GHOST RIDER #62 (June 1995)
…In Chains! Part 1: After trying to turn himself in and almost being killed by The Team, Ghost Rider is taken by Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. to a place called The Black Hole where the mysterious Spook takes control of him for purposes all his own. Spook has been collecting beings like Ghost Rider in order to figure out how their powers work, we just don’t know why… yet. 
It’s weird seeing Ghost Rider as more a victim than hero in his own book but while it sucks seeing him trapped and being experimented on, it’s also interesting to see if this will reveal anything about his powers. It’ll also be interesting to see who else Spook has captive. We know he has the Lilin called Skinner…
And once again we get the recurring story of Ghost Rider and Dan fighting for control of their body and, once again, agreeing to work together to escape The Black Hole. Seems like a good plan until the transformation happens during an experiment and Dan is left in control!
I don’t really remember this story but it starts out very interesting! 

HOWARD THE DUCK #21 (Feb. 1978)
It’s funny, this book came out in 1978, almost 35 years ago, and it still have meaning today. Recently a group of self-righteous busy-bodies calling themselves One Million Moms has taken it upon themselves to clean up everything they claim is offensive or harmful to children. Basically they hate gay characters in comics and any company that is gay friendly. In this book, Howard faces off against the group S.O.O.F.I. which stands for Save Out Offspring From Indecency. They do the same thing. They also hurt and kill people something O.M.M. hasn’t done yet. It’s astounding how things never change and how ignorance is still as dominant today as it ever was. But having Howard taking on morality police, and socking their leader in the face, is always entertaining! 

SCUD THE DISPOSABLE ASSASSIN #13 (July 1996)
This one has it all: Scud almost being raped by a woman who’s turned on by machines! Voodoo Ben Franklin surviving and telling his tale! Zombie Dinosaurs! It’s an all mayhem issue that ends with Scud being saved by Drywall!!! This series never fails to entertain. I have to say it again: If you’ve never read Scud then you need to do yourself a favor and get it! Your brain meat will love you forever! 

OK, final act! Time to finish off this movie and I hope it’s with a bang.

Some creepy devil-reluctant antichrist bonding.

Girl: “Danny’s the one good thing I ever did.”

Johnny: “That being the case, we better make sure he doesn’t turn out to be the Antichrist.”

LOVE Cage’s matter-of-fact delivery of silly lines.

Nic Cage just punched out the devil. A good symbolism of his nonchalance in demon stuff.

So since Danny, the kid, is the son of the devil, he has the devil’s power to make Johnny the Ghost Rider. OK, fair enough. Now kick ass!

Wilhelm scream spotted at 1:20! Aughhh!

Hopefully this chase scene is epic.

…It was pretty great. Not quite epic, though. A good payoff.

Ends with a pun. “Hell yes.” So…

It was good. Better than the first. Much better, even. No romance, even though they could have easily forced it with the girl. The female lead actually fought and was more than just a romantic foil. She wasn’t a romantic foil at all.

The action scenes were better. It was shot with an interesting style. The plot wasn’t great but at least it had more focus.

It still was in that weird midpoint between awesome-hammy and actually serious, in which the hamminess seems a little out of place. If you’re going for trashy movie, you can’t hold it back.

So yeah, when Ghost Rider hits the action highs it’s actually pretty cool. Guilty pleasure cool. The problem is when it doesn’t, and it has to deal with a y’know, plot, it’s kind of EH. I’d rank it above the first Ghost Rider and below Punisher: War Zone.

In the last act we got more Ghost Riding than in the first movie at this point, so I’m reasonably happy. Still not sure where this plot is going, all I hope is that enough good fights happen.

Hey! The girl shot someone! This one’s more interesting than the one from the previous movie, who was just a love interest.

So in this scene, Ghost Rider eats bullets and then shoots them back out at a mook on fire. Then he possess a tractor. Totally beats the stupid demon fights from the last movie. They’re shot in a more interesting way, too.

There’s also more of the aspect of him losing control and attacking his allies. There’s a very T2 vibe with the lady and the kid and the amoral anti-hero. I hope it doesn’t end in romance but I bet it will.

The kid is actually incredibly brave, which is a bit much. He does all kinds of things like fighting grown criminals, making the car he is captive in crash, and CONFRONTING GHOST RIDER AND TELLING HIM TO STOP IT. Is this kid Jesus? Well I guess he is the Antichrist. Oh yeah. The kid is the antichrist, this movie si weird.

Blackout is back, in a way, from the past movie. I’m a bit disappointed - same main villain (even though it’s possessing a different guy)?

This is good - CHRIS LAMBERT! Yes Connor McCleod / Raiden is a monk with weird writing tattooed on his face. I hope he fights someone in a sword fight.

2/3 into the second movie and we get an explanation of what the hell Ghost Rider is. He is possessed by a corrupted angel. All right. I almost don’t care at this point.

Trippy scene where Johnny is exorcised. That was actually a pretty cool scene.

YES! Chris Lambert with a sword! OK, not in a sword fight. But he HAD a sword. That was good enough for me. Oh yea, he’s an asshole in this movie. Here’s Blackout to kill him.

So now a depowered Johnny, the priest, and the girl have to rescue the kid who was kidnapped by Blackout from Chris Lambert. I’m sure Johnny will get his powers back and if all plays out right we’ll get one huge action scene at the end. Here’s hoping.

So I saw / liveblogged the other Ghost Rider movie, and I decided to take a look at its sequel, Spirit of Vengeance. Supposedly, this movie is even worse, and because I’m a sick person, I thought “great!” The first movie was really bad, so bad it was kind of boring. The few moments of true awfulness / true hilarity were sparse.

I want this movie to be extremely cheesy, and strange. Oh, and less romance crap, more shooting. Better fights, more Ghost Rider, less romance. Look, if you’re not going to make an intelligent movie don’t even try.

OK! This is what I asked for, I guess. Right off the bat we got an action sequence. Shaky cam, people with guns. I mean. I have no idea who is shooting or why or who that guy was or what they are talking about but… guns? I mean I sort of follow but I’m not really invested. 

The action is very well-shot. It’s technically proficient. I hope this sets the tone and we get more car chase scenes.

Nic Cage’s matter-of-fact narration of how he’s possessed by a demon and did a deal with the devil is totally hilarious. “And I prey, on the wicked… and I… suck out their souls.” He reads that as if the line is “And I go, to the grocery store… and I … buy some Lays.”

The people just offered to lift Johnny’s curse and he took it. That makes sense except the ending of the last movie was him accepting his curse and refusing someone taking it away. What gives?

Less than 20 minutes into the movie and we’re getting some Ghost Rider! Yes. (I was annoyed it took forever for Ghost Rider to even appear in the first movie.) And remember how I said his skull looked a bit “plastic” in the first movie? Here it’s appropriately charred and such. It’s like the movie listened to me!

A pretty good fight scene, actually. The Ghost Rider’s stare-down power is a lot less cheesy. The flames look even better. Hopefully this is just to whet my appetite.

Girl: “I’m not afraid of you.” Johnny: “Well you should be!” Dialogue is cliched but what can you do?

Nic Cage’s acting is exactly what this movie franchise needs haha. Just unleash him out of his CAGE! (It also needs bad puns). His crazy faces are fun if nothing else.