The Guest Star:
      Ghost Rider

The Villain:
      Ghost Rider

Guest Shots:
      Mr. Fantastic; Invisible Girl; Human Torch; Franklin Richards

The Set Up:
      Alicia is in her new studio in the Baxter Building, when an apparent earthquake demolishes her statuary. She rushes across the hall, only to be almost killed by Ben's oversized exercise machinery, which was, as used by Ben, what was causing all the damage. Mr. Fantastic rescues Alicia in time, but Ben departs moping about how worthless he is and what a freak he is.
     Meanwhile. the Ghost Rider is on a rampage of terror through the city, basically scaring people silly for the sole purpose of scaring people silly. Ben observes the tail end of this, and as the Ghost Rider reverts to Johnny Blaze, Ben swoops in and collects him. Blaze is absorbed in self pity because the Ghost Rider is getting wilder and more out of control, and the two commiserate. Eventually, Johnny gives Ben two tickets to his motorcycle show that night, and Ben goes back to the Baxter Building, where Alicia forgives him, of course.
     Ben and Alicia attend the show, which is pretty impressive, until two kids steal a car, almost cause an accident, and an out of control Ghost Rider goes after them. Ben chases after to intervene if need be...

Clobberin' Time?:
      Page 18, panel 3. Ben contemplates an out-of-control Ghost Rider- 'He's too ruthless-- too dangerous! I gotta stop 'im!' "It's Clobberin' Time!"

Petunia's Patch:
      No Petunia today.

Things of Interest:
      This issue really reminds me of what I like about Ben, which is his strength of character and his sense of fun and adventure! When Ben is portrayed, as he is in this issue, as a dull self-pitying freak/monster, his stories tend to be no fun.
     There is one nice moment when a kid sitting behing Ben admiringly says "Look- it's the ever-loving, blue-eyed Thing!" It's nice to see the excitement in the kid's face in a issue thats otherwise all about being depressed.

This issue was reprinted in 1992 in Adventures of the Thing #2, part of a four isue miniseries of MTIO reprints. I know Ghost Rider was popular in the '90s, but couldn't they have at least reprinted the much better MTIO 8?