Jack O'Lantern has never been this entertaining.
While I praised Garth Ennis' Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears mini series for centering the story on other characters then Ghost Rider himself, I can't do the same thing with Daniel Way. The reason is, Ennis does it to tell a great story, while Way does it because he has nothing interesting to do with Johnny Blaze, or Ghost Rider for that matter. In Trail of Tears, Ghost Rider is a mystery and when he shows up in the story you know it's to inflict vengeance on someone. In this story, Ghost Rider isn't a mystery, and when he does show up, you just hope he does something cool.
The character of Johnny Blaze has practically been nonexistent in this series. In past Ghost Rider series, Blaze was often tormented by the fact that he turns into Ghost Rider and wanted to get rid of him... so far in this series we have no idea what's going on in Johnny's head. There's been no character development at all, and this is the 10th issue of a solo title. I'm not saying Way should repeat what's been done in the past... but he should just do SOMETHING with this character. He's a former motorcycle stunt man that changes into the spirit of vengeance in the presence of evil... there has to be some kind of potential there right?
Thankfully the Sleepy Hollow story arc has had a couple of interesting characters in it however. The sheriff is kooky enough to be interesting, and actually is funny when he goes to interact with the local religious nut-cases. Jack O'Lantern on the other hand probably has never been this entertaining. He had to die and be repossessed by Lucifer for it to happen... but it's happened none the less. For now these two saved this story arc, but what is Way going to do in the next story arc?
There's no question that this series has improved since the earlier issues. So far this story arc has been a fun read, but the potential for the character of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider is not being met. It's climbed from a 2 Star to a 3 Star, I'd love to see it go to 4 Stars.