By Howard Mackie, Roy Thomas & Dann Thomas, Javier Saltares, Mark Texeira. Mark Bagley, Larry Stroman, Chris Marrinan, Jimmy Palmiotti, Harry Candelario, Tom Palmer, Mark McKenna & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5405-5 (TPB/Digital edition)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.
In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales Marvel shifted focus from traditional clean-cut costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters. One of the most enduring was a flaming-skulled vigilante dubbed The Ghost Rider.
Carnival stunt-cyclist Johnny Blaze had sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father from cancer. As is always the way of such things Satan (or arch-liar Mephisto as he actually was) followed the letter, but not spirit, of the contract and Crash Simpson died anyway.
When the Demon Lord came for Blaze only the love of an innocent saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation. Temporarily thwarted, Johnny was punished: afflicted with a body that burned with all the fires of Hell every time the sun went down. He became the unwilling host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance. After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was liberated from the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life. The origin has been tweaked constantly since then, but for this time and tome, this is what the reboot stemmed from…
As Blaze briefly escaped a preordained doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragic…
From that dubious period of fashionably “Grim ‘n’ Gritty” superheroics in the early 1990s comes an engagingly fast-paced and action-oriented horror-hero re-imagining, courtesy of writer Howard Mackie and artists Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira, which rapidly secured the newest Ghost Rider status as one of the hottest hits of the period.
This premiere Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Epic Collection volume gathers #1-12 of the revitalised series plus crossover incidents from Marc Spector: Moon Knight #25, Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #28 and material from Marvel Comics Presents #64-71: cumulatively covering cover-dates May 1990 to April 1991, and opens sans introduction with Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares & Mark Texiera’s bonanza-sized introductory tale ‘Life’s Blood’
Here teenager Danny and his photographer sister Barbara are looking for Houdini’s tomb in Brooklyn’s vast Cypress Hills Cemetery on the eve of Halloween. Tragically, they stumble into a bloody criminal confrontation over a mysterious briefcase with ninjas and gangsters lashing out indiscriminately. Discovered, the siblings flee but Barb is hit by an arrow, with the case itself snatched by a juvenile gang who haunt the wooded necropolis. One of them makes tracks with the prize as the ninjas and macabre leader Deathwatch finish the firefight that follows. Now they are hunting for their hard-won prize… and the witnesses…
In an adjacent junkyard Danny is helplessly watching Barb bleed out when his attention is caught by a glowing pair of eyes. Closer inspection reveals them to be an arcane design on the gas-cap of an abandoned motorbike. The ninjas, having caught the girl who stole the briefcase, are closing in on the Ketch kids when Danny, hands soaked in his sister’s blood, touches the glowing bike symbol and is inexplicably transformed into a spectral horror, burning with fury and indignation. He has become a Spirit of Vengeance hungry to assuage the pain of innocent blood spilled, brimming with inhuman vitality, toting an infinitely adaptable bike chain and employing a mystic “Penance Stare” which subjects the guilty to unimaginable psychic pain and guilt…
The Blazing Biker makes short work of the ninjas, but when the police arrive and find him standing over dying Barbara, they naturally jump to the wrong conclusion…
Ghost Rider flees on a bike with wheels of fire, causing spectacular amounts of collateral carnage, as Barb is rushed to hospital, where a re-transfigured, bruised, bleeding and totally confused Danny finds her next morning…
In the richest part of Manhattan, Wall Street shark/psionic monster Deathwatch makes a ghastly example of the man who lost his briefcase – twice! – even as his competitor for it, criminal overlord Wilson Fisk, similarly chastises his own minions for failure. The contents of the case are not only hotly disputed, but utterly lethal and both factions will tear Brooklyn apart to get them. Meanwhile the teen thieves known as the Cyprus Pool Jokers find three canisters in the purloined case and hide them all over the vast cemetery, unaware that both Deathwatch’s ninjas and the Kingpin’s hoods are hunting for them.
At Barbara’s bedside Danny is wracked with guilt and plagued by anger. Unable to help his comatose sister, he decides to investigate what happened to him. When he regained consciousness, the blazing bike had returned to a normal configuration which Danny climbs aboard to heads back to Cyprus Hills and seek answers… just as competing packs of killers are turning the streets into a free-fire zone.
Riding right into the bloodbath, Danny sees his bike gas-cap glowing again and, almost against his will, slams his palm onto it to unleash his skeletal passenger once again…
Devastating assembled mobsters and murderers, the Ghost Rider takes wounded Cyprus Pool Jokers Ralphie and Paulie to hospital and another pointless confrontation with the authorities…
Second issue ‘Do Be Afraid of the Dark!’ depicts open war between Deathwatch and Kingpin’s forces for canisters neither side possesses, with Ghost Rider roaming the night tackling increasingly savage hunters on both sides. Paulie admits she has no idea where two of the containers might be, since the Jokers split up to hide them and she’s now the last of them…
The urban horror escalates when Deathwatch’s metahuman enforcer Blackout joins the hunt: a sadistic manmade vampire with the ability to manipulate fields of complete darkness. This psychotic mass-murderer targets entire families and starts his search by “questioning” the cops who attended the initial battle in the graveyard…
Danny is on the verge of a breakdown, snapping viciously at his mother and girlfriend Stacy: utterly unable to share the horror his life has become. Between days at Barb’s bedside and nights enslaved to a primal force obsessed with blood and punishment, Ketch is drowning…
When Blackout tracks down recuperating Ralphie, Ghost Rider is too late to save the young felon’s parents and barely manages to drive the vampire away before the boy also succumbs, leading to the inevitable final clash in ‘Deathwatch’ as the Wall Street dilettante’s forces find the canisters before being overwhelmed by the Kingpin. Painfully pragmatic, the ninja-master simply surrenders, but wildly unpredictable Blackout refuses to submit, slipping into a deadly berserker rage before escaping with the containers and terrified hostage Paulie.
The albino maniac knows his prize is a toxin able to eradicate New York’s population and harbours an plan to use it to kick-start an atomic war. The subsequent nuclear winter would ensure an Earth he would inevitably rule. However, his delusional dreams are ended when the Ghost Rider appears and engages the vampire in blistering battle.
Incensed beyond endurance, Blackout savagely bites the blazing biker, but instead of blood sucks down raw, coruscating hellfire that leaves his face a melted, agonising ruin whilst burning the canisters to harmless slag…
GR #4 finds Danny – unable to resist the constant call to become the Flaming Apparition – locking the cursed motorcycle beyond the reach of temptation in distant Manhattan. Sadly, it has other ideas when a clash between bikers and an old Thor villain trap Ketch and a car full innocent bystanders in a subterranean parking garage. ‘You Can Run, but You Can’t Hyde!’ teaches the troubled young man that the Rider is a cruel necessity in a bad world: an argument confirmed by the beginning of an extended subplot wherein children start vanishing from Brooklyn’s streets.
The very epitome of Grim ‘n’ Gritty stops by for a two issue guest-shot in #5-6 as ‘Getting Paid!’ and ‘Do or Die!’ reveal a mysterious figure distributing free guns to children, drawing the attention of not just the night-stalking Spirit of Vengeance but also merciless, militaristic vigilante Frank Castle, known to criminals and cops alike as The Punisher.
The weapons are turning the city into a slaughterhouse, but cops and unscrupulous TV reporter Linda Wei seem more concerned with stopping Ghost Rider’s campaign against the youthful killers than ending the bloodshed. Danny investigates in mortal form and quickly finds himself in over his head, but for some reason the magic medallion won’t transform him. He is completely unaware how close he is to becoming the Punisher’s latest statistic…
The situation changes that night and the flame-skulled zealot initially clashes with Castle before they unite to tackle the true mastermind: rabid anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist terrorist Flag-Smasher. With the insane demagogue determined to unleash a blizzard of death on Wall Street, the driven antiheroes briefly unite to end the scheme and save the “bad” kids and the system that created them…
Illustrated solely by Texeira, ‘Obsession’ in #7 sees the return of contortionist/animal trainer The Scarecrow – who barely troubled Iron Man, The X-Men or Captain America in his early days – reinventing himself after slipping into morbid thanophilia. Now a remorseless, death-preoccupied deviant, he presents a truly different threat to the mystic agent of retribution…
A far greater menace is seen – or rather, not seen – as Blackout resurfaces: silently stalking Ketch and savagely slaughtering everybody who knows him. Not even the police guards at Barbara’s hospital bedside can stop the fiend with half-a-face…
Through dreams Danny debates his cursed existence with the Spirit of Vengeance in Mackie, Saltares & Texeira’s ‘Living Nightmare’ with Danny bemoaning his fate but seemingly unable to affect the implacable, terrifying being he can’t stop becoming. Adding to his fevered nights are visions of Deathwatch, Barbara and vile psycho-killer Blackout…
As the vampire continues killing anybody coming into contact with Danny – who seems paralysed by his dilemma – Stacy completes her training to be a cop, whilst her dad increases patrols to catch the blazing Biker. Impatient and scared, the Cypress Hills Community Action Group takes controversial steps to safeguard their streets: hiring maverick private security company H.E.A.R.T. (Humans Engaging All Racial Terrorism – truly one of the naffest and most inappropriate acronyms in comics history) who promptly assess Ghost Rider as the cause of all the chaos and go after him with high-tech military hardware including a helicopter gunship…
The Spirit of Vengeance is already occupied, having found Blackout attacking another girl, but their showdown is interrupted when the fiery skeleton is attacked by a colossal Morlock (feral mutants who live in tunnels beneath New York) mistaking saviour for assailant…
GR #9 guest-stars X-Factor (a reconstituted X-Men team comprising Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman and The Beast) who solve the mystery of the missing children in ‘Pursuit’ (with additional inks by Jimmy Palmiotti) after following Ghost Rider and Morlocks under the city.
Tragically, Blackout too is on the Blazing Biker’s trail and finds in the concrete depths even more victims to torture Danny Ketch’s breaking heart and blistered soul before their climactic last clash…
Here we pause for social networking 90s style as a serial in fortnightly anthology showcase Marvel Comics Presents (issues #64-710) sees the spectral biker participate in ‘Acts of Vengeance.’ Concocted by Mackie, Texiera & Harry Candelario the 8-part serial finds the Rider, Wolverine and debutante hero Brass battle Deathwatch, ninjas, Triads and host of other then-ubiquitous oriental-themed foes in a rushed, non-stop excuse for a fight detailed in ‘Ghosts of the Past!’, ‘Claw & Chain’, ‘Dancing in the Dark’, ‘Uneasy Alliance’, ‘Mutants, Nijas & Demons’, ‘Brass Tactics’, ‘Confession is Good for the Soulless’ and ‘The End’, prior to the Rider roaring into double-length and out-of-chronology Marc Spector: Moon Knight #25 April 1991).
Here Mackie, Mark Bagley & Tom Palmer detail how the Fist of Khonshu fights fanatical and fatalistic religious zealots The Knights of the Moon before grudgingly accepting vengeful spiritual support to prevent a wave of New York bombings… and worse…
Returning to Ghost Rider #10 (February 1991 by Mackie, Saltares & Texiera) ‘Stars of Blood’ sees Danny reconciled to his burden and beginning a new phase of life. When a series of horrific murders are attributed to a publicity-seeking serial killer named Zodiak, Ketch investigates the deaths and discovers the haunted gas-cap is again inactive, although it does transform him later when he stumbles over a couple of kids fighting. Arcanely active again, Ghost Rider follows a convenient tip to the astrological assassin and discovers a far more prosaic reason for the string of slayings before an inclusive and unsatisfying battle with the insufferable, elusive Zodiak.
Meanwhile elsewhere, the humiliated H.E.A.R.T. honchos accept Deathwatch’s commission to destroy the Spirit of Vengeance, whilst in the western USA a previous victim of the curse of Zarathos is riding his motorcycle hard, determined to get to New York and destroy the new Ghost Rider as soon as possible…
Pencilled by Larry Stroman, ‘Through a Nightmare Revealed…’ finds Danny repeatedly targeted by the dream demon who once controlled Zarathos – and who is determined to do so again. In the physical world Zodiak, returns with anew scheme and the previous Biker from Hell closes in on Danny, all before Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme pops in moments too late to prevent Ketch and the Spirit of Vengeance taking their relationship to the next level…
This volume ends on a thematic cliffhanger with GR #12 (April 1991 by Mackie, Saltares & Texiera) sharing some Stephen ‘Strange Tales’ as Earth’s magical monitor and aides Topaz and Rintrah arrive at a wrong conclusion about the new Ghost Rider and take unnecessarily hostile action.
Incapable of relinquishing his mission to save the innocent, the Rider hits back and heads off, leading the mistaken heroes to the real monsters and the true victims in time for a shocking demon-infested conclusion in Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #28’s ‘Strange Tales, Part II’ (Roy Thomas & Dann Thomas, Chris Marrinan & Mark McKenna) with infernal old foes and new threats all failing to flay humanity…
To Be Continued…
This expanded re-issue of 1991’s Ghost Rider Resurrected trade paperback also includes the Texiera cover and articles by John A. Wilcox from Marvel Age #87 (April 1990) as well as Marvel Trivia Quiz, Fred Hembeck’s Li’l Blazer cartoon spoof and a text piece and spoof ads from Marvel 1990 – The Year in Review.
Also on show are Texiera’s cover and Mackie’s introduction from that 1991 collection and the Ghost Rider/Wolverine: Acts of Vengeance TPB; Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch – Marvel Tales by Logan Lubera & Chris Sotomayor; Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic by Saltares & John Kalisz and Marvel Comics Presents Wolverine volume 4 by Rob Liefeld & Tom Chu, plus pin-ups from Texiera, Palmiotti & Saltares. There’s a full cover gallery and variants by Saltares, Texiera, Jim Lee, Bagley, Stroman, Mike Thomas & Klaus Janson, David Ross, Jim Valentino & Joe Rosas, Paul Gulacy, Sandy Plunkett & Alan Weiss, Liefeld, John Byrne and Mike Golden, and also original art by Lee.
Despite being markedly short on plot and utterly devoid of humour, this reboot delivered the maximum amount of uncomplicated thrills, spills and chills for action-starved fight fans – and still does. If you occasionally feel subtlety isn’t everything and yearn for a vicarious dose of plain-&-simple wickedness-whomping, this might well be the book you’re looking for.
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