All-New Ghost Rider 1: Engines of Vengeance

Comic Info

All-New Ghost Rider #1 Variant

Reprints All-New Ghost Rider #1-5 (May 2014-September 2014).  Robbie Reyes is just trying to get by.  Raising his brother Gabe and trying to work and go to school, Robbie finds himself pushed to the edge mentally and financially.  When Robbie enters a car race to try to win money, he finds himself targeted by underworld agents and is gunned down.  Robbie Reyes is reborn as Ghost Rider and protecting himself and his family while seeking vengeance made his already complicated life more complicated.

Written by Felipe Smith, All-New Ghost Rider Volume 1:  Engines of Vengeance is a Marvel Comics supernatural superhero title.  The collection features art by Tradd Moore.

Ghost Rider always seems very fad based.  In the ’70s he was part of the Marvel horror revolution in which Marvel introduced comics like Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, and Tomb of Dracula while also tapping into the whole Evel Knievel popularity.  In the 1990s, Ghost Rider was reborn as Danny Ketch and featured the “gritty” and dangerous style of comics…with lots of special covers, chains, and big shoulder pads.  The new Robbie Reyes version of Ghost Rider changes it up a bit (he has a car), but it also feels trendy.

I am glad that they are diversify with the character, but Robbie’s home life feels pretty cliché.  He lives in a bad neighborhood, deals with gangs, and is the underachieving student that just can’t “get out”.  He’s a good kid in a bad place…but it sometimes feels like that is all they are going for.  In comparison to something like Peter Parker, Robbie feels a lot flatter and less defined, and with shorter comics with less and less substance, the book doesn’t give him much of a chance to develop.  He feels a lot like Darkhawk, but Darkhawk had a lot happen the first part of its run.

All-New Ghost Rider #2 Variant

The story also feels a bit repetitive.  At the start of Danny Ketch’s run, Ghost Rider wasn’t aware of the other Ghost Riders and a lot of the story revolved around this.  These issues start to set up the same trend.  The whole series feels like rehashing in a lot of ways instead of giving readers something new (or advancing the old story).

I’m not sold on the art.  Sometimes it is interesting and the stylization works, but often it feels a bit too cartoony and underdone.  For me the art and the story don’t seem to be coming together well in this volume and that is a problem.  The two should go hand-in-hand to really progress a comic book.

All-New Ghost Rider is pretty bland.  I do think Smith likes the character, but besides creating a new Ghost Rider, he doesn’t feel like he has enough to do with the character.  It might have worked better if Reyes had been introduced somewhere else, had some mystery built around him, and then launched into a series (with the origin falling a bit later).  All-New Ghost Rider 1:  Engines of Vengeance is followed by All-New Ghost Rider 2:  Legend.