So this one had mad potential. Ghost Rider and Thing. I can’t think of two guys less likely to work out a problem together.
The basic story has Thing feeling useless because he accidentally broke all of Alicia’s stone sculptures (and nearly killed her) while training, so he goes for a sad walk where he meets Ghost Rider. And I really like the version of Ghost Rider in this book: He’s insane. Just look at him navigating that intersection, above! That’s how a flaming skeleton on a bike made of hellfire ought to be acting!
That’s really the whole story: GR gets nuttier and nuttier until Thing shows up and pummels him into leaving New York. And he goes…
To New Jersey!
See, for a Brooklyn guy like me, that’s some funny stuff.
Finally, I’m no fitness guru (I read comics for Crissake), but what’s with the exercise machines that are just giant walls for heroes to hit? First Wonder Man in MTIO #78, and now Thing…
Johnny Blaze’s backstory is that, basically, he’s a carnival hand who lucked into Crash Simpson’s motorcycle stunt-show. Blaze has very little education, or “book-learning”, but when he morphs into Ghost Rider, his speech and thought-processes become very sophisticated, using terminology that you would not expect from a carnival motorcycle stunt-rider, like “bravado”, and “eldritch”, and “arcane”, and “saturnine”, and stuff like that. Just supports the theory that when Blaze becomes Ghost Rider, Zarathos becomes the dominant psyche, and Johnny Blaze becomes submerged. Zarathos, whoever, or whatever he was, was apparently educated, based on his vocabulary. Fortunately for Johnny Blaze and the Champions during his days with that team, Blaze was somehow able to remain the dominant psyche while in his Ghost Rider state. If Zarathos had overcome Blaze during his ‘Champions’ days, it would have become necessary for that team to put the beat-down on GR, and then run him off, for the good of the team. I see only Hercules and Darkstar having the raw power to accomplish this. Daimon Hellstrom would have had to be hired to exorcise Zarathos from Blaze. ( come to think of it, why did that never happen anyway-??? I thought Hellstrom liked Johnny Blaze! ) I never much cared for the ‘Marvel Two-in-One’ series during it’s Ron Wilson phase, nothing to do with Wilson or his admittedly mediocre artwork, but it was the stories themselves which were so unmemorable. I own the entire run of ‘Marvel Two-in-One’, and, really, only the first several issues written by the late, great, Steve Gerber are worth anybody’s time. The rest of the series is, really, filler material. That’s why it eventually died a very quiet death in 1983! Couldn’t get any eye-catching talent to write or draw it! Come to think of it, I believe I will go and reread those first two Gerber issues with the Man-Thing, the Sub-Mariner, the Sub-Mariner’s simply-awesome mid-Seventies blue-and-gold disco outfit, the Sub-Mariner’s simply adorable cousin Namorita, ( the Sub-Mariness, aka my favorite mermaid ) and unforgettably powerful pencils by the late, great Gil Kane- the Master of Human Anatomy! Imperious Rex!!!