OAFE – Blog

Even incomplete, it's good that the bio on the back of the Phantom Rider's box specifies the toy is Carter and not his brother Lincoln. When Carter was killed in a cave-in one of his villains triggered, he passed the secret identity on to Linc; sadly, Lincoln was less stable than his brother, and soon started believing he was really a divine spirit.

When the West Coast Avengers were travelling through time, he became obsessed with Mockingbird, so he kidnapped, drugged, and assaulted her. When the other Western heroes freed her, she went looking for revenge, and while fighting Lincoln on a rainy cliffside, allowed him to fall to his death.

(Incidentally, this series of events is what led Hawkeye to divorce her. Way to not support your wife through her trauma, CLINT. You really prove why comics lettered in all-caps used to avoid your name.)

Turns out negligent homicide wasn't as cathartic as she hoped, a situation that's never been helped by Lincoln's ghost repeatedly returning and trying to make her be his again.

If that's all a bit heavy for you and you need a mental palate cleanser, here's a small one: Magazine Enterprises' Rex Fury wasn't written out of Marvel continuity entirely; one of the Official Handbooks revealed that Nick Fury is a descendant of "one of the men who wore the Phantom Rider mask in the late nineteenth century," meaning the director of SHIELD is just one of a long line of lawmen.