The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 901: Avengers v.1 #235, September 1983

A nice little one-off today, featuring an unlikely team of Avengers. When word of a prison break goes out, the Wasp (whose development into an amazing leader is a joy to behold) sends a team of Captain America, She-Hulk, and Scarlet Witch out to investigate. It's a superhero tale on a slightly higher metaphorical plane, as each character encounters a problem that in some ways reflects a dilemma they are having in their personal lives. Cap even acknowledges it on the sly at the very end, telling the Wasp that the Wizard "gave us all a pretty good challenge...a welcome challenge, I daresay." The most blatant example is the She-Hulk's trap, an unending series of bare white rooms. She walks out of one and into another. This is indicative of her frustration over her living situation, the rooms as the apartments she's seen over and over again. Not until she breaks the pattern does she figure her way out of the trap. The Scarlet Witch in particular comes out the other side feeling less helpless about the Vision's injuries, and more like her old self. So, through superheroics, superheroes confront the effect that trauma is having on them. This is why I call it a story on a higher metaphorical plane - it's almost as if the universe (or, say, the writer) is giving these characters tailor-made situations that help them to reinforce themselves against the challenges they face.

Which, I guess, is what it actually is, but then why do we feel the need to worry about the psychologies of these characters, to such an extent that we contrive scenarios like these to fix their mental health? I think it's because we believe in them.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 686: The Original Ghost Rider Rides Again #3, September 1991

Today's comic reprints some of the final issues of the Ghost Rider series from which yesterday's comic was drawn (ha). For me, the main feature is some early 80s writing by Roger Stern, just before he took over writing The Avengers and produced some of the best stories that team has had. I think the thing that gets me about Ghost Rider is that, at least in this iteration, he's played much like the Hulk. We have a decent guy in Johnny Blaze who has an evil creature inside him, one that doesn't care about people or right. Which makes it difficult for me to think of him as a superhero, much as I have the same difficulty with Bruce Banner's alter ego. There is, of course, some nice metaphorical resonance to the idea of having an evil creature trapped inside one's body, one that has to be struggled against and repressed. We all have these things, though perhaps nothing quite so dire as a spirit of vengeance. But it's the same problem that one encounters with DC's Spectre: how guilty does one have to be to deserve the vengeance of the universe? Would Ghost Rider attack someone who felt bad for having an argument with their partner? Or who felt guilty over a stolen chocolate bar? There have to be limits, of course, but the creature that resides inside Johnny Blaze appears to not acknowledge any.

When Bruce Jones and John Romita Jr. took over on The Incredible Hulk in the early 2000s, they played the character as something to be repressed, much to the chagrin of many readers. They told, instead, a story about a man who knew what was inside him, knew how destructive and damaging it could be, and who worked hard to keep it chained within. I really enjoyed that take on the character, the idea that the Hulk is nothing to celebrate, not like our semi-gentle giant in the current film continuity, but instead like a force of nature that would indiscriminately kill and destroy. It seems to me that Ghost Rider could be played similarly, and Stern makes gestures toward this in today's comic. But the Ghost Rider has far more agency than the Hulk - it knows what it wants to do, and knows that it has the power to do it. It's more like a split personality, with one being a serial killer. So, again, I ask the question, how do we make a superhero comic out of such a character?

Tomorrow I'll have a look at some of the GR stuff from the later 90s, and we'll see if the introduction of a different version of the character helps. Onward.