Marvel Sets up the New Ghost Rider in Latest Issue

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions... and it's the end of the road for Johnny Blaze. Marvel has been teasing that a new Spirit of Vengeance will set the Marvel Universe ablaze when writer Benjamin Percy and artist Daniel Kim relaunch Ghost Rider in March 2024 with a new #1, an extra-sized first issue that will end Blaze's time as the flaming skull superhero. In this week's Ghost Rider #21, written by Percy and penciled by Carlos Nieto, it's the end of an era — and the beginning of a new one — as Percy wraps up Ghost Rider vol. 10 and sets the stage for Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance #1.  

Johnny Blaze and his girlfriend, ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. and FBI Agent Talia Warroad, are on the trail of the Cult of Mephisto — worshipers of the demonic hell-lord who transformed Blaze into Ghost Rider. The cult's leader, Stefan Skaar, has been enlisting wayward children from across the country and offering them eternal youth and terrible power... putting them under the thrall of dark forces. Tracking Skaar's cult to the Rocky Mountain School for Troubled Youth in Colorado, Johnny and Talia find Skaar's fortress is defended by a mystical blood wall to keep adults from entering. Johnny and Talia combine their supernatural powers to make a Moonchild — a homunculus extension of themselves that could infiltrate the school and free the kids from Skaar's influence. An influence that, as the sorcerer Doctor Strange discovered, once enthralled a teenage Talia.

Spoiler alert for Ghost Rider #21 (legacy #264). As Ghost Rider and Talia battle Warding Trees — tree-like guardians created when the blood of sacrifices drips into the forest and is demonized — Doctor Strange faces a golem-like manifestation of Mephisto in the past. In the present, the Moonchild loses its connection to Talia while inside the demon school; in the past, Strange learns that Skaar killed Talia's parents by casting a cipher of death on their crashed vehicle. Strange freed Talia from Skaar's cult of Mephisto loyalists, and she would have sent Skaar to Hell and damned her soul... if Strange hadn't stopped her. He then offered to train Talia in the mystic arts, but she cursed Skaar and rejected Strange, who imprisoned Skaar in the Dungeon Dimension.

In the present, Talia blames herself for failing to stop Skaar in the past. She has Ghost Rider hold off Skaar's students as she faces her former mentor, who sits with Johnny and Talia's Moonchild. Skaar intends to unleash Hell on Earth with his army of disaffected youth, but the Ghost Rider eats their sins. "All of your anger, all of your hate, all of your trespasses, I will swallow," says the Spirit of Vengeance, forgiving the children of their sins. Talia, no longer fearing the ghosts of her past, summons a fiery portal and is embraced by her parents' lost souls. "As long as I can rid this world of Stefan and the Cult of Mephisto," she says, "I can leave with no regrets. Except Johnny." The Ghost Rider's human host calls out to Talia, who apologizes as she vanishes in flames: "My past finally caught up with me."

Johnny returns the children to their parents, then rides a lone road as the Spirit of Vengeance burns. "Alone's where I belong. Anybody who gets close to me ends up dead... or damned," Johnny tells himself. "The only one I can't seem to quit is the Spirit. But I've been hearing things and seeing things lately that make me wonder. A raven cawing. The wind blowing through a forest. The embers in a campfire shifting. They all seem to be whispering the same thing..."

"YOUR TIME AS THE GHOST RIDER IS ABOUT TO COME TO AN END." So says Mephisto. But this is not yet the end of Ghost Rider...

Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance #1 is on sale March 13, 2024, from Marvel Comics.