X-MEN #9: The Not So Big Easy

It's the X-Men vs. the Brood and their newly-recruited Ghost Rider in New Orleans!

Originally Published June 1992

So, if you happened to read Ghost Rider #26, you'll know that Ghostie arrived in New Orleans just in time to get embroiled in the Thieves vs. Assassins Feud, since his whole deal is avenging the deaths of innocents, and somebody affected by that feud, at some point was innocent... probably, I guess. 

Unfortunately, the Brood -- you know, those icky sticky otherworldly aliens who love taking over people's bodies -- have also found themselves in New Orleans and would love to have a Ghost Rider on their side.

Hence...

That's right, folks: it's Ghost Brooder.

Now, okay, look. We can sit here like a bunch of dweebs debating whether it should actually be possible for the Brood to infect Ghost Rider given he is a supernatural spirit of vengeance who operates on principles far beyond even the most alien of biologies -- and if they couldn't infect Wolverine, why should they be able to infect a ghost from hell? -- But listen up nerds because I checked and there's nothing in the rule book that says a Ghost Rider can't be infected by the Brood. Look at that picture up there! Isn't that awesome? So shut up and enjoy it because this is the story. Okay??!

The Brood send some drones after the heroes, which prove only by sheer volume to be a match for Remy (that's Gambit) and his spin kicks, and Bella Donna's completely undefined and inexplicable powers.

Broost Rider goes after Jubilee, but Beast saves her in the nick of time, proving that they are, at heart, the X-Men's leading double act.

The battle gets so raucous it causes the floor of the ancient catacombs (New Orleans has those??!) where the fight is taking place to give way. Bella Donna and Gambit, now having some privacy at last, have a moment where she expresses her frustrations that Gambit killed her brother and left town.

Not so much that he killed her brother mind you, but the leaving. 

Also, is it just me or is Bella Donna's accent dialed all the way past Cajun to Jamaican?

Gambit explains that he only left because everything else he had ever done, up to and including marrying Bella Donna (whom he actually liked) had been forced on him, so he wanted to choose for himself, even if that choice was deliberately to hurt someone he supposedly cared about. But for what it's worth, he's sorry.

Elsewhere, the fight resumes.

All right well maybe this is the best double act

While they fight, Agent Skully here lets it slip that maybe the Broodification isn't totally complete and it might happen to be possible to reverse it, but he scurries away before Beast and Wolverine can figure out what to do about it.

Even elser-where, Cyclops and Psylocke take the opportunity to make googly eyes at each other.

What would this ship even be called? Cy-Psy? Locke-clops?

Jubilee bravely escapes an encounter with some Brood...

And winds up in a room with some Thieves and Assassins sealed up in some pods for freshness, until after the Brood done with the chil'uns.

That is, children.

Ghost Rider arrives and they fight some more, with Ghosty letting it slip that they've targeted the Thieves and Assassins because the two warring clans have spent generations programming their kids.

Programming them to do what exactly? Gambit interrupts before he has a chance to say. Turns out it's a family secret that Gambit would rather keep. It's certainly a viable strategy for creators to hint at big secrets and revelations to come to add intrigue to their stories, but that assumes these are things the readers might realistically care about.

Keep your secrets, it literally doesn't matter to me.

With help from Bella Donna's nebulous powers, Psylocke gets into Ghost Rider's triple-consciousness and free him/them -- that is, the Spirit of Vengeance and his human host Danny Ketch who may or may not be dead(??) from Brood control.

Bella Donna administers punishment in the name of the moon, and...

Ghost Rider is freed from Brood ownership lickety splick, and ready to dole out some delicious vengeance.

Bella Donna, however, is not looking so hot.

Gambit says his final, tragic goodbye to the wife he very specifically and somewhat unnecessarily abandoned.

And the X-Men and their new friend Ghost Rider are ready for the next round against the Brood -- in Ghost Rider #27!

And if you desperately need to know what happens in that comic, you can go find some Ghost Rider recap blog somewhere, but I'll save you a click: they all team up and beat the Brood Queen, but the mysterious assassin who started it all slips away to menace Gambit another time.

He looks like this if you're curious

Further Thoughts:

This was every "Ghost Rider gets infected by the Brood, fights the X-Men, then teams up with them in New Orleans" story you've ever read. Very by-the-numbers.

I feel like, with the X-Men delving into Gambit's past and fighting the Brood and Ghost Rider in the mix, it's just one or two too many ingredients in this gumbo. It's a noisy, busy comic that makes absolutely no time to address any of the questions about Gambit's history, the blood feud between the thieves and assassins, or this business with "programming the children," it all just becomes a backdrop for the more exciting and marketable novelty of Ghost Rider fighting the Brood. Maybe they're saving it up to address at a later time, but it's just as likely that they didn't particularly care about them and don't expect you to either. 

Not that I'm complaining about not having to read much about the Thieves and Assassins, but this whole misadventure was built up as a conflict between them with Gambit in the middle, and when we got here it was all about the Brood and Ghost Rider. Plus, they made a point to tell us it was Mardi Gras, and I didn't see a single boob parade. 

Well, what more can you say? This is what comics are at this point in history, a quest for the intense and immediate gratification that only the shock of seeing Ghost Rider transformed into a Brood can provide, and leave aside all notions of internal consistency, thematic strength and long-term storytelling. In other words: it's 1992!