ins might drag on the narrative, poisonous and spider man While that’s happening, they’ve stuck to crossover continuity, so they feel like a load-bearing tie-in, and they’re very careful about their development, but at the cost of limiting the wiggle room for other narratives to form. While Schultz found a way to incorporate suffering into this Black Widow book in as natural a way as possible, the biggest takeaway we got here last time was the Anti-Venom storyline, which pitted Meri, the main antagonist of the Venom Wars, against Dis’s evil plan goes vertical. Aside from the usual headaches that come with sidekicks, Schultz delivers some cheap sidekick action that scratches the itch and provides some laughs at the expense of Flash Thompson. Luciano Vecchio Flash may be more stiffly drawn than Natasha or Misery, but the stiffness of his lines amplifies some of the slapstick jokes concocted here. Aside from some staccato content that visually mimics the action in a violent montage, Venom #2 moves at a near-constant pace with virtually no downtime, so it feels cheap as a month-to-month read, but it should feel More consistent. Sadly. Rachel Rosenberg Continue to utilize primary hues to help delineate areas of interest or emphasize a moment, but compositional focus will be affected by how bright the palette is. Rosenberg’s ability to create atmosphere disappeared between Venom #1 and Venom #2 – she mostly used a baselight gradient setup to glow or a screen to separate foreground and background layers, but once you get in a few Having seen it so many times on the page, it’s hard not to see it. This has more to do with Marvel colorists falling into the trap of producing high-demand books that have too many characters to convey atmosphere with realistic accuracy. Ariana Maher, VC Gets more back-and-forth banter, splitting into bubble piles with swinging bridge tails, although I’m personally obsessed with the scarred little tails that giggle out of the symbiotic balloons. If you all have read Maher’s work on DC’s absolute power, then you will be able to see that current Marvel comics limit letter writers to artistically ignorant uniforms, while DC Comics even fosters letter creativity on high-demand books. A stark contrast between; heck, they all pay, so I’d say whichever is the most fulfilling. All in all, “Venomous” remains the standout pairing venom war Anyway, even if it’s just classic Marvel trash you know [and possibly love]. — Bo Q.
- Ultimate X-Men #7
- peach Her Japanese horror-style take on Marvel’s mutants in Ultimate X-Men continues to surprise with every issue. The book’s most intriguing aspect remains its eerie visuals. This issue she draws some scenes that are reminiscent of Japanese horror icons Miike Samurai and Junji Ito (briefcases and giant eyeballs involved). Her use of watercolors and fluid brushstrokes form the basis of her horrific images. She is very expressive and able to express human emotions. They also finally tied the series to the Ultimate Universe story by introducing the cult of the Children of the Atom. It seems that the Sunfire Emperor was interested in raising a group of young mutants, and this cult existed to do just that. Peach seems more interested in what it means to be a mutant than remixing basic concepts from the more traditional X-Men books. Their take on the concept seems entirely inspired by the book’s old catchphrase “The weirdest teenagers ever!” The focus on everyday life and the eschewing of traditional superheroes in favor of horror remains refreshing. These are ordinary kids thrust into extraordinary and horrific situations. How they handle this conflict is more interesting than people beating each other up. -D. Morris
