Issue(s): Ghost Rider #49
Cover Date: May 94
Title: "Darkness within"
Credits:
Howard Mackie - Writer
Ron Garney - Penciler
Tom Palmer & Al Williamson - Inker
James Felder - Assistant Editor
Bobbie Chase - Editor

Review/plot:
Deciding that he needs to come to grips with what he's become as Vengeance, Michael Badilino takes some time off from the police's anti-Ghost Rider task force.

Meanwhile, the Hulk goes to Cypress Hill cemetery to investigate something detected by the Pantheon. We see that Danny Ketch's skull in the cemetery has begun to glow.

Badilino also goes to the cemetary, and when he sees the Hulk he ridiculously assumes that he's working for Mr. Hellgate.

While they fight, agents of Hellgate arrive. They've been sent to retrieve Vengeance. The Hulk is a complication, but they're afraid of Hellgate's wrath if they fail.

Note that the agents talk about Rak and Dread as if they're still alive.

Of all the ways that Vengeance might attack the Hulk, i never would have expected a kick to the nuts.

The Hellgate agents were originally just going to sit back and watch the two fight each other, but they're supposed to capture Vengeance alive, so one of them jumps in when the Hulk says he's going to kill him (the other chides him, saying the Hulk was just posturing). The attack from the agents convinces Vengeance that the Hulk isn't working for Hellgate, and convinces the Hulk that Vengeance is a good guy.

Everybody wants to be She-Hulk nowadays.

The goons are of course easy to mop up, but we don't see what happens to them after they're defeated. The Hulk says he's going to have some Pantheon agents investigate the "shadow side" at the cemetery to ensure that Doctor Strange sealed it up properly, and then he invites Vengeance to come to a bachelor party that he's headed to. Vengeance declines.

Unbeknownst to everyone, Danny Ketch's skull continues to glow and then burst into flames.

Have to love how next issue is promoted:

Die cut and foil stamped AND featuring the "death of another family member"?!?! *Drool* You know i can't resist that!

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The Hulk says he has a bachelor party to get to. It's not specifically said to be Rick Jones' so we could pretend it's just someone at the Pantheon if absolutely necessary, but that's obviously not the intention. So this should go directly before Hulk #417. Ghost Rider is resurrected next issue but it doesn't continue directly from the scenes here.

References:

• Trying to convince Vengeance that they don't need to fight because he's friends with Ghost Rider, the Hulk cites the time they teamed-up to help the Fantastic Four. I assume he's referencing Fantastic Four #347-349 and not Fantastic Four #374 (where he can't really claim to have "helped" the FF).
  
• There really ought to have been a footnote for the "shadow side" comment, but it's a reference to the end of Siege of Darkness, which was in Midnight Sons Unlimited #4.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A