Still Defending that copyright:

Another recent pick-up, that doesn't fit in the scanner; from 2008, The Last Defenders, written by Joe Casey, art by Jim Muniz, with co-plotting by Keith Giffen. It's good, but not quite great; set during the Initiative and featuring Tony Stark at his absolute doucheiest, a somewhat left-field use of longtime Defenders villain Yandroth and some revisionist history with the team, and a surprising array of line-up changes.

It's mildly disappointing that it sticks true to a lot of Defenders continuity, but maybe not all of it. There's a few flashbacks with Damian Hellstrom, who gets passed up for the choice gig of Sorcerer Supreme and visits his ex-wife Patsy (Hellcat) Walker; there's Nighthawk trying to make a go with any super-hero roster he can hold together, and there's She-Hulk, not looking to be part of a team and rather getting roped in anyway. The She-Hulk plotline in particular seems to be going in a direction that isn't picked up the next time she's seen, which seems to happen to her every so often.

Still killing me there isn't a Marvel Legends Nighthawk; although I'd also love a Blazing Skull, who guests here as part of Nighthawk's New Jersey based team.
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"Ghost Rider, $20.99"

Oh, fudd. I was working on a strip yesterday, and then scans didn't want to load for a DD post today, so we'll move this a day forward...even though I'm not ready.

The book has been getting good reviews, like here for instance, and I think I definitely need to pick up Ghost Rider #33 after flipping through a copy recently. Briefly, and from memory: a war for heaven is over, leaving bad angels in charge, Ghost Riders Johnny Blaze and Dan Ketch MIA, and the Caretaker dead. As his daughter mourns him, she remembers Ghost Riders of the past, and there are some doozies: G-Man Ghost Rider of the 1930's, 70's Ghost Truckers, Native American Ghost Riders, and more. They've really made Ghost Rider a legacy character, something not often seen from Marvel, but it could also almost work like a Ghost Rider Corps. Hey, it'd be an excuse to bring Vengeance and Blazing Skull out of mothballs. All they need is maybe a chest emblem and a catchy oath.

Shoot, wish I had a Vengeance figure now. I do have one of the little ripcord motorcycle ones, though...I haven't read a lot of his appearances, although I remember him being a mainstay of the later years of Marvel Comics Presents. I do have a full run of Ghost Rider 2099, and I still like that one. Might re-read it now, I know I have it out for some reason.

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The one about the Blazing Skull.

Every so often, when Marvel makes a movie or licensing deal, a news article will point out that Marvel's library of characters is said to be upwards of 5000, which is pretty impressive, until you start to think about the actual list. A lot of that could be taken up by supporting characters alone. That sounds foolish, but you try and publish a comic with Debra Whitmore as a character and see what happens. (She was a love interest in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, and also appeared in the cartoon. Any day now she'll appear in Ultimate Spider-Man so Bendis can do something horrible to her, no doubt.)

Still, Marvel does have some neat characters that are well underneath the radar. Some of them are ideas that might not deserve or be able to sustain their own comic, but might work well in another format, like Blade. Who would have thought that could carry three movies and a TV show? Don't get me wrong, I liked the movies just fine, but in his first appearance he was wearing what looked like green scuba goggles. Nightvision goggles my arse.

Others are characters who should appear in one-shots or the occasional period piece. Which finally brings us to today's book! Midnight Sons Unlimited #9. This book was intended to be a showpiece/inventory burner for the "mystical" characters at Marvel: Ghost Rider, Blaze, Morbius, maybe Dr. Strange. The only reason most people would remember this particular issue, if at all, was because it had an Alex Ross cover.

The cover features lesser known characters the Destroyer, the Blazing Skull, and Union Jack. I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how and why Alex Ross did the cover. Inventory piece from before he got big? For fun? As a favor to the creative team? Boat payment due? Love letter to the work of Roy Thomas? Did he do the cover first, and the writer had to punch out a story based on it? That last one seems particularly unlikely, but maybe. Dan Slott wrote the main story, and James Fry did the pencils. Fry I was familiar with from his work on DC's Star Trek books. I like his style, kind of cartoony, but still good for likenesses. And Slott would go on to bigger things, as he's currently the writer of She-Hulk, the Thing, and GLX. I must underline that this was a quality package for a book that was primarily a dumping ground for unused Man-Thing short stories.

I'm a little ashamed to admit this, as a total Marvel nerd, but I'm really not that familar with the Blazing Skull or the Destroyer. A version of the Skull appeared in Gruenwald's Captain America and another in the last Invaders series; the Destroyer is the one with pinstripe pants and not the one from Thor; and I think they both appeared from Rick Jones' head during the Kree/Skrull War years and years ago...and that's all I've got, honestly. The cool thing is, Slott writes this up in a way that it doesn't matter if you've ever heard of these characters before, without having to eat up more pages than needed with exposition and origins. Tricky. It's something you notice when done wrong, more than praise when done right.

January 1945: A band of Nazi spies attempts to set up a transmitter on the Statue of Liberty, only to be stopped by the Blazing Skull. Skull looks like Ghost Rider, but in a red, mystery-man style costume of the period. The ringleader escapes in a plane that would be way to big to be inconspicuously landed next to the statue, or to take off quickly, but let's just say Skull is busy tying up the Nazis while rappelling one-handed.

The Skull's secret identity is Mark Todd, reporter for the Daily Globe, one of those comic newspapers that seems to have a circulation of 15 million, and like four employees total. Based on the Nazi's captured codebook and transmitters, he finds the next strike will be at a club in London; which gives Mark time to recap his origin on the plane ride over. It involves "Subteranean Skull Men" and "The burning Mask, which eventually became part of my own face!" but Mark doesn't seem really bent out of shape about it. Weird stuff happens.

Crashing the club, Mark is stopped by Lord Brian Falsworth, who's organized a fundraiser party that night. Mark convinces him that the club is a target pretty easily, so it's evacuated before a buzzbomb hits. The destruction is being filmed by armored Nazi the Iron Cross, (who looks so much like Iron Man you wonder what Tony's dad did during the war...) who has an old-style movie camera mounted on his shoulder.

Long-time Marvel readers would recognize Falsworth as Union Jack, who helps the Skull fight off Cross, and they recover the camera. And exchange information about their powers.

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Well, it's no dumber than getting lightning powers from fighting Thor.

Watching the film, Union Jack recognizes the buzzbomb launchsite, and can use his new plane to get Skull there. He sets up a rendevous with the Mighty Destroyer! Skull is less than impressed: "The only allied mystery-man who's set up camp inside enemy territory!" Um, ok. I don't know if Slott got that from anywhere, or set it up himself, but it's a nice touch, and reminds me of DC's the Golden Age.

I wrote the title up there, and was dumbstruck again by how dumb that was. I should look it up to make sure I'm remembering correctly, but I'm stuck for time: Union Jack got lightning powers, from an encounter with Thor--that's Marvel Universe Thor, who was being brought to the German side by Hitler, in an old Invaders comic. The story itself had it's moments, but if surviving a fight with Thor could leave you throwing electrical bursts around, I hate to think about how many lightning bolt slinging lunatics would be running around the Marvel U.

Anyway, for his part at their first meeting, the Destroyer isn't thrilled with the Blazing Skull, either.

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It's a valid point, Destroyer, but you don't have to be a dick about it.

Destroyer gives the Skull the what-for, tying him up with one of those wireguns they only used in the 40's--the manufacturer must've gone under after the war, leaving Destroyer, Tarantula, and the original Sandman high and dry. Destroyer turns Skull over to the Iron Cross, who keeps calling Skull "little geist" and helpfully explains the master race's master plan, involving the new V-3 missile and secret transmitters. During this speech, Destroyer ditches out, but is spotted returning. Grabbing a "flammenwerfer" from a guard--wait, who guards prisoners with a flamethrower? Sure it's probably a violation of terms of war at all that, but it doesn't seem that practical--the Destroyer says in German, "Once and for all I shall prove my loyalty to the reich, by incinerating this accursed American!" Then Flame on, Burning Skull!

Of course, that doesn't hurt the Skull, and he and Destroyer start busting up the place. The Nazis attempt to launch the missile Destroyer sabotaged, but Skull slaps the transmitter on Iron Cross. End of base.

Back in America, Mark's editor points out the Nazis still have a spy ring, and possibly a hidden missile base in the Atlantic; but they don't know how the spies are getting out the launch codes for targets. Why is this the newspaper's job again? Didn't we have an army during the war? Luckily, the newsboy is listening to the Masked Raider radio program, and Mark recognizes his decoder ring from the Nazis he stopped on Liberty Island...is the statue of Liberty on Ellis? Yet another tidbit of information I could look up, but no time! Consult your local library or something. The Nazi code book matches landmarks to codewords, which is how they will set the target for the last V-3. While they put the clues together Scooby-style, the masked saboteur that escaped earlier unmasks and goes to work at the radio station: he's the actor that voices the Masked Raider.

Changing into the Skull (but not changing into the costume, oddly) Mark steals a police motorcycle and hightails it over to the radio station, while a clever ad from evil Exxon-analog Roxxon plays. There's also a cameo of Billy Batson. Skull probably had to take the cycle for the Ghost Rider fans in the audience, but it also makes for a fun sequence as he takes up the stairs to the nineteenth floor. That must be one bigassed stairway...I don't ride, but it seems like that would've taken longer than if you ran the stairs yourself, but then you wouldn't have the satisfaction of running over a Nazi spy and launching him and the bike out the window. Only afterwards, while he hangs onto a flag, does Skull wonder, "Boy, I sure hope that's the right guy!"

A quick-thinking radio technician reads the Masked Raider script's secret message, since the program was still on the air. Skull still has a transmitter, and it starts beeping. Swinging from a flag, to a window washer's platform (they are everywhere!), he races to a cab, then steals a plane to get the transmitter out of the city. The missile hits the plane with a huge explosion, but the Skull had bailed out. He's spotted on the docks, but has already turned back to Mark Todd, who gives the reader a wink at his page one story.

Oddly, this was before Dan Slott hit the more mainstream Marvel of Great Lakes Avengers, She-Hulk, and the Thing; all of which I've only read in passing, but there will be more Dan Slott stories covered here. See if you can guess!

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