« Doctor Strange's Massive Orgy in Shamballa | Main | Ghost Rider Part 6: Escape From Hell »
October 30, 2006
Ghost Rider Part 5: Vengeance in the Year 2099
Marvel has always sought ways to bolster their line of comics with new properties. The 1970s horror line, the 1980s New Universe line, and the 1990s lineup of futuristic heroes in the 2099 universe were all attempts to gain new marketshare. For a while, it looked like the 2099 universe was a goldmine: Spider-Man 2099 was a huge seller for the first couple of years. After the initial 2099 lineup, Marvel turned to other well known characters that could be fast-forwarded into the future, and the smokin' hot Ghost Rider was an obvious choice. While the very notion is gimmicky, Ghost Rider 2099 (at least in the first 8 or so issues) was my favorite 2099 title next to Spider-Man.
Written by Len Kaminski and drawn by Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham, Ghost Rider 2099 didn't have anything to do with horror. It was all about youthful rebellion against a culture dominated by mega-corporations. I'll always remember Ghost Rider 2099 as a symbol for the Gen-X movement, as I sped down Seattle's 520 bridge, listening to Beck's Loser ("I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?") on the stereo, with the first issue of GR 2099 waiting to be read in the seat next to me. Although I've never found any interviews with Kaminski on the subject, I'm sure he was into the popular culture of that time period.
Zero Cochrane is a young hacker in the Stephenson-Gibson mold, who runs with a hacker gang called the Hotwire Martyrs. After stealing encrypted data from a corporate database, Cochrane is pursued by the Artificial Kidz, who have been contracted to retrieve the data at all costs. Cochrane gets shot with a poisoned flechette (2099 style bullet-knife) and rampages against corporate media in a television store, just before jacking into cyberspace to burn out his headware and escape his pursuers.
Cochrane finds himself among a group of bizarre, ever changing AIs called the GhostWorks. The GhostWorks believe that humanity is heading for a downfall: "Greed and stupidity are, in effect, information viruses that are corroding the foundations of your civilization. We want you to be…an anti-viral agent." It's uncertain why they chose to use Ghost Rider as "a cultural myth-figure" other than they want to strike terror in the hearts of evil corporations. Cochrane replies, "I was born ready", and GhostWorks uses an automated factory to create a new cybernetic body that resembles the Terminator as much as it does the 20th century Ghost Rider.
The head of Cochrane's cybernetic form resembles a skull, with a holographic flame effect surrounding it, almost like a halo! Besides being linked to the Net, Cochrane's body is loaded with so many weapons that he only discovers them when he's in jeopardy. He rides a hover bike instead of a motorcycle, which is adorned with graffiti. The design work on all of these visual elements by Chris Bachalo (who was coming over to Marvel after a long stint on Vertigo's Shade) was utterly fantastic. There's a neat little chase scene in the beginning of Ghost Rider #1 where he hunts down members of the Artificial Kidz on a highway and kills all of them, save for one survivor who tells him that Jeter (their leader) negotiated the contract on Cochrane's life.
Cochrane rides into the middle of the Kidz base camp using a "stealth mode" that renders both him and his cycle invisible to the naked eye. It made this Ghost Rider seem even more ghostly than usual, but with a severe power limitation, it was not overused. After tearing apart the Kidz, Cochrane finally comes face to face with Jeter. Jeter tells him that it was the D/Monix Corporation who ordered Cochrane's death-the same company that Cochrane's father works for, as we discover later on. But this is all a setup to the last page, to give us a link between Ghost Rider 2099 and his earlier counterparts. "What more do you want?" Jeter asks. Cochrane replies: "One word, pussbag…"
"VENGEANCE!" Cochrane screams as a giant chain saw erupts out of his arm chamber. The look of hatred from that Terminator-like skull was chilling and I couldn't wait for the second issue. The first five issues of this series comprised a wonderful story arc for Ghost Rider 2099. There was a terrific two-issue battle where he clashed with the police, fought a corrupted hacker buddy named Warewolf, and eventually faced his father at D/Monix Corporation. After the fifth issue, my interest in the series began to wane, due to Bachalo and Buckingham's departure. Their artwork really captured the counter-culture spirit of the times. Buckingham did return to draw Ghost Rider 2099 #9, a nice story where Cochrane, morphing into his human form (a very Terminator 2-like trick) visits his old neighborhood at the same moment a cybernetic-enhanced version of Jeter is hunting him down.
I've always felt that Ghost Rider 2099 is a little gem in Marvel's stable of lost heroes. The first story arc would make for a terrific science fiction movie, and I think it would actually work better for the general public than the Johnny Blaze story. I encourage you to find Ghost Rider 2099 1-5 in back issue bins if you can…they should be cheap! Nuff said.
See also:
Ghost Rider 2099 article at Wikipedia
