'The Avengers Volume 5: Challenge of the Ghost Riders' – Aaron, Casselli, Keith (Marvel)



It's been a little while, since we last visited, but welcome back to the fruits of my resolution to stick with a Marvel title and see where it takes me. I mean, we all know where that will ultimately end up... the next big Marvel 'event' that resets everything and starts the whole thing rolling again. I'm talking about the journey rather than the destination.
Last time I picked one of these books up, the War of the Realms was concluding and while some heroes were cleaning up the mess, others were looking like their stories were about to be front and centre for a while. I'm talking about a time travelling Iron Man and Robbie Reyes, the reluctant Ghostrider. Lets see what happens to them and while we're here, I'll have a little rant about the need for editing...

Ghost Rider vs. Ghost Rider! Robbie Reyes finally wants to get rid of the flame-headed monster lurking inside him, so it's time to do the common sense thing: perform an exorcism on his car. The only problem is Johnny Blaze — the original Ghost Rider and current king of Hell — has plans of his own for Robbie! Now it's Blaze vs. Reyes in a winner takes all race with no room for losers... The rest of the Avengers would help but first they have to deal with the demonic possession of their own headquarters...

I've got to have a little rant first, sorry... Looking back, I realise now that the Iron Man arc was introduced very suddenly in the last collection and I thought that was ok at the time. There's only room for so much story after all so sometimes you just have to accept that Iron Man has been transported back into pre-history and just leave it at that. At least that's what I thought until I read this volume and it gave me a few pages showing just what happened to Iron Man. Hang on... Haven't they got that the wrong way round...? That kind of thing might work on TV but here, they didn't even have a 'One day earlier...' lead-in or anything like that. You're reading it and then suddenly, you realise that you need to go back and read Volume 4 all over again and for no good reason other than to get caught up with something that could have been laid out better in the first place. This is the American edition so it may be that things are done differently there. It bugs me though.

This is a real shame as it casts a bit of a sour note over the rest of the book and the rest of the book is actually really good. I like Robbie Reyes as Ghostrider and I enjoyed having a little look into the world of Marvel character that I've never really hung out with much. The race is brilliant and I loved how random stuff, happening in the Avengers Headquarters, all ties in to what is going on in Hell. It's just great storytelling by Jason Aaron and I'm happy to stick around if this is what I'll be getting.
If that wasn't enough, the entire Avengers HQ is possessed and Cosmic Ghostrider has totally cornered the market in talking the talk while walking the walk. At this point, I don't even care that Agent Coulson and the Squadron Supreme have pretty much disappeared. I'm still not 100% sure what happened (or why) but it was so much fun to watch it all play out, that's what matters right now. I haven't even got round to Blade and Boy-Thing (one thing I will say is, six issue mini-series please?)

So yeah, if there was any doubt over whether I'd stay the course then that's not an issue any more. I'd like to see Iron Man's arc be a little more coherent going forwards but the rest of it is just right for what I'm after. Bring on Volume 6.

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