I actually bought this volume of Ghost Rider when it first started in 2006, but it was written by Daniel Way so I jumped ship after three issues. (That was strike 2 for Way with me, his Deadpool run was ultimately strike 3.) Way's story was that Johnny Blaze escaped from Hell, but as a result, so had the Devil, split into 666 different beings. Blaze was running around trying to kill each body, although that meant they were coalescing into fewer bodies, growing stronger all the time.
Somewhere in there, Blaze found out the Spirit of Vengeance was actual Heaven's creation, not Hell. That his state of affairs was actually the responsibility of an angel named Zadkiel. Aaron's 16-issue run (plus a 6-issue mini-series we'll look at next week) was all about that. Blaze trying to find a way to Heaven to kick Zadkiel's ass. Zadkiel, naturally, has other ideas.
Aaron pulled out a bunch of old Ghost Rider enemies, of both Blaze and Danny Ketch, and threw in Ketch and even a brief appearance by Michael Badilino, the cop that was Vengeance for a while in the '90s. Plus a few things that feel like they were pulled from old grindhouse movies. A hospital full of warrior nurses, devoted to Zadkiel. A coroner that's also a cannibal. A vengeance-obsessed cop with a hook for a hand.
The biggest thing Aaron added to the Ghost Rider mythos was expanding on all the other Ghost Riders, more or less like what Brubaker and Fraction did with Iron Fist. Johnny and Dan stuck to the United States. While we are a country full of people who need to feel some pain for the hurt they've caused, we aren't the only country, and it isn't just something that started up twenty years ago or however long we're saying Johnny first got tapped.
Roland Boschi drew the first four issues, which involve the nurses, the cannibal, and a cursed stretch of highway, and Tony Moore the last three, which concern the two Riders and the new Caretaker trying to get their heads on straight to keep fighting. In between, issues 24-32 is by Tan Eng Huat. I prefer Boschi's work. His Ghost Rider is huge, dark shape on a frankly ridiculous bike. The fire around his head is an angry, sparking thing, like a trash fire or a miniature explosion. Huat's version, the fire is prettier looking, the individual flames rendered flickering around the skull, and the bike is just a regular bike that has flaming wheels. Which is the standard look, but not nearly as cool looking
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