With Johnny Blaze no longer seeking vengeance as the Ghost Rider, the powers have gone to 18-year-old Alejandra, a woman who spent her entire life locked in a compound in South America being raised by a religious zealot. Never having a chance to experience a normal life, Alejandra wishes for the chance to know what it's like to live in the world, despite being bound to the Spirit of Vengeance, Zarathos, and feeling like she needs to atone for the mistakes she made when she first became the Ghost Rider.
As this issue opens, she's been sent to the swamps of Louisiana by Zarathos, but admits she'd rather finally see a shopping mall than be searching for vengeance in a swamp. What she's really searching for, however, is hope — hope that she can right her wrongs and that there's an end to her existence as the Ghost Rider and a chance at a taste of a normal life.
What she finds, however, is not a shopping mall, but a cursed town hidden away in the middle of the swamp. She learns from Earle, a man who's been in the town for over a century, that it's a town of murderers, trapped there by a witch who sought vengeance after the man who raped and murdered her daughter got away free. Earle claims that the people there have changed, and that there hasn't been a murder in over one hundred and fifty years. He tells Alejandra that she's there to be their salvation, and that she can finally set them free now that the desire to murder has been purged from them after decades of rehabilitation. Alejandra sees this as a sign that there is hope, that people can change, and that maybe there will be a time when she no longer has to dedicate her life to vengeance and vengeance alone.
Things in the cursed town are not quite as they seem, however, and Alejandra soon finds herself looking not into the face of hope, but into the face of something, much, much more horrible. Ultimately, she must learn if she can deal with the reality of the world she lives in now and whether or not she can accept what it truly means to be the Ghost Rider.
Ghost Rider #6 is a dark, twisted, and compelling story with solid scripting from Williams and great art from Talajic. This title has been consistently good and yet still improving with each issue, and it will be a shame to see it missing from the shelves soon. Pick up the last few issues now before you miss your chance to read a great comic.
Sara McDonald started reading comics in the third grade, and now puts her English degree to good use talking about them on the Internet. She currently resides in Western Massachusetts with a roommate, three cats, and an action figure collection and spends the time she isn’t reading comics working for a non-profit. You can visit her blog at Ms. Snarky’s Awesometastic Comics Blog.