WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Ghost Rider #5 by Ed Brisson, Juan Frigeri, Jason Keith, and VC's Joe Caramagna, on sale now.
Marvel has a lot of insanely powerful characters, but some stand a little bit apart from the rest. Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme, is one of those characters, and he's not someone whose bad side you want to be on. But after busting Mephisto out of Strange's prison, that's exactly where Johnny Blaze finds himself at the end of Ghost Rider #5.
As a result of this little mystical faux pas, it looks like Johnny and Strange will be facing off in the next issue of Ghost Rider.
In the world of Ghost Rider, things have gone to hell in a handbasket lately. Danny Ketch has been possessed by some kind of necrotic limbo spirit that sees him wielding a giant, Final Fantasy-esque sword. Mephisto was captured and imprisoned by Dr. Strange, and Johnny Blaze the demon's place as the King of Hell in his place.
Of course, not everyone is happy about Hell's change in management. For starters, Mephisto would like his throne back, Lilith is on the warpath, and even Johnny is starting to feel the negative effects of his new role and taking a decisive turn towards the evil.
After Blaze sprung Mephisto from Strange's prison in Ghost Rider #4, this issue opens with him slugging beer and questioning Marvel's Prince of Darkness in a dingey motel room. Mephisto warns him that Lilith is coming for him with an army of demons at her beck and call. If her coup proves successful. Lilith has teamed up with Belasco, the ruler of Limbo, and the pair want to merge all of Marvel's underworlds together. Undeterred, Ghost Rider drags Mephisto for a ride on the pavement of a nearby interstate. Just as Mephisto is bumping off the side of an 18-wheeler, a portal opens and the past and current Kings of Hell are transported to a snowy mountain slope, where they find Strange waiting for them and ready to fight.
While Strange doesn't seem too terribly concerned about the increasingly evil Blaze, the Master of the Mystic Arts wants his prisoner back. Strange captured Mephisto and trapped him in Las Vegas at the end of the Damnation crossover. Since then, Marvel's own Prince of Darkness had been a prisoner kept under heavy restraints at the top of the Hotel Inferno which remained on Earth after Blaze took the throne of Hell. While Mephisto has popped up around the Marvel Universe recently, he was still being kept there until Blaze showed up to spring him loose, effectively undoing all of Strange's work, work that he quite literally died for.
This will not be the first time that the Master of the Mystic Arts goes toe to toe with the Spirit of Vengeance. Over the years the two have crossed paths many times, but more often as allies than anything else. On one memorable occasion, Blaze found himself pitted against Strange after finally succeeding in escaping from Hell. In that fight, Blaze's mind was clouded and he thought Strange was Lucifer. In his rage, he nearly killed the Sorcerer Supreme before snapping out of his altered state.
However, that fight wouldn't be as one-sided today, considering Strange's current power levels. The interesting wrinkle to all of this is that Johnny Blaze only became the King of Hell in order to essentially fix Strange's colossal mistake in Damnation. In a way, Strange is facing off against a problem which he caused himself, and the results of the battle between the mystical powerhouses could have ramifications for the entire Marvel Universe.