Review: ‘Weapons of Vengeance Omega’ #1 is a Rushed and Chaotic Finale
Benjamin Percy and Geoff Shaw’s heavy metal adventure featuring Wolverine and Ghost Rider has been quite the ride. Weapons of Vengeance Alpha was as strong start to the mini-event, introducing an intriguing storyline and featuring some really fun art. Ghost Rider #17 came next, filling in backstory with an interesting introspection on it’s titular character and laid the groundwork for a showdown. Then came last week’s Wolverine #36 which sloppily cranked the storyline up several notches in a rushed manner. Unfortunately, the mini-event’s finale, GHOST RIDER/WOLVERINE WEAPONS OF VENGEANCE OMEGA #1, continued that trend and the story fell apart under it’s own weight.
Things pick up with Hellverine (the newly possessed Wolverine) enacting his mission to kill off mutants under the order of Father Pike, who we learn is not only working for the United States government (who themselves are in the pockets of Orchis), but also for Mephisto. It turns out Mephisto created the demonic entity that had been inside Bram and was then transferred to Wolverine. It was originally bestowed upon Bram when his parents conceived him during a satanic ritual. It’s A LOT of information to learn in the final issue of this arc and feels too cumbersome this late in the game. So many new details come out one after the other than you don’t even have a chance to process things. They’re disclosed in rapid succession to tie-up loose ends.
The final act of the issue unfolds with a number of different events happening without any explanation. Bram wakes up from his own stasis and begs for his demon back, Wolverine is able to break out of Father Pike’s control because he’s asked to kill a mutant child but then relapses and fights Ghost Rider, Wolverine is also able to command the demon after Father Pike pulls it from his body to return to Bram, and then both Wolverine and Ghost Rider are totally fine killing Bram in order to kill the demon. We also get a cliffhanger on the final page teasing that the demon isn’t really dead.
For the first time in this story, I wasn’t impressed by the art. I don’t know if it was due to the writing itself in the issue, but Geoff Shaw’s designs and Rain Beredo’s colors added to the feeling of everything being too cluttered. No scene or panel had a chance to breathe or linger before we were moving on to something different. The climactic final battle between Ghost Rider, Wolverine, and the demon was drenched in orange flame to the point where it was hard to make out who was in any given panel. Even the monuments of death that are left behind when the demon claims its prey, which had an eerie horror feel when first introduced, looked like an afterthought in this book. For an event that had such a distinct and bold look early on, it was disappointing for it to fall off in the finale.
After those first two issues, I really thought this storyline had potential. Two curmudgeons with badass attitudes teaming up to stop a demonic power from hell? Percy could have written that in his sleep. I think it would have made a lot more sense, and could likely have been structured much better, if Mephisto was the main big bad and introduced much earlier on. As it was, this story could have been told in an oversized annual and didn’t need four full issues. Even with the cliffhanger, I don’t know when we’ll be revisiting this storyline again. Wolverine has the “Sabretooth War” coming up next, yet Ghost Rider’s future solicitations do indicate Mephisto will be playing a role in the near future. Perhaps this becomes a Ghost Rider-specific story with some periodic Wolverine cameos? I guess we’ll find out, but this story will look even worse if the plot featuring Mephisto doesn’t even connect back to this.
Rating: 5/10
