While Ennis would seem to be a great match for Ghost Rider as a writer, honestly I feel like I haven't read anything good by him since Vertigo's Saint of Killers (now that was a story!). So it's disappointing on that level, though Ennis had already disappointed me to the nth when he retconned the whole Ghost Rider series. I don't know that I can ever forgive him. But I bought this book because it was divorced from the whole Johnny Blaze saga and therefore I thought I would have a more objective eye for it (and it would have half a chance to please me).
And it mostly did. I thought the title was in poor taste (naming a comic book after an act of genocide ~ it's like: next month in The Amazing Spiderman: "Arbeit macht Frei!" ~ and it's a story about a steel worker who does like his crummy job so he turns to a life of crime). It's demeaning, I guess is my point ~ but I am probably in the minority who would even bother finding offense at such a thing. But putting the title aside, the story (I read the collected trade in hardback because I got it for a ridiculously low price), was worth about the 6 issues it spanned originally. Drag it out any longer at the pace it was going and I would have gotten tired of it.
I'm okay with it if that's the point, but it's a sadly nihilistic tale if in the end even Parham doesn't emerge from this nightmare a better man for what he's seen. Just boo. There was an opportunity here and it was totally missed.
Clayton Crane's art likewise gets a mixed review from me. I'm not crazy about digital art in general, but I can appreciate it and Crane's big splashy scenes are rendered gorgeously. He loves Ghost Rider and you can tell by the detail he puts into the character. He also does a great job of individualizing all the other characters so that they are recognizable and distinguishable (this is too often a problem in comics with large "casts" ~ everyone looks the same). His single prominent female character is pretty good too, so he gets points for that.
But the art is uneven. A splashy action page makes for great eye candy, but some of his panels look downright unfinished when the scene is about people sitting around talking. This smacks of laziness to me. Worse yet, he starts cutting and pasting toward the end of the story which is not only lazy, but annoying. His snowy town of Pike's Reach is beautiful enough alone that I forgive most everything else, though.
In the final analysis, this is a pretty book with a decent story that gives you something to think about and I'm not mad that I bought it. Disappointed that it could have been so much more, but then, truly, my expectations from Marvel have been at the bottom of the pit since the 90s, so I'd say this one's above par from the usual fare (if that's not damning it with too faint praise).