By Michael Fleischer, Don Perlin, Carmine Infantino, Ricardo Villamonte & Tom Sutton, with Bob Budiansky, Bob Wiacek, Al Gordon, Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Bob McLeod, Joe Rubinstein, Gil Kane & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3322-7 (HB), 978-1-3029-4371-4 (Digital edition)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
At the end of the 1960s the US comic book industry was in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation. Superheroes had dominated for much of the previous decade, peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Established genres including teen humour, war, science fiction and particularly westerns and horror came back in a big way, presumably stoked by contemporary events and radical trends in movie-making. On that Big Screen, another new(ish) wrinkle had emerged: a post-hippie, pre-Grunge motorcycle chic idolising disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth on Wheels singly and in packs seeking a different way forward…
Robin, the Teen Wonder, O’Neil & Adams’ Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and so many others all followed the Easy Rider option to boost flagging sales (and if you’re interested, the very best of that gang was Mike Sekowsky’s tragically unfinished mini-masterpiece of cool Jason’s Quest in Showcase). Over at Marvel – a company still reeling from Kirby’s defection to DC/National in 1970 – canny Roy Thomas green-lit a new character who combined the freewheeling, adolescent-friendly biker-theme with the all-pervasive supernatural furore gripping the entertainment fields.
Back in 1967, Marvel had published a western-era masked hero dubbed Ghost Rider: a whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy star creation of Vince Sullivan, Ray Krank & Dick Ayers (for Magazine Enterprises from 1949 to 1955), who utilised magician’s tricks to fight bandits by pretending to be an avenging phantom of justice. Scant years later, with the Comics Code prohibition against horror hastily recently revised – amazing how plunging sales can affect morality – scary comics came back in a big way. A new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began to appear on newsstands to supplement the revitalised anthology titles filled with ghosts, ghoulies and goblins (but NOT Zombies!) already slowly infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving superhero titles. In fact, softening the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles (new material and especially reprints from the first fear boom in the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide down-turn in costumed crusaders, that it probably caused an even more venerable mystery man to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.
Almost overnight, nasty monsters became acceptable fare for four-colour pages and whilst a parade of pre-Code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspects of the fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by embracing trends as much as adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public. As always in mass entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was big outside comics was incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1971) and no one too official spoke up, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars beginning with classical tropes – a werewolf and a vampire – before broadening the scope with a haunted biker tapping into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and a prevailing supernatural zeitgeist.
Preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4, an all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972) and took off like a bat out of… well, you know. Soon he was a solidly steadfast part of an all-inclusive Marvel Universe – although admittedly a bit off to one side! This sturdy hardback (or equivalent digital) compendium collects a ferocious fourth helping of his flame-filled early exploits as our haunted outsider hero began his own search for somewhere safe and something special, as specifically seen in Ghost Rider volume 2, #36-50, spanning cover-dates June 1979 to November 1980. As ever the times, tone and context are pre-explained in a forthright essay conveyed here by Jim Salicrup in his Introduction ‘Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself…’
What Has Gone Before: Carnival stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze sold his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father Crash Simpson from cancer. As is the way of such things, Satan follows the letter but not spirit of the contract and Simpson dies anyway. When the Dark Lord later comes for his prize, Blaze’s beloved virginal girlfriend Roxanne Simpson intervenes. Her purity prevents the Devil from claiming his due and, temporarily thwarted, Satan spitefully afflicts Johnny with a skeletal form that burns with the fires of Hell every time the sun goes down…
After dancing with the Devil and assorted demons for months, Johnny headed to Hollywood and worked as a cinematic double and stuntman: a hazardous gig that brought him into a romantic dalliance with starlet Karen Page, and team-ups with many superheroes and even more clashes with supervillains. He even dabbled with team superheroics as one of The Champions, but the regular paying gig trapped Blaze in a slow but pitiless war with aspiring super-mobster The Enforcer. Moreover, the infernal taint of his curse increasingly brought the Rider (who increasingly presented as an entirely different personality to Blaze) into conflict with misguided heroes like Doctor Strange, Doctor Druid, Hawkeye & Two-Gun Kid… so Johnny ultimately dropped everything to hit the road again…
He consistently found trouble – mundane and supernal – everywhere. Battling human thugs, mutants, magical demons. monsters and aliens the ride almost ended after a deadly race against the personification of death, but Blaze rode ever on…
Now primarily crafted by Michael Fleischer (November 1st 1942 – February 2nd 2018) & Don Perlin (August 27th 1929 – May 14th 2024), Blaze’s trail resumes here as we roar at top speed down among the dead men for GR #36’s ‘A Demon in Denver!’ Fleischer (Jonah Hex, The Spectre, Conan, Junker) & Perlin (Werewolf By Night, The Defenders, Bloodshot, Solar Man of the Atom) were consolidating a new kind of storytelling style for their hellbound lone star: a nonstop trouble-finding ride across middle America that affected dissolute cycle-bum Blaze as much as his increasingly uncontrollable arcane alter ego…
It brings aimless, penniless Johnny into the mountain metropolis and to a bar where he catches the approving gaze of waitress/dancer Debbie. Tragically, her kindly attentions trigger the brutal, bullying xenophobic and manically possessive local patrons. When their intended beating/lynching of the stranger arouses a diabolical walking hell-storm, Blaze is hard-pressed to divert it and save his attackers from themselves and the city from the enraged, unleashed Ghost Rider…
With their personalities both at war and apparently merging, the flaming demon is then drawn to a circus where stunt cyclists attempting to smash Johnny Blaze’s world car-jumping record. However, his arrival on the ‘Night of the Flame Cycles!’ is also when mobster Dirk Varden sabotages the attempt to extort money out of show owner Farley. In the aftermath, with both his parents dead, the stunt-bikers’ son Davey is offered a way to resurrect them by a satanic cultist…
The cruel temptation is observed by Blaze, who reveals his spectral alter ego to stop the boy repeating his own mistake. As Ghost Rider races away to inflict vengeance on the guilty, the grief-wracked kid follows, witnessing what hell holds as the baleful biker invades Varden’s palatial estate and destroys dozens of mobsters and hangers-on in his drive to punish a killer, subsequently scaring Davey straight when he seeks to shoot Varden, before delivering his own infernal death sentence…
Ever moving on, Blaze faces motorcycle death worshippers ‘The Cult of Doom’ – a growing force in the region but ones who cannot stop him saving the kidnapped daughter of the state Senator Sterling from their acolytes. This noble act makes him a prime target as the disciples of Death and their secret leader turn their full attentions to the Flaming Menace. Blaze finds a job and new friend in mechanic “Harley” Baggs, even agreeing to participate in his dirt bike rally, but when suicidal cult bikers again try to seize Karen Sterling as she also races across the desert, everything turns sour. Johnny again comes to Karen’s rescue, an act that puts him, Baggs and the Brimstone Biker at the top of the Cult’s hit list…
Their next murderous assault unleashes Ghost Rider’s full fury, but only directs the demon into a lethal ambush as ‘Into the Abyss!’ (GR #39, December 1979) reveals his foes are programmed to die rather than fail, and live close to home.
Barely surviving the death riders’ ambush, Johnny joins Senator Sterling’s campaign to end the cult, only to discover vipers at the heart of that project and even more tragedy after briefly growing closer to Karen. In the end, after the demon on wheels confronts the true villains, all Blaze can do is move on and try to forget…
A swift change of pace comes after Johnny reaches the Wichita-Karcinoma Nuclear Plant only to be struck by a hit-&-run driver. Given shelter by disgraced atomic scientist Thurgood Vance and his daughter Angela, Blaze is on hand when gangsters seek to use the boffin’s comeback project – an atom-powered armoured supersuit – to get rich. When their abduction of Angela goes tragically wrong and Thurgood goes berserk, ‘The Menace of the Nuclear Man!’ ultimately pits magical hellfire against atomic fury after Thurgood seeks to assuage his grief by destroying the power plant and everyone in detonation range…
After the Revenant Rider spectacularly foils a truck robbery by notorious bandits The Jackal Gang, exhausted mortal Johnny Blaze hops ‘The Freight Train to Oblivion!’ where fellow freeloaders savagely assault him, thereby stealing not only his wallet and I.D. but also his memories. His befuddled wandering in the desert leads him to an isolated racetrack where race driver Gina Langtree is having car troubles. Whoever the amnesiac is he’s good with engines and soon after she names him Frank Ryder, the wounded wanderer is adopted into the pit crew, provoking an instant attack by pit boss Carl Travis. Thumped by Frank and bollocked by Gina, Travis is put in place and the new couple start some mild canoodling.
Frank ends his very busy day in the bunkhouse. Sadly that’s when the dormant Ghost Rider awakens seeking vengeance on the jackal Gang and roars off into the night of a bike formed from infernal fire…
The lost weekend stops in #42’s ‘The Lonesome Death of Johnny Blaze!’ as Frank awakens in the Langtree Motors bunkhouse, troubled by odd recollections but otherwise unaware of what the Brimstone Biker has done to the robbers he so easily found. Ryder’s second day is his last however as, after saving Gina from a crash, Frank is knocked unconscious by Travis and left to burn in the wreck. Sadly for Carl, Gina sees it all and mourns her new beau even as Travis is arrested. Sadly for what remains of the Jackals, the immolation has reactivated the Ghost Rider who roars off unseen by all to finish what was started the night before. When it is done and humanity returns, a baffled Johnny Blaze is miles from where he last was and taunted by flashes of memories that he can’t explain…
Guest artists Carmine Infantino & Ricardo Villamonte join Fleischer for ‘Night of the Crimson Mage!’ as the Brimstone Biker’s pursuit of robbers traps him into the clutches of scheming sorcerer Azaziah Hornsby. The mystic succeeds in separating the Rider from Blaze, leaving the human to slowly perish whilst the unfettered demon mercilessly rages against all humanity. The tirade one that only pauses after Johnny leaves his deathbed to fight him. In the Tom Sutton inked conclusion ‘Cloak of Crimson – Soul of Dust!’ the unequal contest continues until the unchecked demon notices he also is losing power. The Crimson Mage wants to absorb the hellish force to fuel another thousand years of life, but foiled by Blaze who (despite being hunted by cops) invades the magical citadel and steals paraphernalia to restore the demon to its imprisonment inside him…
Perlin returns for #45 with an overarching plot strand that begins in ‘To Banish a Ghost!’ Downing a beer in Big Herbie’s Tavern, Blaze is infuriated to see swaggering braggart Flagg Fargo on TV, boasting that he will soon take all fabled Johnny Blaze’s stunt records. The clientele soon recognise a star in their midst and drunkenly swear to sponsor him if he will ride against Fargo…
On a new bike with fresh leathers and kit, Johnny starts his comeback duel but his luck runs true and he is hit by a car as he practises. His decline accomplished, his fall comes in ‘The End of a Champion!’ as, despite all his efforts – and in front of the entire world – his boastful opponent proves too much for him. This time even the Ghost Rider cannot help him…
Branding himself a loser, Blaze starts drinking and is targeted by a biker gang, who merciless stalk him. Despite finding some solace with bar server Amy, the relentless bullying and beatings almost break his spirit. In one weak moment he allows ‘The Demon Within!’ to emerge and solve his problems Hell’s way, before finally getting a grip. Blaze recalls his flaming passenger and flees before Amy is harmed, heading into the wastes where more horror awaits. That ride ends as he is attacked by colossal vampire bats in ‘Wind of the Undead!’ before being accused by unfriendly townsfolk of causing trouble and targeted by terrorist Transylvanian émigrés Tabitha Arcanne and Dalton Cartwright. They not only control the winged beasts but also have a medallion that can command the Ghost Rider. It’s not quite enough to save them, though…
As much a lone rider as any cowboy hero, Blaze inevitably met his western cowboy-era prototype predecessor The Night Rider (renamed for convenience and a western reprint title running seven issues from October 1974 to August 1975) as part of his 50th issue celebration. To facilitate that, the modern, devil-tainted Ghost Rider was subject to ‘The Wrath of the Manitou!’ in #49 after failing to stop dam-bombing saboteurs inundating the region and despoiling sacred Indian burial grounds…
The failure hurled the haunted hero back to the 1870s where Bison Bend school teacher Carter Slade battled injustice as Night Rider, blessed by the spirits and employing legerdemain to bamboozle the wicked. Blaze’s arrival converges with a full-scale attack by a masked supervillain/bandit but as ‘Manitou’s Anger… Tarantula’s Sting!’ shows, valour and hellfire are a formidable force that cannot be overcome. Having proved himself to the Spirits and saved history, Johnny is returned to the now just before that bomb detonates and enjoys a second chance to make things right…
To Be Continued…
Big bold bonanza #50 also included a pin-up selection of ‘Ghost Rider’s Gallery of Guest Stars!’ – namely The Son of Satan by Infantino & Wiacek, Incredible Hulk by Gil Kane & Klaus Janson and Phantom Eagle by Herb Trimpe – as well as a comprehensive Index of all his far-flung fearsome appearances. This titanic turbo-charged tome with covers throughout by Bob Budiansky and inkers Bob Wiacek, Al Gordon, Jack Abel, Al Milgrom, Bob McLeod, Joe Rubinstein, then concludes with the original cover art to #50 and a copious Creator Biographies section.
These tales return Ghost Rider to his roaming roots, and imminent threat of the real-deal Infernal Realm: showing a good man struggling to save his soul from the worst of all bargains – as much as the revised Comics Code would allow – so brace yourself, hold steady and accept no supernatural substitutes…
© 2022 MARVEL.
Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Fast ‘n’ Loose Spooky Truths… 8/10