Flash + Ghost Rider + Etrigan = Speed Demon

Speed Demon #1
“Demon's Night”
Story: Howard Mackie and James Felder
Art: Salvador Larroca and Al Milgrom
Lettering: Richard Starkings and Comicraft
Colors: Kevin Tinsley
Separations: Malibu's Hues
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor-in-chief: Bob Harras
Cover: Larroca and Milgrom
Published by: Marvel
Released: Feb. 29, 1996

Some amalgams are pretty obvious, like Aquaman and the Sub-Mariner (Mariner) or Green Arrow and Hawkeye (Hawkeye*) in the pages of “JLX.” Some make sense based on the popularity of particular characters at the time, a la Spider-Man and Superboy (Spider-Boy). Some seem completely out of left field, like a Punisher/Wonder Woman team/mash-up in “Bullets and Bracelets.”

Our latest title character seems like a mix of all three. The Flash is a legacy character and DC A-lister. Ghost Rider is more of a second-tier Marvel hero, albeit one of the coolest looking ever. Still, he's probably never been as popular as he was in the '90s.

The most obvious mix for the Flash is Marvel's resident speedster, Quicksilver, but that's not a very exciting combination: fast and faster. Even if I didn't recognize it at first, mixing the immature and energetic Impulse with the dour Quicksilver in the form of JLX's Mercury is a more interesting prospect.

So who do you splice the Flash with? Why not a modern-day Marvel headliner with a penchant for speed? Season the mix with Etrigan the Demon... and another Flash... and you've got Speed Demon.**

Bur the issue opens with Hal Jordan, apparently an attorney with the Starbrand Corps, framed as a traitor and about to be eliminated by the blue Guardian Uatu. Instead of a green power ring, this guy – who either didn't take an oath of non-interference or simply doesn't give a crap – is wielding what looks like an emerald lightsaber.

Hal receives a stay of execution with the arrival of a speedster with a flaming skull who also speaks in rhyme. One blast of fiery breath and Uatu is toast. But the Speed Demon senses Hal has done his share of bad deeds too and roasts him too.

Back at the Quentin Carnival, an extremely random trio of amalgams is encouraging a young man named Wally – whose surname is probably Ketch? – to leave the carnival and the influence of his uncle Blaze Allen. Not only does Wally not leave the carnival, he goes straight to his uncle's trailer, just in time to see him transform out of the Speed Demon form.

This gives Blaze a chance to recount his origin story, telling how an evil wizard bonded him to the demon Etrigan to take on the malevolent Night Spectre (Nightmare + the Spectre), who killed Blaze's bride Iris on their wedding day. It seems she was a Soul of Power, a being so pure that her soul was a massive source of supernatural, well, power. The same is true of extremely corrupt souls as well, and Speed Demon and Night Spectre have been in a race to collect the souls ever since.

As luck would have it, there's just one Soul of Power left: the corrupt Harvey Osborn, aka the Green Goblin. His former teammates in the Terrible Three – Siliconman (Plastic Man + Sandman) and Scarecrow (I'm assuming the well-known DC Scarecrow and the more obscure Marvel Scarecrow) – are hunting him through Gotham City on Night Spectre's behalf. The Goblin eludes the duo, so Night Spectre takes human form to do the job himself.

Speed Demon gets there first, and in the ensuing struggle, the Goblin's mask is removed to reveal a half-scarred face, which he attributes to Logan (Dark Claw) in an encounter a fictional footnote tells us happened in Investigator Comics #7.

Night Spectre arrives, and Speed Demon appears to have the upper hand until the arrival of Arrowcaster, who appears to be a combination of Roy Harper, aka Speedy, aka Arsenal, and … I don't know, maybe Hawkeye too?

Arrowcaster gets a whole panel before he's reduced to ash by Speed Demon. The Goblin has fled again, but Night Spectre catches up with him and takes him back to his Sanctum of Lost Souls.

Wally West is still back at the carnival trying to deal with his uncle's revelation when the wizard from the origin flashback, later identified as Merlin, appears to fill in a few blanks. He says Night Spectre killed Iris because Blaze refused to serve him in the soul race and warns Wally that his uncle is likely doomed – unless Wally's interested in making a deal of his own...

Back in Night Spectre's Sanctum, the Speed Demon and Blaze have been separated because magic and Night Spectre now inhabits Green Goblin, giving him a cape to match his purple tunic. Night Spectre reveals Etrigan once had a human soul by the name of Jay Garrick, and he's maybe trapped in the Sanctum too, but the art and dialogue are pretty hard to follow at this point. Just as Night Spectre is about to presumably put the kibosh on the Speed Demon, a flaming-skulled demon on a red motorcycle bursts in. He lassos the villain with a chain, slams him into a wall and reveals himself to be... Wally.

With Speed Demon winning the race for the Souls of Power, and therefore being the new king of Hell, I guess, Blaze reasons that Night Spectre has his sights set on Earth. Wally says Merlin warned him Night Spectre had bonded to a human soul. Before departing, Blaze asks Speed Demon to free the souls of Jay Garrick and Iris, which apparently turned into weird metal statues when their containment units were broken.

Blaze and Speed Demon bond together again and strike a dynamic pose with Wally, then they revert to human form and decide to get some rest before renewing the fight against Night Spectre. Before drifting off to sleep, Blaze wonders what demon Wally's been bonded with and we see an image of Night Spectre unleashing a villainous laugh.

Not a bad never-to-be-resolved cliffhanger, second only so far to “Bruce Wayne: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” But getting there was a bumpy ride. Mackie and Felder did their best to cram everything and multiple kitchen sinks into this issue, and Larroca filled every square inch of each page in an effort to oblige. The references are great, particularly the implication that Hal Jordan was framed, with this being right in the Kyle Rayner-Parallax era. The art is chock full of Marvel and DC Easter eggs, with the splash page revealing Night Spectre's Sanctum appearing to show Super-Skrull, the Leader and maybe Mister Freeze and Captain Comet imprisoned within.

But even that page is stacked with nearly a dozen narration boxes. The creative team is trying to squeeze two or three or more issues worth of story into this one, regular-sized book, and it's bursting at the seams. That makes trying to connect the dots quite a challenge.

The sequence where Arrowcaster intervenes in the fight and pins Speed Demon to a wall with arrows through his eye-holes and hands feels like it should be pretty dramatic, but it barely lasts a page. There's not even a single panel where you can see all the arrows holding him in place. Larroca does a good job conveying what's happening in most cases, even in tight spaces, but the final battle feels like all bets are off and whatever needs to happen happens, regardless of how much sense it does or doesn't make. I mean, sure they're riffing on elements of continuity from decades of storytelling in two different interconnected universes, but there be a little internal logic.

Iris was a Soul of Power but was killed because Blaze refused to serve Night Spectre, even though Night Spectre the quest for which he wanted to draft Blaze was collecting Souls of Power like Iris? And collecting all those souls, according to Blaze's narration allows one to “literally hold the keys to Heaven, Hell and Earth.” But winning the race gives Speed Demon control of Hell and leaves Earth up for grabs? Maybe some of this made more sense in the plotting or maybe I'm missing something. It seems like the creative team may have tried to fit too much story into the allotted space, but in spite of that, this is a brisk story that delivers some cool, albeit condensed, visuals.

The Best Amalgam crown goes to the title character. The costume is an inspired mix of Jay Garrick's Flash suit and original recipe Ghost Rider. The addition of Etrigan makes sense, even if him and Jay Garrick leave the amalgamath a little unbalanced toward the DC side. I'm even more curious about who decided to mix Crystal with Mister Miracle and Blob with (checks online) Chunk, a character I'd never heard of but who Google tells me is actually the basis for Chester P. Runk on the CW Flash series I still haven't finished. Puck and Oberon are a natural combo, and I'm always happy to see an Alpha Flight reference.

Most Confusing Amalgam: Arrowcaster. When we covered this story on the Unspoken Issues podcast, I tried to figure out who the Marvel half was and results were inconclusive. The Amalgam Fandom wiki and ComicVine say he's a mix of Roy Harper and Iron Man villain Spymaster. The Marvel Fandom wiki and Wikipedia identify the Marvel half as a character called Nightcaster... who doesn't have an entry on either site. General Googling shows me there was an Xbox game called “Nightcaster.” Regardless, it probably took you longer to read this paragraph than it would to read Arrowcaster's attack, appearance and fiery demise.

* - And also Goliath.

** - Not the Marvel villain I thought was a bigger deal due to his presence in “Amazing Spider-Man” #280,
which I read roughly 280 times as a kid.