From 1997, Ghost Rider #86, "Faultlines" Written by Ivan Velez Jr, pencils by Pop Mhan, inks by Jason Martin and Andrew Pepoy. (Miscredited as pencilers as well!)
This issue opens with Ghost Rider chilling in...wherever he goes when he's not on earth. The Rider could only appear when his host body, Daniel Ketch, swapped places with him; and Dan hadn't done so for two months. Even the Rider seems to understand, although he's still trying to focus on his mission of general vengeance, that he's wrecked up Dan's life pretty good and put his family through the wringer. Meanwhile, in hell, Blackheart tortures the Scarecrow for failing to kill Dan, although he did take over Dan's body and traumatize his mom. The Rider is slowly fading out, unable to rekindle his flames on earth; while Dan considers never changing again.
In various locations in NYC, two Damage Control employees take it upon themselves to follow-up on Ghost Rider encounters, many of the witnesses thereof being varying degrees of crazy. The kids seem to believe in him, though; but they also manage to start a tenement fire playing with fireworks. Unwilling to let kids burn, Dan reluctantly lets the Ghost Rider out, who saves them; but may have only piqued the interest of the Damage Control guys even further...
Maybe this wasn't the first issue with Ghost Rider's new costume, since there didn't seem to be any big, glamour shot of it. Still, on the splash page the Rider had the old costume in his limbo. Pretty sure this was one of those designs, where the designer does a great job with it, and it looks like hell whenever anyone else drew it. (No pun intended.) In the same vein, I didn't care for Mhan's version of Blackheart, and still think only John Romita Jr. could draw him!
Good gravy, that's a terrible costume!
ReplyDeleteGah!
Yeah, definitely not one of his better looks. The only time it looked even remotely passable, and I do stress the word "REMOTELY", was the Ghost Rider/Ballistic Marvel/Top Cow Devil's Reign one-shot where Billy Tan drew it.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, no. Just no.
I also no likie Pop Mahn's rendition of GR. It's like a worse copycat of Humberto Ramos, and I don't always like his stuff either.
No wonder, besides dropping popularity, that the rest of Mackie's run did so poorly back then. After Mark Texeria left, then Salavdor Larraccoa, it was all downhill from there.