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:

Volumes 18+19: Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank (Parts 1+2)

Punisher: Welcome Back, Frank (Parts 1+2)

Author: Garth Ennis  |  Illustrator: Steve Dillon

'By the time he's done, I've passed out half a dozen times, the bullet is almost bitten through, and I'm holding the forty-five so tight the barrel's dripping blood.'

Like the colours of the logo emblazoned on Frank's chest, a lot of writers tend to make their Punisher stories black and white when it comes to motivations. They see the character as either a troubled victim lashing out at the world that created him or as a hopelessly violent sociopath who enjoys what he does and cares little for anything else. Both of those perspectives are in fact true, but there's much more to Frank Castle. There's a psychological depth that can be explored, and when that happens the stories take on a second life.

With that in mind, it made sense to hire writer Garth Ennis to bring Frank back to Earth. Prior to this reboot Frank had been working for a group of angels, killing sinners with ridiculous supernatural weapons. Something had to be done before he disappeared up the ass of incredulity forever. Ennis' love of violence and black humour, and his dislike of traditional 'superhero' stories, seemed like he'd make a perfect fit, but it's not as perfect as it should've been.

It's disappointing that he ignored the potential and instead went all out to make his début on the character as explosive and as violent as possible. Not content with just one vigilante killing people, he added more and butchered dozens. It certainly helped wash away the memory of what came before, but it's far from his best work. His usual black humour is there but smothered under the brutality.

The first half of the book is filled with awful dialogue; e.g. "Well, don’t just stand there! There he is! Get him!" It’s uninspired bad-guy stuff, and henchmen are dumb cannon fodder. I struggled on and the second half of the book saved the day. It had secondary characters worth caring about and when all was said and done it delivered a decent conclusion for everyone involved. Ennis had taken baby steps (in puddles of blood) toward a more interesting Frank.

The art is something else that could've been better. Artist Steve Dillon worked with Ennis years before on the British comic 2000 AD and together they'd created the controversial long-running series Preacher (1995-2000) for Vertigo. My problem with the art isn't Dillon's pencils, but Chris Sotomayer’s bland colouring. There's a good chance he was simply working to Marvel's brief, because a lot of their output around that era was similarly boring and lazy, but it doesn't change the fact that the end result is weak.

The book collects together The Punisher Vol 3 #1–12.

Verdict: