Ghost Rider #25

One-sentence summary: Jason Aaron improves this run of Ghost Rider, and does leave us with a good ending to the issue, but there was still something off...

The good: Aaron's run of Ghost Rider has been ridiculously better executed than the previous, taking the root of the last several issues and really drawing it out to a decent quality story with some good action scenes.

The bad: It has that feel of "been done."

I think the biggest problem when writing Ghost Rider is that, since the '90s, when the taboos of what you could do (profitably, I might add) in regard to religion were shattered by Preacher, books upon books have built on the same basic idea: Heaven's not really that great, the angels tend to be dicks, and some human with a heavenly/hellish connection has to stop them. Whether it's Preacher, Sandman, Lucifer, or even Scud the Disposable Assassin, this plot has become tried-and-true. And do you notice something else about that list? With a possible exception of the last (Scud had its moments), those are some of the best books of the last 20 years. It's not that you're trying to do a common story; it's that you're trying to do a common story better than the best.

That being said, it's not like it's a hopeless endeavor. Rarely is it a very super-hero-ish character that accomplishes these tasks -- if Aaron plays on that, it could lead down a more unique path, and, based on some reports I won't duplicate here, it definitely will in one major regard. There's also the fact that, in most those other books, you had a theology that was essentially Judeo-Christian; since this is Marvel Universe-proper, that's not really true, and so either you can try to force it to be, or, again, you can tie that in with your story and twist this off the tried-and-true counter-culture Heaven-fighter plot.

Up to this point, it's all been introduction. I thought the use of the Deacon character was a little short-lived. Not that he was much beloved by me, just that, if he's not in the story past this issue, there was a bit too much time devoted to him in order to justify two issues of exposition. I'll hold out hope for this story, which is essentially counting down to issue #28, but it could easily become a modern cliche if Aaron isn't careful.