Creative Staff:
Story: Chris Sebela
Artwork: Harvey Tolibao
What They Say:
Ghost has recovered all of her memories as Elisa Cameron, but instead of this making things easier, it just highlights the differences between who she was and what she has become. Can Elisa be the Ghost and still retain her humanity? Or will Ghost run out of control?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Giving Elise her memories back is a useful change for the book, one that has struggled with its own identity from the start. We’ve had some big end of the world demon stuff to deal with and some less than thrilling demon stuff to work with, all while mired in a group of friends and “family” for Elise that are bland and flat out uninteresting that seem to add little to the title in general. So her remembering who she is gives Elise a chance to finally stake out what kind of life she wants to have now that she’s whole. Well, sort of whole, as she’s in the mindset of viewing the darker side of what she does with her powers as a separate identity of sorts. Not a split personality or anything, but she’s compartmentalizing things as best as she can so as to not totally lose herself to the violence she doles out.
Since gaining her memories, Elise has spent the last couple of weeks locked in her room, which has been panicking the others. What they didn’t really know, but could guess, is that she’s been out on her own doing things. Elise’s finally breaking down and filling them in on things is helpful as it draws them closer to her and vice versa, especially now that they know what she knows about herself. The conflict she has about herself is an interesting one with a sad touch to it as she knows she can’t really go back to her family, even though she was never listed as dead but rather just missing. They’ve all finally made their peace with it and have moved on, and her arrival would throw all of them into an upheaval. She does spend some time watching over them and we even see how she watches her younger sister Margot, who is accosted by some thugs that are out kidnapping women for their own nefarious schemes. For Elise, it’s good to see how she’s watching over them since it touches to her humanity.
But she also sees parts of her past and how she can use them going forward. While she wanted to be a cop like her father, he was against it and she ended up as a journalist to try and solve the bigger problems. But she’s wanting to solve some real problems now and is intent on using her skills and abilities to do that. The encounter with the thugs brings things into focus as she tracks it back and deals with the dozens of women that they had kidnapped, making a real change. But she wants to go further and higher up the food chain to where the real evil lays, but that’s its own complications as her friends like Vaughn points out. There’s a lot of discussion over the merits of what she wants to do, but it really is a choice of either working with her or not being involved at all. Elise is on a mission and she’s not playing around anymore. And it’s a direction for the book as well, though we’ll see if it really latches itself onto this or if it’s another temporary direction.
In Summary:
Ghost continues to have its moments but is weaker as a whole. Looking over the past nine issues, it’s a rollercoaster ride of what it is it wants to be and I’m still not entirely sure it knows. With Elise now in possession of her memories, she’s making plans and moves that she wants to do rather than reacting to what’s being thrown at her. That’s a big plus and one that works well to make it feel like it has direction. Frankly, at this point, I’d rather see a wholesale ejection of the supporting cast and Elise moving into the darker aspects of her world and working solo to deal with the darkness within the city she operates out of. I’m not sure where things will go from here, but I’m certainly curious to see where the creative team will take her and if they can finally give her some real weight to work with when it comes to her stories and her character.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 5th, 2014
MSRP: $2.99
