Obsessively putting our comics in chronological order since 1985.
| 1994-05-01 00:04:30 |
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Spirits of Vengeance #22
Issue(s): Spirits of Vengeance #22
Cover Date: May 94
Title: "The children"
Credits:
Howard Mackie - Writer
Henry Martinez & Robert Walker - Penciler
Bud LaRosa & Keith Williams - Inker
Bobbie Chase - Editor
Review/plot:
Miranda Woods is freaking out, allowing her powers to go out of control, because her son Timothy is missing. The way this is set up, it feels like a continuation from the previous issue (i checked to make sure i didn't skip an issue by accident), but Miranda's son has been missing since like issue #10 (and i have to admit i still can't say with any certainty who Miranda or Timothy are beyond that they are some of Johnny Blaze's circus freaks). It's like Miranda got a notification that her subplot was finally coming up and started hamming it up.
Johnny talks her down, and then Clara Menninger conveniently reveals that she can sense Timothy. She points him to a New York charity called Child Inc. (and/or Children Inc.).
Johnny arrives just as the organization is being attacked by Cardiac for being a sham.
And i thought he was being attacked by Solo, and was actually getting ready to enjoy the three-way vigilante fight. But the guy with brown hair, a green gun, and a huge gun shouting about terrorism is just a random security guard.
Blaze has a brief Misunderstanding Fight with Cardiac, but he's suspicious of the way that the security guards act. So after Cardiac is driven off, he goes to Vengeance - in his guise as policeman Michael Badilino - for help. Badilino agrees to investigate Child Inc.. They return to the building. Cardiac is already attacking again. The Misunderstanding is settled when the building turns out to be full of killer robots.
Turns out Child Inc. has actually been selling kids. Blaze locates Timmy, and all of the kids are freed and the building is burnt down.
In theory, this is at least a decent use of Cardiac outside of his Spider-Man appearances. But it's such lazy storytelling. I love that Blaze goes to Vengeance because Badilino is a policeman, but his "investigation" involves riding back to the building with Blaze and then immediately transforming into Vengeance because Cardiac is there, and then the entire plot gets wrapped up two pages later.
Quality Rating: D
Historical Significance Rating: 1
Chronological Placement Considerations: Johnny Blaze and company are still near New York after looking for Kody last issue.
References: N/A
Crossover: N/A
Continuity Insert? N
My Reprint: N/A
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Comments
Until I read fnord's synopsis, I had forgotten that I actually had this issue. I guess I enjoyed it because we finally saw Cardiac appear outside of the Spider-Man books, and working with a pair of "grim 1990s anti-hero" types who would, in theory, be more sympathetic to his tactics.
As I've said before, given how many evil corporations there are running amok in the Marvel universe, Cardiac seems like he would be a character who has the potential to be appear in interesting stories, but he was seldom utilized in a memorable way. I guess he got lost amongst all of the other violent vigilantes of the decade. If I were an established professional writer (a pretty big "if" to be sure!) I would be very tempted to pitch some sort of Cardiac miniseries to Marvel.
I actually liked Cardiac despite being a 90s Image-ized character. I'm surprised that he never got his own action figure.
