Volume 39: Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation

Ghost Rider: Road to Damnation

Author: Garth Ennis  |  Illustrator: Clayton Crain

"Let us be done with this."

When the numbering of an ongoing series is reset to issue one it's generally considered a good time for new readers to jump in. Road to Damnation, however, is a terrible issue one in that respect, and in many others. It introduces Ghost Rider in a dramatic enough fashion but quickly shifts focus to someone else, and overall GR isn't even in the arc very much. When he is featured he's something of a weak link.

A guy with a flaming skull for a head should be lighting up the pages at least half of the time, but GR is bland and there wasn't a single moment in which I felt that putting the book down unfinished would be something that I'd ever regret doing.

Typically for Ennis there's some very black humour that hits without warning - and I do mean VERY black; for some folks it'll be a step over their line. That's all I have to say about the story.

The artwork is something else that left me unmoved. Crain is a great artist, there's absolutely no denying that—I couldn't match his ability even if I practiced every day for a decade— but the digital techniques are simply not something that pleases my eye. (Subjectivity, yo!)

The backgrounds are too busy, resulting in nothing in the foreground grabbing the attention like it should. It's as if the addition of extra detail at the edges has flattened the overall composition.

It's also too dark to discern what the hell (or what in hell) is going on. I don't know if it's a problem unique to the TUGNC edition or if it's meant to look like it does. I know that it would be less of an issue on Crain's screen, but paper pages aren't backlit. The contrasts between light and dark are there, but when it's dark it's too damn dark.

There's a significant use of background blurring. It adds a touch or realism but, strangely, also artificiality, as if we're viewing events through a fixed camera lens. I dislike the technique. Cinematic/photographic processes can be used well in comics, I've commented favourably on just such a thing in previous posts, but I don't want my comics to be in direct competition with movies. I want comics to celebrate what they are and play to the unique strengths of their own medium, not strive to mimic the forms of another.

The book collects together Ghost Rider (Vol. 4) #1-6.

Verdict: