From 1991,
Thor #430, "The God, the Ghost, and the Guilty!" Plot and words by Tom DeFalco, pencils and plot by Ron Frenz, finishes by Al Milgrom.
I don't think we often see villains like the Wrecking Crew after a fracas, but I would've thought they would've known not to set the Wrecker off after a loss. In this case, it's Piledriver catching hands for implying the boss maybe might've been the teensiest bit scared of the Ghost Rider. This being an affront to his leadership and his ego, Wrecker orders the Crew to search the city until they find the Ghost Rider...his skull's on fire and he leaves a flaming trail, but it's still surprisingly tough to find him, right? Oh, the Wrecker also wants his "red-faced friend," none other than Mephisto himself!
Loki, on earth with Ulik and the Enchantress in earth garb (which is not super-convincing for Ulik) thinks the Wrecker could've got Mephisto's attention on his schemes, or he could just be looking into the then-relatively new Ghost Rider. Loki visits Mephisto, who claims to be bored with the mortal realm, and was looking to collect an immortal soul with his "
soul shrouds!" There is a face in the shroud, and we don't see whose, but Loki proposes they team-up. Still, Loki seems shaky later with Enchantress, who wonders what could rattle him.
Meanwhile, Eric Masterson's friends Susan Austin and Jerry Sapristi confront him with his secret: his weird disappearances, sketchy behavior, giving custody of his son Kevin to his ex-wife Marcy; he obviously has a drinking problem! Eric laments his secret identity drama, then changes into Thor to look for the Wrecking Crew. He is spotted by Thunderball, who reports in since if Wrecker gets his clock cleaned by Thor, Thunderball thinks he could take over; and since Piledriver wouldn't mind seeing Wrecker catch a beating, Wrecker has to face Thor to maintain his rep. Loki gives Danny Ketch a little mental projection to get him to the scene as well.
Loki has set all this up, to steal back his stolen Asgardian power from the Crew. He maneuvers the Wrecker into opening a portal releasing demons, then the big dope gets his power drained and captured, setting up the next issue, "
Requiem for the Wrecker!" And Mephisto reveals the shroud's face; it looks like a bad silkscreen of Thor.
Also this month, a Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation: Paid circulation, actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date, 157,425. Plus 5,700 in subscriptions! Not bad!
You know logically, Loki should've LONG since drained back that power from the them, but of course the real world excuse is that they're so popular to use against the heroes just as they are, but yeah, you'd think Loki would've already dealt with them much earlier than he eventually did.
ReplyDeleteAnd now that I've read Eric's comment about chucking it all, have YOU yourself ever used that word as verb ever? Personally I think it'd be funny as shit if you ever, in a fit of frustration, proclaimed to yourself that you just Chuck'd up royally ;)