Worth Every Penny and Comic Book Day Double Header

Since it's Comic Book Day we've got a review, but I also thought it would be cool if I did a double article and make it a Worth Every Penny as well. Today we've got two Marvel books, since Marvel released the most books this week let's see which one is worth your 3 bucks plus tax shall we.

Ghost Rider #15 - Daniel Way has managed to make the Ghost Rider the new Peter Parker, where life just dumps on him constantly. If you haven't been reading Ghost Rider I'll recap briefly for you. The Devil has escaped Hell, but has been shattered into... you guessed it 666 pieces, and these pieces have taken over recently dead's bodies. Ghost Rider is tracking down and killing each body which makes the remaining bodies that much stronger. In this issue two angel's are born over night from a teenage girl, her Mom who was ripping the shit out of her in the last issue all the sudden wants to take care of her and when the girl has to leave on a mission with the angel babies the mom gives her, her muscle car that's probably worth more than the house they're living in. Devil set's GR up with two problems: Stop a stadium of people from blowing up (which he doesn't actually know about yet) or save a little league group of kids that are being held some where. It's a quick read but frankly that's due to the fact that it's not very interesting and Way's strong point isn't dialog and never will be. I've decided to stop reading Ghost Rider with this issue since it's become the same thing over and over each issue. Whereas the initial idea was cleaver, tracking down a new piece of Satan each issue gets rather boring when they all end the same way. Also I get the fact that GR doesn't care if the innocent get hurt because he'll just have more avenging to do, and the Johnny Blaze aspect of it just isn't interesting enough to keep me caring. All it takes to stop Johnny's control of GR is a bonk on the head and GR pops back in. We'll see how long this latest series lasts, but for me the road to vengeance stops here!

Punisher War Journal #11 - For starters don't let the cover fool you Olivetti is not doing the interiors of the book which is a shame because he really makes up for a lot of story telling aspects that Fraction isn't able to write and or director the artist to do. This is one of those issue where the main character isn't even in half the book. I don't know who started this trend, I remember when I first read an issue and the character wasn't in it I was like wow that's a good writer to be able to do it. Let's just say Fraction isn't there yet. The book spends most of it's time with G.W. Bridge and Ian the fake cop from some issues back. Iron Man is trying to talk Bridge out of retirement and Ian is being brainwashed into possibly being the next Punisher. Both stories where pretty boring and I've really have found myself not caring about Bridge, I don't like his character and whatever Fraction is trying to do with him just isn't interesting. Every time he shows up I let out a big sigh and wait for it to be over. As far as Ian the fake cop is concerned, I don't even know his character to care about what he's going through. The Punisher and Winter Soldier do not square off in this book, they barely have a tussle if you can call it that so don't expect the few pages they spend together to be action packed or the battle you've waiting for because it's not. Overall this was a disappointing issue for me since I've just read the last six issue of the series all in a row, when I got to this one it was kind of a road block and I'm left wondering if I should pass it.

The Winner: And not by much is Punisher War Journal #11, at least the few pages of dialog between the Punisher and WS were more interesting then the whole of Ghost Rider, and Punisher's "shock ending" might lead to a better storyline in the next issue so spend your 3 bucks on Pun rather than the Rider.
Preview Pages after the break.