BOOK OF THE WEEK

And it was a tough pick. This was a good week for comics.

Blaze and Ketch have come together in Tibet and are taking action against one another. They both use the Penance Stare on the other (showing Blaze's dead family including his kids and all the people he's hurt over the years and Ketch's death and rebirth and same stuff for him as well). They both get some punches in, but Ketch wins round one. He starts to siphon off Blaze's energy to kill him, and Blaze believes it to be right. He wants to die. He wants to see his family again and he wants to be done with the curse. If it wasn't for the new Caretaker, he would be dead. But she calls him a coward, and that only helps to exacerbate things, which then brings in two other Spirits of Vengeance, taking us into next month's issue. Woo!

Good god does this comic kick ass. Seriously. At the same thing where I finally met Fraction, I got to sit and talk with Jason Aaron again as both are local boys. Aaron and I always talk about broad strokes for the future of this comic. Broad strokes including Michael Badilino (Vengeance) coming back to the book and even possibly coming back as Vengeance. EEEEE. Also, Deputy Kowalski coming back to the book with a little thing called the Hellfire Shotgun. EEEE. The next three issues following 32 (the last issue of the Spirits of Vengeance story-arc) will all be essentially one-shots following certain characters, and all should be drawn by Tony Moore, another local boy, and the first one deals with Sara, the Caretaker. EEEEE.

It makes me laugh. It makes me excited for comics. He, Jai Nitz, Matt Fraction, B. Clay Moore, Ande Parks and Phil Hester have seemingly pulled us comic fans from the area in. They are good to us. They don't act like rock stars. They're just real people. And I have a blast talking with them at these things. A huge blast.

But every time I talk to Aaron, we talk about these books. We talk about how awesome the grindhouse aspect of this book is. We talk about who's a better Ghost Rider. We talk about the big stuff. And then he told me he's only on the book for about another year to move onto other bigger stuff for Marvel. Stuff involving Wolverine and other huge stuff he can't mention. But dammit will I be sad to see him go. My only hope is that I've put myself in a place to take over on this book in some fashion in the upcoming months. That would make me happy. Very very happy.

So buy this book. Argue with your friends who's the better Ghost Rider. And buy a second copy. Because it's that awesome.