Welcome to Longbox Junk, the place to find all the comic reviews you never asked for!
If you've been a reader of this blog, then you know that of all the different kinds of comics out there, I have a special love for the One Shot. A story in ONE issue. Nowhere to hide. The creative team has just one. . .well. . .shot to tell their story. That it. In MY humble opinion, it's the perfect kind of comic to not only read but also to review.
And if you're a new reader, then welcome! Glad to have you! Did I mention I love One Shots?
So I decided to do a few one shot reviews because. . .why not?
A special shout out to the fine and friendly folk on Reddit at 80s90s Comics They gave me a warm welcome, so I ran a little contest to let THEM decide what the next few Longbox Junk reviews would be.
And here's our first winner!
We're heading back to the 90s, when popular Marvel characters Wolverine, Ghost Rider, and Punisher were EVERYWHERE. They were guest-starring or teaming up in almost every Marvel title. People couldn't get enough of them! I think the only other Marvel character that had as many guest appearances and team-ups was Spider-Man.
So somebody at Marvel came up with a brilliant idea. Since they were already separately appearing just about everywhere, why not make a comic starring Wolverine, Ghost Rider, and Punisher TOGETHER?
But no Spider-Man. I guess he had better things to do. BUT I DIGRESS!
Three. . .Count 'em. . .THREE of 1990s Marvel's most insanely popular characters in ONE story! This just HAS to be good, right? How can it NOT be? Well, we're about to find out. Ready? Let's do this!
Ghost Rider, Wolverine & Punisher:
Hearts of Darkness
Marvel (1991)
COVER: John Romita Jr. & Klaus Janson
And here's the cover in all its DOUBLE Gatefold four panel 90s gimmick glory!
Click on the pic for FULL 90s-Tastic effect!
THE COVER:
There's a LOT going on here! It's a four. . .count 'em. . .FOUR panel gatefold. This cover is about two feet wide when you unfold it to fully behold the whole thing! It's full of action, the colors are great, and it's 90s-Tastic in all the right ways!
Well. . .except that Punisher sort of got the short straw. If you were to see this cover folded on the rack (or bagged and boarded in the bargain bin, which is more likely now) like in the first image above, then all you're going to see of Punisher is a bit of his gun on the right edge. To be fair, he DID get the entire inner right panel pretty much to himself, so there's that.
ANYWAY. . .Cool cover. Let's get inside!
THE STORY:
SCRIPT: Howard Mackie
PENCILS: John Romita Jr.
INKS: Klaus Janson
We begin our tale atop a hill outside of the town of Christ's Crown. We witness a robed group engaged in a ceremony. They are making an offering of a human life. As her blood spills, it summons forth a dark creature, it is Blackheart, son of Mephisto!
Blackheart rages at his summoning, killing the entire group. His anger at his father seethes. Mephisto has placed him in a position that he can be summoned by even the weakest humans. He sees it as below his station to be a mere tempter of mankind instead of being in his rightful place beside his father.
Blackheart decides that he will take his inheritance by force, enlisting the aid of powerful humans that he can tempt into darkness to help destroy Mephisto. Blackheart sets his dark plan into motion!
We shift scene to a few days later and the town of Christ's Crown itself, where Dan Ketch (AKA the 90s version of Ghost Rider) arrives after receiving a mysterious invitation to meet someone claiming to have information on the true nature of the Ghost Rider and something called "The Soul Crystal".
Shortly after arriving in town, Dan finds lodging at a boarding house. We are introduced to the innkeeper, Flo Crumm and her daughter, Lucy. Both of them take an immediate liking to Dan. While talking to Flo, Dan discovers that she's also boarding two other travelers recently in town who arrived separately and are named Logan and Frank (You see where this is going, right? RIGHT?).
A short while later, Dan meets Logan (Wolverine) and Frank (Punisher) over an awkward dinner. At this point, Dan hasn't been Ghost Rider for long, so neither Logan or Frank recognize Ketch as Ghost Rider and likewise, Dan doesn't recognize either of them, although he does find something familiar about both of them.
After dinner, Wolverine pays a visit to Punisher's room, where the two of them exchange notes on how they ended up in the same place at the same time. They each received a mysterious letter asking them to meet a contact in Christ's Crown.
Wolverine's offered information on his adamantium skeleton. This was before Weapon X or Origin, at a time when Marvel was keeping Wolverine's origin in the shadows and readers hungry for every little scrap of information on their most popular mutant's origin story. Wolverine claims to not care about the information. He's just there to find out who thinks he does care.
Punisher's offered information claiming to be able to lead him to someone involved with the killing of his family. Punisher knows the offer is bogus. He already knew who was behind the murders and had already put them all in the ground. But what he WAS concerned with is that someone knew how to find him to deliver the message in the first place. He wanted to know who and how.
They both wonder what Dan Ketch has to do with it.
Later that night, Blackheart finally makes his move. He appears before the three heroes and makes them an offer. . .join him in taking down Mephisto. They're already on the edge, skirting the grey area between light and dark. He can help them tap into the darkness and become unstoppable!
All three heroes immediately reject Blackheart's offer. He is NOT happy.
Lucy vanishes and Wolverine and Punisher run toward her cries for help. Dan decides it's time for Ghost Rider to appear, but discovers that his bike has been stolen. Unable to transform into Ghost Rider, Dan joins the crowd in the town center, where he sees Blackheart has both his bike and Lucy.
Blackheart taunts Dan and once again demands the heroes join him.
The crowd of entranced townfolk are blocking the way to Blackheart. Wolverine, Punisher, and Dan try to push their way through while Blackheart taunts the three of them, telling them to cut, shoot, and kill their way to him through the innocents.
When they refuse to harm the townfolk to get to Blackheart, he threatens to kill Lucy, which brings out the rage in Punisher and Wolverine. Punisher attacks, but his bullets do nothing to Blackheart, who gets on Ghost Rider's bike and heads out of town toward Thorn Hill, mocking the heroes and daring them to follow.
Wolverine and Punisher jump into Punisher's Battle Van nearby and pursue Blackheart while Dan desperately tries to find a way to transform into Ghost Rider.
He spots a motorcycle shop and steals a bike. Finally, he's able to bring forth the Ghost Rider! The demonic spirit within Dan swears vengeance on Blackheart and rides toward Thorn Hill to join the others.
Punisher and Wolverine arrive at Thorn Hill first. After confirming with each other that they're doing this for the girl and not for anything Blackheart may offer, they head in, but are stopped by a wall of razor-sharp thorns surrounding the hill. They are unable to cut their way through, but then, to their surprise, Ghost Rider appears and burns a path through for them.
Their path to the top of Thorn Hill now cleared, our heroes confront Blackheart there. The evil creature once again tries tempting the heroes. He promises to restore Punisher's family to him. He promises Wolverine to reveal the secrets of his past. He promises to restore Zarathos (The name of the Ghost Rider spirit) to his former power and demonic glory through the Spirit Stone in Mephisto's possession.
Once again, all three heroes decline Blackheart's offer, and together they attack!
In Blackheart's evil domain, the heroes resume their attack on the vile creature. The three of them together finally manage to take Blackheart down!
Ghost Rider tells Wolverine and Punisher to return through the rapidly-closing portal with Lucy. He will stay behind to make sure Blackheart doesn't follow.
Even though it means leaving Ghost Rider behind with no escape from Blackheart's realm, the other two heroes do what he says and make their escape with Lucy before it's too late for them as well.
Once Lucy, Wolverine, and Punisher are gone and the portal closes behind them, Mephisto himself appears! He mocks Blackheart's failure to tempt the heroes and tells his son that his punishment has only just begun. As for Ghost Rider, Mephisto shows admiration and curiosity toward the demonic hero.
He tells Ghost Rider that their day to meet will come again, but for his part in helping teach Blackheart a needed lesson in humility, he will allow Ghost Rider to return.
Back on Earth, Lucy is reunited with her mother, the townfolk are back to normal, and the three heroes reflect on what happened. Ghost Rider says that even if they ARE on the edge, or even occasionally cross over it, no matter what happens, as long as the innocent are protected their cause is just.
The End.
THE REVIEW:
And there we go. Hearts of Darkness. Let's break it on down!
Overall, this was a pretty good story. Not a masterpiece by any means, but just a good read. As far as One Shots go, it does a good job of telling a satisfying story in one complete issue.
The reader needs to know who the characters are and what they're about coming into the story. Otherwise the whole narrative about the heroes being on the edge of darkness won't make sense, but (as I said in the introduction) Wolverine, Punisher, and Ghost Rider were pretty much three of the four hottest individual characters Marvel had going at the time. If a comic reader didn't know what was going on with these guys already, they probably wouldn't be buying this book in the first place.
So this one shot DOES lean on the reader knowing the characters enough to make sense of the story, but that doesn't really hold it back from being a good read. . .unlike other one shots I've read where you need to have detailed knowledge of ongoing continuity. For this one, some general Wolverine, Punisher, and Ghost Rider knowledge is all that's needed.
The story itself is quick and simple: Three heroes on the edge are summoned together by an evil being who makes them an offer to join him. All three refuse and fighting commences. At the end of it all, the heroes prevail and understand that being on the edge doesn't make them the bad guys everyone thinks they are.
That's it. That's the story. Temptation. . .Refusal. . .Redemption. Howard Mackie does a great job in boiling a fairly heavy concept down to a nice tasty broth.
To be fair, this isn't a PERFECT story. I'm not sure a perfect comic story exists. The story basically exists as a flimsy framework to hang an unlikely triple team up on. It sort of HAS to be simple to accommodate its ONE job. . .having Punisher, Wolverine, and Ghost Rider in the same story.
The team up itself is questionable. The narrative is actually more of a Ghost Rider story because Ghost Rider is really the only character of the three heroes that fits well into the framework. Wolverine and Punisher aren't exactly known for fighting supernatural enemies.
Wolverine. . .maybe. I'm not sure if it's been established that his claws can affect supernatural beings or not, but I guess in comic book world, adamantium can do whatever needs to be done for the story, so I'll give you Wolverine.
But Punisher? He's just shooting guns. If a creature like Blackheart can be injured by plain old bullets (fired with 90s manly RAGE of course) then was he really that much of a threat in the first place? Punisher in this story is cool, but it doesn't make a bit of sense.
Doctor Strange and maybe Moon Knight would have fit the story better. But then again, Doctor Strange and Moon Knight weren't Wolverine and Punisher. They were both a little more low key in the early 90s. A team up of Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Moon Knight would have been cool, but not NEARLY as "hot" as Ghost Rider, Punisher, and Wolverine.
So the story is pretty good, but not perfect. Let's talk about the art.
John Romita Jr. He's one of those artists with a unique and immediately recognizable style. He's ALSO one of those artists that many comic fans either love or hate, and there's usually not much in between.
To ME, my love/hate relationship with JRJ's art depends entirely on the project. There are some JRJ comics that I really like. There are also some that I absolutely do NOT like. Like I said, not really much in between. To be fair, the only piece of original comic art I own is a Romita Jr. Daredevil splash page, so there's THAT.
So where does this story fall on the love/hate spectrum? I'd say on the good side. Romita Jr. can put out some absolutely horrendous art, but this isn't one of those times. There are some VERY nice full page and double page spreads in here, and overall this is a pretty good-looking comic.
Probably not his BEST work, but this is a good example of Romita Jr. at his 90s peak. I have a lot more tolerance for JRJ's style during this era of his career than some of his later work (Kick-Ass, All Star Batman, Avengers, etc. . .), but that's just MY humble opinion.
CONCLUSION
A decent, self-contained story backed up by some good 90s art. What more could you ask for in a one shot? Not much. It's not perfect. The whole setup is somewhat questionable, and if you don't know what these characters are about coming into it, then you're going to have trouble caring what happens.
Those couple of small things aside, I enjoyed this comic. It's like a time capsule of the 90s. For those of us who were there, it's a nice little trip back. For those readers who weren't, this is a decent example of what was good about 90s comics. Over the top and with a lot of style, even if the stories were sometimes a bit of a flimsy framework to hang that style on.
This one shot is easily found in the bargain bin. I see it often. It seems like they printed a LOT of these because of how often I see them. If you haven't read this yet, then I would definitely suggest you pick one up and check it out. . .especially if you're one of those readers who weren't around in the 90s and want to go beyond the memes about how bad it was to actually see something good from that era.
Up Next. . .
How about the second place winnah of my little Reddit contest?
He's Nacho average superhero! He's COMBO MAN!
Be there or be square.
