Category: Ghost Rider

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Ghost Rider Marvel Masterworks volume 3


By Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie, Gerry Conway, Don Glut, Don Perlin. Jim Starlin, Don Heck, Gil Kane, Tom Sutton & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2214-6 (HB/Digital edition)

At the end of the 1960s American comic books were 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 such as horror, war, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by contemporary events and radical trends in movie-making where another, new(ish) wrinkle had also emerged: disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth on Motorbikes seeking a different way forward.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and many others all took the Easy Rider option to boost flagging sales (and if you’re interested, the best of the crop 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-lighted 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 published a western masked hero named Ghost Rider: a shameless, whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy hero 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 rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – scary comics came back in a big way. A new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began to appear on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact, softening the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles (new material and reprints from the first boom in the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders 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 adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting 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 the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before broadening the scope with a haunted biker to tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the prevailing supernatural zeitgeist.

Preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4, the all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972) and this sturdy hardback and equivalent digital compendium collects a third heaping helping of his flame-filled early exploits: specifically Ghost Rider #21-35, plus added attraction Marvel Premiere #28, spanning December 1976 to April 1979, and is preceded by an informative Introduction from Ralph Macchio.

What Has Gone Before: Carnival trick cyclist Johnny Blaze sells 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 body that burns with the fires of Hell every time the sun goes down…

After dancing with the Devil and assorted demons for months, and even dabbling with team superheroics on the Champions, Johnny has moved to Hollywood and works as stuntman on the Stuntman TV show: a hazardous gig that has brought him into a romantic dalliance with starlet Karen Page, a team-up with Daredevil and many clashes with supervillains.

As the action opens in GR #21’s ‘Deathplay!’, Gerry Conway, Kil Kane & Sam Grainger build on the trend as manic hireling The Gladiator attacks the Delazny Studio seeking a deadly weapon left by a sinister hidden foe.

After spectacularly repelling the armoured assassin, Blaze does a little digging into the studio and its staff only to clash with another veteran villain – The Eel, abruptly reinforced by Gladiator seeking a rematch. Thrashing them both only gets him in more trouble with the cops and – on the run again – he finally faces the criminal mastermind who has orchestrated many months of woe and learns ‘Nobody Beats the Enforcer!’ (Conway, Don Glut, Don Heck & Keith Pollard). The ganglord has his fingers dug deep into the studio and seeks ultimate power in LA, but somehow Blaze is always in his way, such as here, foiling the costumed killer’s attempt to steal a deadly ray concealed in a ring.

Attempts to further integrate Ghost Rider with mainstream Marvel continuity intensify with the arrival of new scripter – and actual motorbike afficionado – Jim Shooter. With Dons Heck and Newton illustrating, ‘Wrath of the Water Wizard!’ sees the embattled biker battling a hydrokinetic hoodlum at the Enforcer’s behest, only to be betrayed and beaten in anticipation of a blockbusting clash in Shooter, Heck & Dan Green’s ‘I, The Enforcer…!’

Cover-dated August 1977, Ghost Rider #25 presaged a return to wandering ways as Shooter, Heck & Tony DeZuñiga’s ‘Menace is a Man Called Malice!’ finds the infernal antihero implicated in an arson attack on a wax museum before battling a high tech madman. Blaze’s diabolical overreaction in victory signalled dark days ahead…

Don Perlin began his long association with the Spirit Cyclist in #26 as ‘A Doom Named Dr. Druid!’ (words by Shooter & inks by Grainger) as recently-revived and revised proto Marvel superhero Anthony Druid (who as Dr. Droom actually predates Fantastic Four #1) hunts a satanic horror and attacks the Ghost Rider. Only after beating the burning biker does the parapsychologist learn the dreadful mistake he’s made, but by then Blaze’s secret is exposed, his Hollywood life ruined and the end of an era looms…

Back on the road again Johnny encounters two fellow travellers, aimless and in trouble when he pals up with disgruntled former Avengers Hawkeye and time-displaced Matt Hawk – The Two-Gun Kid. Crafted by Shooter, Perlin & Green ‘At the Mercy of the Manticore!’ sees Blaze save the heroes from The Brand Corporation’s bestial cyborg monstrosity, but drive them away with his demonic other half’s growing propensity for inflicting suffering…

Still roaming the southern deserts, Blaze is targeted once again by his personal Captain Ahab in ‘Evil is the Orb!’ (Roger McKenzie, Perlin, Tom Sutton, Owen McCarron & Pablo Marcos). His vengeance-crazed rival abducts Roxie and mesmerises a biker gang to do his dirty work but hasn’t reckoned on an intervention by Blaze’s buddy Brahma Bill…

What seemed an inevitable team-up at last occurred in #29 as “New York Tribe” McCarron, DeZuñiga, & Alfredo Alcala augment McKenzie & Perlin for a saga of sorcerous subterfuge as Johnny Blaze is abducted and inquisition-ed by Doctor Strange. Sadly, it’s all a trick by the Mage’s greatest foe who turns Ghost Rider into a ‘Deadly Pawn!’, rigging a murderous retaliation and death duel between ‘The Mage and the Monster!’ as delivered by McKenzie, Perlin & Jim Mooney.

The clash concluded in an extreme expression of ‘Demon’s Rage’ (#31, with illustrator Perlin co-plotting with McKenzie and Bob Layton inking) as the diabolical scheme is exposed and expunged just in time for the fugitive Johnny Blaze to be captured by a mystical Bounty Hunter…

A story tragically similar to Blaze’s own unfolds in McKenzie, Perlin & Rick Bryant’s ‘The Price!’ before Blaze postpones his dark destiny yet again, only to plunge into a super-science hell to contest a medley of western biker and dystopian tropes run amok in ‘…Whom a Child Would Destroy!’ With both chapters uniquely enhanced by an all-Perlin art job, the mutagenic tragedy catastrophically concludes with ‘The Boy Who Lived Forever!’ before this collection closes with a long-deferred, primal thrill-ride.

Commissioned years earlier, ‘Deathrace!’ is a true Jim Starlin gem with Death and the Devil battling our hero in a war of wheels and will, with Steve Leialoha and pals updating and embellishing what we’d call today a Grindhouse shocker…

A big bonus section opens with another, much reprinted yarn. Courtesy of Bill Mantlo, Frank Robbins & Steve Gan is an attempt to create a team of terrors long before its time. Marvel Premiere #28 (February 1976) introduced the initial iteration of The Legion of Monsters in ‘There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard!’. When an ancient alien manifests a rocky peak in LA, the Werewolf by Night Jack Russell, the macabre Man-Thing, current Hollywood stuntman/Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze and living vampire Morbius are irresistibly drawn into a bizarre confrontation which could have resulted in the answer to all their wishes and hopes, but instead only leads to destruction, death and deep disappointment…

With covers by Jack Kirby, Frank Giacoia, Al Milgrom, John Romita Sr., Steve Leialoha, Kane & Dave Cockrum, George Pérez & Rudy Nebres, Sal Buscema, Ernie Chan, Rich Buckler, Robbins, Pollard, Layton, Bob Budiansky, Bob Wiacek, Perlin, and Nick Cardy, other assets include a June 1978 house ad for all of Marvel’s supernatural series, original art pages and covers by Kirby, Romita Sr., DeZuñiga, Perlin & Alcala and Chan, as well as fascinating art edits by Milgrom & Michael Netzer to Starlin’s ‘Deathrace!’ story and the unused cover he originally drew for it.

These tales return Ghost Rider to his roots, and imminent threat of the real-deal Infernal Realm: portraying 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…
© 2021 MARVEL.

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Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire


By Jason Aaron, Roland Boschi, Dan Brown & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4235-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

Following a downturn in superhero comics sales, the early 1970’s saw Marvel shift focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and/or horror characters, with one of the most adaptable and enduring proving to be 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-deceiver 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 soul saved the bad-boy biker from eternal pain and damnation. Temporarily thwarted, the devil afflicted Johnny with a condition making his body burn with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down as the lost soul periodically became the unwilling, unknowing host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance.

After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was (temporarily) freed of the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life. As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragic…

Over the years a grim truth emerged: Johnny and Danny were actually half-brothers and both the Higher Realms and Infernal Regions had big plans for them. Moreover, the power of the Ghost Rider had always been a weapon of Heaven, not a curse from Hell…

This riotous, rollercoaster grindhouse supernatural thriller collects the 6-issue miniseries Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire (from August 2009 – February 2010) by Jason Aaron & Roland Boschi, and featuring a host of fan-favourite villains, a variety of previous fire-headed hosts, a gaggle of grim guest-stars and assorted Spirits of Vengeance in a bombastic, Hell-for-Leathers romp which neatly concluded a long-running and unresolved saga.

It begins when usurper Archangel Zadkiel – thanks to his unwitting dupe Danny – finally achieves his appalling ambition. Ousting God, the devil becomes the new Supreme Power of the universe, but the sinister Seraph has not reckoned on a motley crew of sinners and worse, led by Blaze, who are utterly resolved to stop Him…

With covers and variants by Jae Lee, Phil Jimenez, Das Pastoras, Dustin Weaver, Greg Land and Christian Nauck, the dark drama begins when Zadkiel’s angels raid a satanic fertility lab and slaughter all its infants and children. The victims were all prospective Antichrists, but one escaped…

When Hellstorm – a fully grown, naturally conceived Son of Satan – arrives, he finds himself in a peculiar position. Having spent his entire rebellious unnatural life battling his sire, Daimon Hellstrom has no desire to aid the Evil One’s schemes, but must act since, by his murderous acts, Zadkiel is actually trying to unmake Biblical Prophecy.

God always intended for an Apocalypse to conclude His Divine Plan, but the usurper’s coup is actually beyond all concept of right and wrong. Thus the die is cast and Hellstorm must – albeit reluctantly – locate the last Earthborn heir of Hell and ‘Save the Antichrist, Save the World’…

Simultaneously, Blaze, accompanied by mystic Caretaker agent/combat nun Sister Sara, is tracking Zadkiel’s angelic agents, determined to find a door to Heaven and confront the renegade face to face. They also want to kill Johnny’s brother Danny, whose pig-headed hubris has led to Zadkiel replacing God and occupying the Vault of Heaven…

When the bikers wipe out a brace of boastful rear-guard Cherubim and learn of The Plan, they immediately change tactic, joining the hunt for missing Anton Satan (AKA Kid Blackheart) to save him from the wrath of the Pretender God…

Oblivious to the threat, Anton is exactly where you’d expect an Antichrist to be: making millions as the youngest executive at a Wall Street Hedge Fund. However, his cruel, calm arrogance is soon shaken when a Seraphic Assassin bursts in only to be eradicated by occult terrorist Jaine Cutter and her “Breathing Gun”: another player determined to restore the biblically-scheduled Armageddon.

Cutter has severely underestimated Zadkiel’s determination and sense of proportion, and drags the protesting Hell-brat straight into an angelic ambush, as far across the country someone gathers a small army of Ghost Rider villains. They already have the Orb, Blackout and The Deacon on board…

With tormenting demons replacing his lost arms, Master Pandemonium is a living doorway to Hell, but even he has no idea what true suffering is until Danny Ketch kicks his door in, looking for the shortest route to the Big Bad Boss of Gehenna…

Three days later in New York, Hellstorm explosively saves Cutter and Anton from the ruthless Flight of Angels. The self-serving kid bolts, but runs right into the newly-returned Ketch. Blaze and Sister Sara arrive moments later and all parties very reluctantly agree to suspend hostilities for a team-up in ‘Are You There, Devil? It’s Me, Danny.’

The anti-Ghost Rider Squad is growing too. Freshly signed up are Zadkiel’s own flame-headed fanatic Kowalski – AKA Vengeance – plus Scarecrow, Madcap, motorised maniac Big Wheel and a savagely sentient steam-shovel called Trull…

Thanks to Pandemonium, Ketch has met the Devil and struck a deal. In return for preserving the last extant Antichrist from Zadkiel’s forces, Satan will provide the brothers with access to Heaven and give them a shot at restoring the previously incumbent Deity…

After brutally working out their operational differences in time-honoured fashion, Johnny and Danny at last unite just as ‘The Brothers Ghost Rider’ are bushwhacked by Big Wheel and Trull (an alien mind-force which can possess any mechanical contrivance: tractor, bulldozer, chainsaw, etc…

The catastrophic clash brings the boys to a temple which is a gateway to the Eternal Realm, but thanks to Blackout they miss their chance to use it…

Meanwhile, in a hidden location the secret sacred order of Gun Nuns prepare for their last battle…

‘Here Comes Hell’ starts in the Jasper County Sheriff’s holding cell where Scarecrow and Madcap have just slaughtered all other occupants. Outside, Hellstorm, Sara, Jaine and obnoxious Anton enter the too-quiet town, seeking safety and a useable satanic sanctuary to stash the kid in.

Zadkiel’s converts are waiting for them and a deadly duel ensues. In the melee, Anton shows his true colours: attacking Sara and allying with Master Pandemonium even as Vengeance and the Orb lead an army of killer angels, demons and zombie bikers against primed-for-martyrdom Gun Nuns protecting a fully operational highway to Heaven…

‘Sole Reigning Holds the Tyranny of Heaven’ sees triumphant, power-drunk Zadkiel remodelling Paradise to his own gory tastes and fitfully rewriting snippets of Creation when the Ghost Riders storm in through the nun’s gate…

Meanwhile on Earth, more blockbusting battles break out as Hellstorm and Cutter suspend their truce and renew their personal vendetta. Elsewhere, Kid Blackheart brutally uncovers Sister Sara’s impossible hidden destiny as a living portal to Heaven, and uses her to transport battalions of demons to conquer Kingdom Come…

The occult overdrive rockets to a cataclysmic conclusion as Zadkiel personally smashes the invading Spirits of Vengeance in ‘If You Can’t Lower Heaven, Raise Hell’. With the streets of Heaven knee-deep in blood, even a pep talk from his own dead wife and kids cannot keep Blaze battling against the new Omniscience, but when the Legions of Hell attack and Danny incites all previously expired Ghost Riders to rise, Johnny sees one last chance to make things right…

Fast, frantic, irreverent, satirically funny, violently gratuitous and clearly not afraid to be daft when necessary, this is a fabulously barmy, two-fisted eldritch escapade that will reward any fans of raucous road thrillers, magical monstrosity tours and Marvel’s monster continuity.
© 2009, 2010, 2012 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Son of Satan Classic


By Gary Friedrich, Steve Gerber, Gerry Conway, Chris Claremont, John Warner, Bill Mantlo, Mike Friedrich, Herb Trimpe, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Gene Colan, Sal Buscema, Sonny Trinidad, P Craig Russell, Ed Hannigan, Russ Heath, Jim Starlin & various (Marvel)
ISBN:  978-3029-0104-2 (TPB/Digital edition)

As the 1960s closed, American comics were in turmoil, reflecting the greater society they were being published in – the one full of reactionary establishment types, turbulent rebellious youth, black people and their multi-ethnic supporters all agitating for universal Civil Rights and impressionable kids looking for entertainment and getting an education along the way.

In that cauldron – one fully addressed and depicted in comics books as much as laws and the Comics Code would allow – dissatisfaction and the need for change permeated everyone’s mind and the desire for a new way gripped the national and international consciousness.

Superheroes had dominated for most of the decade: peaking globally with a rush of outrageously daft, “Camp” humour excess before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Business never sleeps, however, and in their place, TV, movies and comics returned to familiar old genres like westerns, war, science fiction and especially horror stories: although these too benefitted from and were changed by expanded consciousness and enlightened social attitudes.

For Marvel, the problem must have been particularly acute: Stan Lee & Jack Kirby had rebuilt an ailing minor publisher into a close contender for the top spot, on the backs of gaudily attired mystery men, but now that the bubble seemed to have both deflated and burst… for a second time.

Since other genres were now piquing the still-presumed mostly adolescent interests of comics core readership – like the alternative “cool” vibe attached to the modern notion of disenchanted, unchained youth (and generally ones riding motorbikes) – all publishers were looking for fresh and different ways forward.

To counter the abrupt downturn in superhero sales, the Comics Code prohibition against horror stories and iconography was hastily amended to facilitate the resurrection of scary material and bolster an industry in economic freefall. With terror tales and magical situations back in a big way, a new crop of anthologies and supernatural heroes and monsters started to thrive, supplementing the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins that had been gradually infiltrating the formerly science-only scenarios of the superhero who had weathered the downturn by tackling horror themes and villains…

It should be noted that more mature scary stories had been available since the mid-60s in the monochrome publications of Jim Warren and his imitators, who had deftly sidestepped Comics Code embargos by redefining their graphic output as “magazines” not comics. Now the likes of Eerie and Creepy had some real competition…

Lifting the CCA ban sparked a mass spawning of horror titles of varying degrees of potency and excess. Whether new material or reprints from before and after the instigation of the Code, the inexorable wave of thrillers and chillers helped even more venerable costumed crusaders close their doors and – temporarily at least – bite the dust.

Almost overnight, nasty monsters became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and a parade of pre-code reprints refreshed jaded palates whilst making sound financial sense. However, the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination with supernatural themes was best catered to by adapting already-popular and well-known cultural icons (all long out of copyright) before gambling on new concepts and an untested readership.

Whereas DC quickly cornered the market in new anthology tales – in the mordantly dark vein of Poe, Lovecraft, M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce, O. Henry and more – Marvel’s attempts at new, stand-alone anthological vehicles proved less successful and they soon shifted editorial efforts to their strong suite: developing ongoing characters in a shared universe. centred

The House of Ideas combined the new trend with their established style to create dark and tragic adventure heroes and even explored having unrepentant villains – like Dracula – as chief protagonist. As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics must be adapted and incorporated into the continuity. Marvel was still reeling from Kirby’s defection to DC in 1970 (where he would conjure his own chilling legends with Spirit World and The Demon) and new Editor-in-Chief Roy Thomas cannily greenlit a new character combining freewheeling, teen-friendly biker themes with the all-pervasive horror-furore…

Are you up for a bit more context before we really begin?

When proto-monster star Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1970) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved quickly and instituted a string of shocking super-stars. The began with a tragic wild beast and cruelly cunning predator – Werewolf by Night and The Tomb of Dracula – before chancing something truly new: a devil-haunted biker who could tap into both the motorcycling chic of movie Easy Rider and the global supernatural zeitgeist.

Preceded by god-touched western star Red Wolf and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night a new Ghost Rider premiered in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972), and in turn led to the birth of the troubled subject of this Classic collection.

The graphic grimoire gathers the earliest exploits of Daimon Hellstrom as first seen in Ghost Rider #1-2, Marvel Spotlight #13-24, and Son of Satan #1-8, plus pertinent crossovers from Marvel Team-Up #32 and Marvel Two-In-One #14. Said saga spanned September 1973 to February 1977.

And will need even more background to with your continued indulgence…

Stunt-biker Johnny Blaze sold his soul to Satan to save his adopted father-figure Crash Simpson from cancer, but was cheated by the Devil. When the Lord of Lies came to collect his due, Johnny’s devoted and virginal girlfriend Roxanne Simpson interceded and partially redeemed her man. Although her purity prevented Satan’s victory, the Devil was only temporarily thwarted and took a measure of vengeance by afflicting Blaze with a body that burned with the fiery torments of Hell every time the sun set…

Initially haunting the night and terrorising thugs and criminals, the traumatised biker soon left the city for the solitary desert, perpetually battling The Deceiver’s countless agents who were tasked with shattering Roxanne’s loving aura of protection and claiming Blaze for Hell.

As part of these adventures Blaze battled a diabolical cult led by First Nations medicine man Snake Dance who sought to sacrifice Roxanne. The Ghost Rider barely saved her and – after dodging gun-happy cops – rushed her to hospital, where he was again attacked, this time by the Medicine Man’s daughter, Linda Littletrees, who revealed her own intimate connection to the Infernal…

The confrontation culminated in a devastating eldritch assault as she revealed her hidden role as satanic siren Witch-Woman…

That epic duel opens this compendium with Ghost Rider #1 (cover-dated September 1973, by Gary Friedrich, Tom Sutton & Syd Shores), further extending the escalating war between Blaze and the Devil and using the conflict to introduce a new horror-hero who would take over the biker’s vacant slot in Spotlight: one owing much to the tone of the times and the imminent release of movie blockbuster The Exorcist…

It transpires that Linda Littletrees isn’t so much a Satan-worshipping witch as ‘A Woman Possessed!’, but when her father and her fiancé Sam Silvercloud call in a Boston-based exorcist named Daimon Hellstrom, they are utterly unprepared for the kind of assistance this demonologist offers.

A Roxanne slowly recuperates, Blaze is still on the run from the police and Ghost Rider #2 sees the bedevilled biker dragged down to Hell in ‘Shake Hands With Satan!’ (illustrated by Jim Mooney & Shores) before the tale concludes in Marvel Spotlight #12 with the official debut of ‘The Son of Satan!’, courtesy of Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Frank Chiaramonte.

Here it is revealed that religious scholar Hellstrom has a long and painfully suppressed inner self, and that the exorcist is actually a brutal scion of the Infernal Realm eternally at war with his diabolical dad.

Unleashed and liberated, the Prince of Hell swiftly rushes to Blaze’s aid – although more to spite his sire than succour the victim – and, with his own series off to a spectacular start, continues to take the pressure off the flaming-skulled hero.

We learn that the star-crossed career of the perpetually divided champion is comprised of a war between a devout demonologist and the Prince of Pandemonium: a studious, spiritual scholar sharing one body with a rebellious, sadistically violent demonic alter ego dubbed “the Darksoul”, and the Devil’s true spawn and legacy…

Friedrich, Trimpe & Chiaramonte reveal the source of the conflict in Marvel Spotlight #13’s as ‘When Satan Walked the Earth!’ takes Hellstrom back to the house he was reared in to find and read his mother’s diary.

Victoria Hellstrom’s words describe an enigmatic, beguiling stranger who swept her off her feet and subsequent early years of wedded bliss. How she bore a son and, three years after, a daughter. The toe shifts as the writer notes her husband’s increased absences, and the day she found her man and his girl-child performing a macabre blood-oath ritual sacrifice in the cellar of the idyllic family home…

When her spouse revealed himself as Satan Incarnate, the writer went quite mad.

With his mother institutionalised, his sister taken into care and their father vanished, the grieving shellshocked son entered a seminary and studied for the priesthood.

The diary ends with the writer’s death, but Daimon’s reawakened memories stir and he recalls how, on his 21st birthday his heritage came for him. Following an irresistible call, the student followed a disembodied voice through  portal to Hell and saw his father once more…

Offered all the twisted power and malign glory of a seat by the Devil’s side, Hellstrom rebelled, rejecting and battling his father and triggering a short-lived revolution in The Pit, before escaping with Satan’s all-powerful infernal Trident. The unique pitchfork is made of exotic mineral Netheranium: the only substance (other than prayer, piety, devotion and that other holy stuff) that can weaken the Devil. Best remember this is a comic book, and notionally an all-ages one at that…

Thus, after an untold age suppressing his own dark passenger, Daimon Hellstrom reaches an accommodation with his other self and prepares to take the war to the father they both despise…

At this time, Steve Gerber was Marvel’s undisputed Wizard of Weird: a brilliant, erudite, sensitive and ingenious writer who could make almost any off-the-wall concept accessible to readers – everything from Man-Thing to Howard the Duck, Daredevil to Sub-Mariner, Marvel Two-In-One to Iron Man.

He assumed the writer’s reins with Marvel Spotlight #14, joining artists Mooney & Sal Trapani in lying out a career path for the infernal antihero. It began with ‘Ice and Hellfire’ as the demonologist relocated to St. Louis, Missouri, at the request of Gateway University parapsychologist Dr. Katherine Reynolds. She has been terrorised and terrified by a string of bizarre apparitions and periodic poltergeist phenomena plaguing the campus…

Hellstrom soon uncovers an infestation of Ikthalon ice demons, and that these vile visitors and frozen furies are not invaders but have been summoned. In order to defeat them he takes Reynolds into his confidence and is enraged but unsurprised when she fails him…

Resorting to his father’s tactics to repulse the demons, Hellstrom sticks around for reasons he cannot fathom, and #15 (an all-Mooney art job) sees him endure a sinister physical change as a monstrous – possibly prophetic – dream propels him into a state of permanent chaos as his divergent natures fully merge into one eternally warring personality.

Accepting a lecturer’s position at Gateway, Hellstrom then disrupts an undergraduate ‘Black Sabbath’ and clashes again with his father – in his demonic iteration Baphomet – to save the souls of some stupidly curios students…

Trapani inked #16 as ‘4000 Holes in Forest Park!’ lure the exorcist into a very public media circus when a mysterious overnight event entices every kind of whacko out of the woodwork… as well as far less harmless loons like Christian End-Timers and a depraved Legion of Nihilists…

Inevitably the park explodes into a religion-fuelled riot, and when the Son of Satan intervenes, his supernal hellfire gimmick only exacerbates matters, igniting the scattered holes to form a colossal blazing pictogram. When the image then materialises into physical life, Dr. Reynolds and Divinity student Byron Hyatt are hurled back in time to the days before Atlantis sank, resulting in a shattering confrontation and startling glimpse at how magic reshaped the world in MS #17’s ‘In the Shadow of the Serpent!’ Schooled by legendary sorceress Zhered-Na, Hellstrom learns the necessity of catastrophe and the cosmic purpose of disaster, as well as his true role in existence before returning to the present with his fellow voyagers.

Gene Colan stepped in with #18, and – inked by Chiaramonte – takes the exorcist into a ‘Madhouse!’ when Katherine drags Daimon to a party attended by faculty and fellow parapsychologists only to find the festivities befouled by an act of animal cruelty.

The next morning Hellstrom learns that the house burned down after he left, and – curiosity aroused – investigates the ruins and detects psychic evil of tremendous potency. The fresh trail leads to young Melissa who has become the new home of truly ancient evil…

However, even after seemingly banishing ghastly Allatou back to damnation, the rescue mission continues as #19 (inked by Mike Esposito) then pits the exorcist against the girl’s fully-occupied parents in ‘Demon, Demon, Who’s Got the Demon?’: a brutal struggle that only ends when Daimon abandons holy lore and crushes his opponent with the Devil’s despised power and tactics…

Sal Buscema & Al McWilliams limned #20 as ‘The Fool’s Path!’ sees Satan’s Son targeted by a bizarre tarot reader and attacked by her animated cards. Three covers from previous SoS collections then offer a brief pause before #21 concludes the manic mystery in ‘Mourning at Dawn!’ with Joe Giella inks – exposing Madame Swabada’s incredible true nature… The battle concludes in the Bob McLeod inked ‘Journey into Himself!’ with Daimon corporeally confronting his past and a legion of demons and – ultimately – the true cause of all his woes…

Marvel Team-Up #32 – by Gerry Conway, Buscema & Vince Colletta – then offered a fiery collaboration between Human Torch Johnny Storm and Hellstrom. The exorcist inflicts ‘All the Fires in Hell…!’ on a demon possessing Johnny’s best pal Wyatt Wingfoot and assorted fellow members of his Native American Keewazi tribe. An era ended in Marvel Spotlight #23, as Gerber, Mike Friedrich, Sal B & Dan Green declare ‘In this Light, Darkness!’ with Hellstrom looking to conclude his unfinished business with the Legion of Nihilists before leaving St. Louis. The task is delayed when aged sage Father Darklyte seeks to test the scholar, only to be exposed for the menace he is…

The inheritor of Hell ended his tenure in Spotlight with #24 (October 1975) as Chris Claremont, Buscema & McLeod made him ‘Walk the Darkling Road!’ after mortal satanist Gloria Hefford summons Kthara, the Mother of Demons. Travelling to Los Angeles, Daimon seeks to save her, but is manipulated into clashing with his despised younger sister Satana: a girl after her daddy’s heart…

Even after uniting to stop Kthara, no bridges are built or fences mended between the infernal siblings…

The dispossessed Dauphin of Darkness moved into his own place as – cover-dated December 1975 – The Son of Satan #1 proclaimed ‘The Homecoming!’ as scripter John Warner, splash page artist Jim Starlin and story illustrator Jim Mooney took the eccentric exorcist into strange new territory as Hellstrom returned to the family house only to find it defiled. By invading Hell, he then learns that civil war has come to the pit as his father struggles against a usurper called The Possessor: a human who can control demons…

The war spreads, enveloping a well-meaning Navajo shaman in ‘The Possession!’ – illustrated by Sonny Trinidad – and emptying his village of living souls. As Hellstrom probes the history of the Possessor his inquiries take him back to Hell where the deranged super-psychic has his tool Nightfire lead ensorcelled tribesmen in an attack on the infernal hierarchy that the exorcist is barely able to stop in concluding clash ‘Demon’s Head’…

Another brief diversion takes us to Marvel Two-In-One #14 where Bill Mantlo, Trimpe & John Tartaglione take Ben Grimm to a western ‘Ghost Town!’ for a spooky encounter with spectres and demons. The notoriously superstitious Thing thought he was on a mission of mercy, but needed much merciful magical assistance from exorcist Daimon Hellstrom to escape the deadly grip of sinister spectre Jedediah Ravenstorm…

The final days of Daimon begin in SoS #4 as Warner, P. Craig Russell & Trinidad form a ‘Cloud of Witness!’ when the scholar returns to academia and meets Georgetown (that’s Washington DC) educator Saripha Thames. He believes he’s a specialist researcher, but is unaware that a hidden mastermind is actually studying him under laboratory conditions…

As always, plagued by incomprehensible dreams, Hellstrom gets an inkling of what’s in play when he’s accosted by higher being the Celestial Fool and challenged over his dual nature…

The mental and spiritual assault intensifies in ‘Assassin’s Mind’, with Daimon apparently unable to control his powers or Darksoul, even as new nemesis Mindstar ups the cosmic stakes before #6 begins pulling the strands together in ‘House of Elements!’ (pencilled by Ed Hannigan).and the mystery is explosively resolved in #7’s ‘Mirror of Judgement!’ by Warner & Trinidad.

The series concluded on an artistic high with #8 as Mantlo and Russ Heath – with additional art from John Romita – offered a treatise on temptation as a disturbing phantom begs ‘…Dance with the Devil My Red-Eyed Son!’. By dragging the Son of Satan through the inferno and history’s greatest flashpoints, someone attempts to seduce and soil his soul. Ultimately however, who can say who tempts whom?

This bombastic broadside of metaphysical mastery also includes the Son of Satan Preview article from Monsters Unleashed #3; Comics Code rejected pages, art from Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries and a selection of reprint covers to complete a superb journey to Comics’ darkest side.

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, Christian boycotts and moral crusades of a later decade compelled increasingly criticism-averse controversy-shy, commercially astute Corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these tales into watered-down generic and apparently more palatable demonic analogues like Mephisto, Satannish, Marduk Kurios and other equally-naff downgrades. Never forget, however, that the original intent of Ghost Rider, spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana was to tap into the era’s global fascination with supernature and satanism, which had begun with epochal films and novels like Rosemary’s Baby. Please remember these aren’t your modern and feeble Hell-Lite horrors, but concern the real-deal Infernal Realm (as much as the Comics Code would allow) and reflect good people struggling to save their souls from bad breaks and Faustian bargains, so brace yourselves, hold steady and accept no supernal substitutes…
2016 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ghost Rider Epic Comics volume 1: Hell on Wheels 1972-1975


By Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Tony Isabella, Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Len Wein, Mike Ploog, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Herb Trimpe, Sal Buscema, Ross Andru  & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4611-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Rousing Redemptive Comic Classics… 8/10

At the end of the 1960s American comic books were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for most of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by radical trends in movie-making where another, new(ish) wrinkle had also emerged: disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth on Motorbikes seeking a different way forward.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and many others took the Easy Rider option to boost flagging sales – and if you’re interested the best of the bunch was Mike Sekowsky’s tragically unfinished mini-masterpiece of cool Jason’s Quest in Showcase. At Marvel – still reeling from The King’s defection to DC/National in 1970 – canny Roy Thomas green-lit a new character combining that freewheeling, adolescent-friendly biker-theme with the all-pervasive supernatural furore then gripping the globe.

Back in 1967, Marvel published a western masked hero named Ghost Rider: a shameless, whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy hero creation of Vince Sullivan, Ray Krank & Dick Ayers for Magazine Enterprises from 1949 to 1955. They both 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 rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – scary comics came back in a big way. A new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began to appear on the newsstands, supplementing the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the formerly science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact, the lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles (new stories and reprints from the first boom of the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare on four-colour pages and with a parade of pre-code reprints making sound business sense, the creative aspect of contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always in entertainment, the watch-world was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics would be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before chancing something new: a spectral biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s motorcycling chic and the prevailing supernatural zeitgeist.

The all-new Ghost Rider peeled out in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972 and following western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the afore-hinted Werewolf by Night in #2-4).

This canny compendium collects those earliest flame-filled exploits: adventures from Marvel Spotlight #5-12, Ghost Rider #1-11 and a terror-tinged guest shot in Marvel Team-Up (#15), spanning August 1972 to April 1975, and the comics thrills, spills and chills begin with that landmark first appearance: an eerie tale of double-dealing and desperation introducing stunt bike Johnny Blaze, his fatally flawed father-figure Crash Simpson and Johnny’s devout and devoted girlfriend, sweetly innocent Roxanne Simpson.

Plotted by Thomas, scripted by Gary Friedrich and stunningly illustrated by Ploog, ‘Ghost Rider’ sees carnival cyclist Blaze sell his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father Crash from cancer. As is the way of such things, Satan follows the letter but not spirit of the contract and Simpson dies anyway, but when the Dark Lord later comes for Johnny, his beloved virginal girlfriend Roxanne intervenes.

Her purity prevents the Devil claiming his due and, temporarily thwarted, Satan spitefully afflicts Johnny with a body that burns with the fires of Hell every time the sun goes down…

At first haunting the night and terrorising thugs and criminals, the traumatised biker soon leaves the Big City and heads for the solitary deserts where – in ‘Angels From Hell!’ – the flaming-skulled fugitive joins a biker gang led by enigmatic Curly Samuels: in actuality a resurrected agent of Satan attempting to destroy the protective Roxanne to claim Blaze’s soul.

No prizes for guessing Curly’s true identity then, since the next chapter (inked by Frank Chiaramonte) is entitled ‘Die, Die, My Daughter!’…

The origin epic concludes with a monumental battle against ‘…The Hordes of Hell!’ (offering a rather uncomfortable artistic collaboration by Ploog & Jim Mooney), spawning a torturous Cold War détente between the still nightly-transforming Blaze and the Lord of Lies, as well as introducing a new eldritch enemy in Native American Witch Man Snake-Dance…

With Marvel Spotlight #9 the tragically undervalued Tom Sutton took over pencilling – with inks by Chic Stone – for ‘The Snakes Crawl at Night…’ as Medicine Man magic and demonic devil-worship combine to torment Blaze just as Roxanne goes west looking for him. To further confound the accursed cyclist, Satan decrees that although he must feel the pain, no injury will end Johnny’s life until his soul resides in Hell – which comes in very handy when Roxanne is sacrificed by Snake-Dance and the Ghost Rider has to battle his entire deviant cult to rescue her…

In #10, ‘The Coming of… Witch-Woman!’ (Friedrich, Sutton & Mooney) opens with Blaze a fugitive from the police and rushing dying Roxanne to hospital. Meanwhile back on the Reservation, tensions remain high as Snake-Dance’s daughter Linda Littletrees reveals her own connection to Satan, culminating in a devastating eldritch assault on Blaze in #11’s ‘Season of the Witch-Woman!’ (inked by the incomparable Syd Shores).

That cataclysmic conflict continued into Ghost Rider #1 (cover-dated September 1973), further extending the escalating war between Blaze and the Devil and using the conflict to introduce a new horror-hero who would take over the biker’s vacant slot in Spotlight.

Linda Littletrees isn’t so much a Satan-worshipping witch as ‘A Woman Possessed!’, but when her father and fiancé Sam Silvercloud call in Boston-based exorcist Daimon Hellstrom, they are utterly unprepared for the kind of assistance the demonologist offers.

With Roxanne slowly recuperating and Blaze still on the run, Ghost Rider #2 depicts the bedevilled biker dragged down to Hell in ‘Shake Hands With Satan!’ (Mooney & Shores) before the saga concludes in Marvel Spotlight #12 with the official debut of ‘The Son of Satan!’ courtesy of Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Frank Chiaramonte, revealing Hellstrom’s long-suppressed inner self is a brutal scion of the Infernal Realm eternally at war with his infernal father.

The liberated Prince of Hell swiftly rushes to Blaze’s aid – although more to spite his sire than succour the victim – and, with his own series off to a spectacular start – continues to take the pressure off the flaming-skulled hero. Ghost Rider #3’s ‘Wheels on Fire’ (by Friedrich, Mooney & John Tartaglione) sees fresh directions explored with more mundane menaces and contemporary antagonists like the outlaw gang of biker Big Daddy Dawson who kidnaps the still frail Roxanne…

Blaze also learns how to create a spectral motorcycle from the Hellfire that perpetually burns through his body: a most useful trick considering the way he treats conventional transport…

Eager to establish some kind of normal life, wanted fugitive Blaze accepts a pardon from the State Attorney General in GR #4’s ‘Death Stalks the Demolition Derby’ (Vince Colletta inks) in return for infiltrating a Las Vegas showman’s shady operation, leading to another supernatural encounter, this time against a demonic gambler dubbed Roulette in ‘And Vegas Writhes in Flame!’ by the transitional creative team of Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Mooney & Sal Trapani.

A rising star, Ghost Rider next joined Spider-Man to battle a demented biker bad-guy in Marvel Team-Up #15 (November 1973, by Len Wein, Ross Andru & Don Perlin) which introduced lame-duck villain The Orb. Maimed and disfigured years previously confronting Crash Simpson, he seeks belated revenge against his heirs in ‘If an Eye Offend Thee…’ but should have waited until Blaze’s travelling roadshow was far away from superhero-stuffed New York City and its overly protective friendly neighbourhood webslinger…

Back at Ghost Rider #6 Tony Isabella, Gary Friedrich, Mooney & Trapani hit the kickstart hard in a perhaps ill-considered attempt to convert the tragic haunted biker into a more conventional superhero. ‘Zodiac II’ sees Blaze stumble into a senseless fight with a man possessing all the powers of the Avengers’ arch-nemeses. However, there’s a hidden Hellish component to the mystery as Blaze discovers when reformed super-villain turned TV star Stunt-Master turns up to help close the case and watch helplessly as the one-man Zodiac falls foul of his own diabolical devil’s bargain in ‘…And Lose His Own Soul!’ (Isabella, Mooney & Jack Abel).

A final confrontation – of sorts – commences in #8 as ‘Satan Himself!’ comes looking for Johnny’s soul, enacting a foolproof scheme to force Roxanne to rescind her protection. She finally does so as the Hell-biker battles Inferno, the Fear-demon (and most of San Francisco) in game-changing epic ‘The Hell-Bound Hero!’

Here Blaze is finally freed from his satanic burden by the intervention of someone who appears to be Jesus Christ…

The cover of issue #10 (by Ron Wilson & Joe Sinnott) featured GR battling The Hulk, but a deadline cock-up delayed that tale until #11 with the reprinted origin from Marvel Spotlight #5 filling those pages. Gil Kane & Tom Palmer reinterpreted the scene for their cover on #11 as the issue which closes this first tome finally details ‘The Desolation Run!’ (by Isabella, Sal Buscema, Tartaglione & George Roussos).

When Johnny joins a disparate band of dirt-bikers in a desert race, he collides with the legendarily solitary and short-tempered Green Goliath and learns who his true friends are…

I said “closes” but there’s always a few appetising extras on offer and this high-octane compendium compounds the chilling action with the August 1972 Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page announcing the debut of the Biker Ghost Rider plus house ads; design sketches by Ploog and John Romita; an eerie back-cover from FOOM #7 featuring early Ploog visualisations of the Blazing Biker and a stunning selection of original art pages by Ploog & Chiaramonte, Mooney & Shores, Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia, Romita, Kane & Palmer, and Andru & Perlin.

The 1990s saw these classics frequently reprinted and here Marvel Tales #254 provides 3 pin-ups by Jae Lee, Jan Harpes & Renee Witterstaeter plus a cover by Brian Stelfreeze, as well as The Original Ghost Rider reprint series cover gallery: offering art by Mark Teixeira, Jimmy Palmiotti, Javier Saltares, Andy Kubert, Joe Quesada, Jan Anton Harps, Kevin Maguire, Brad Vancata, Mark Pacella, Jeff Johnson, Dan Panosian, Ploog, Klaus Janson, Michael Bair, Darick Robertson, Chris Bachalo, Bill Wylie, Walter McDaniel, Andy Smith, Manny Galan & Scott Koblish, Gary Barker, Kris Renkewitz & Andrew Pepoy, bringing the fearsome fun to a close for now…

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, the Christian boycotts and moral crusades of a later decade were what compelled the criticism-averse and commercially astute corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these tales into generic and presumably more palatable demonic creatures such as Mephisto, Satanish, Marduk Kurios and other equally naff downgrades. However, the original intent and adventures of Johnny Blaze – and spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana – respectively Son and Daughter of Satan – tapped into the period’s global fascination with Satanism, Devil-worship and all things Spookily Supernatural which had begun with such epochal breakthroughs as Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski’s 1968 film more than Ira Levin’s novel) so remember these aren’t your feeble bowdlerised “Hell-lite” horrors.

These tales are about the real-deal Infernal Realm and 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.

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Daredevil Marvel Masterworks volume 13 


By Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Jim Shooter, Chris Claremont, Bob Brown, John Buscema, John Byrne, Sal Buscema, Gil Kane, George Tuska, Frank Robbins, Al Milgrom & various (MARVEL) 
ISBN: 978-1-3029-1634-3 (HB/Digital edition) 

Matt Murdock is a blind lawyer whose remaining senses hyper-compensate, making him an astonishing acrobat, formidable fighter and living lie-detector. A second-string hero for much of his early career, Daredevil was nonetheless a striking and popular one, due mostly to the captivatingly humanistic art of Gene Colan. DD fought gangsters, super-villains and even the occasional monster or alien invasion, quipping and wisecracking his way through life and life-threatening combat, utterly unlike the grim, moody, quasi-religious metaphor he became.  

After a disastrous on-again, off-again relationship with his secretary Karen Page, Murdock took up with Russian émigré Natasha Romanoff, infamous and notorious ex-spy Black Widow. She was framed for murder and prosecuted by Matt’s best friend and law partner Foggy Nelson before the blind lawman cleared her. Leaving New York with her for the West Coast, Matt joined a prestigious San Francisco law firm but adventure, disaster and intrigue sought out the Sightless Sentinel and ultimately drew him back to the festering Big Apple… 

Spanning May 1976 to May 1977, the 13th compilation re-presents Daredevil #133-143, Annual #4, a crossover from Ghost Rider #19-20, and a spin-off from Marvel Premiere #39-40, cover-dated December 1977 and January 1978.  

We kick off with an Introduction from Marv Wolfman, recalling the strange days of his tenure as writer/editor before arguably the best proof possible of that opinion follows… 

Marvel was always keenly aware that any real-world attention was beneficial. Daredevil #133 begins laying groundwork for an unfolding epic about fake news and disinformation in public office (and remember this set just after Watergate and long before Trumpism!) before digressing with a fanciful fluff piece co-starring real-world stage trickster and headline-seeker Uri Geller. Concocted by Wolfman, Bob Brown & Jim Mooney, ‘Introducing: Mind-Wave and his Fearsome Think Tank!’ is a happily forgettable yarn about a maniac in a super-tank attacking Manhattan. Thankfully, Mind-Wave‘s arch enemy (Geller, claiming to have psychic powers granted him by aliens) is there to aid the Scarlet Swashbuckler… 

More sinister secrets of the perception-shaping masterplan of The Jester are revealed in #134’s ‘There’s Trouble In New York City…’ as disgruntled former football star/insurance salesman Brock Jones returns. Previously, he had stumbled into a plot to control Earth and took possession of a rocket-powered super-suit coveted by enemy agents. DD had almost been killed by the suit’s original owner, leading to the usual superhero misunderstanding and a savage clash. Now, as TV news showed Daredevil killing cops and with the shapeshifting Chameleon robbing at will, Brock again dons the suit to help the common man as The Torpedo, innocently adding to the chaos and confusion before the Chameleon is caught … 

The Jester’s grand scheme is revealed in ‘What Is Happening?’ The Manic Mountebank has exploited a computer pioneer to create a wave of stories making the public mistrust the authorities by manipulating the media. (I’m not commenting, I’m not commenting…) 

Seeing newspaper reports, photos and even news tapes of John and Robert Kennedy alive, superheroes killing cops and “proof” that Viet Nam never happened, but secret wars in Chile and Saudi Arabia did, much of the public readily accepts the villain was framed, resulting in DD being arrested and subsequently handed over to an army of thugs and gangsters. 

John Buscema assumed pencilling with #136 as the Jester’s endgame is exposed. When President Gerald Ford announces that New York City’ s police and all its superheroes have gone insane, citizens are urged to defend themselves at all costs. The entire scheme has been devised to leave the city open to plunder by the Jester’s hastily-united army of mobsters… 

Unable to keep away, DD takes action but is quickly captured and subjected to ‘A Hanging for a Hero!’ As a lynch mob of panicked citizens and enraged criminals almost execute the Man without Fear he flamboyantly escapes but is forced back into action for concluding episode 137 ‘The Murder Maze Strikes Twice!’ as “President Ford’s” broadcasts demand citizens take up arms and “take back Wall Street” from the thugs that now control it… 

Deducing the Jester’s location, DD storms in, dismantles all the villain’s traps – and minions – and restores order and justice, only to discover personal crises boiling over… 

Throughout the media reality war, Daredevil has been seeking to prove the innocence of Heather Glenn‘s father. Matt Murdock’s current girlfriend knows her dad isn’t a ruthless, murdering slumlord but that someone must have framed him. All evidence says otherwise. 

Now, as Matt and Foggy return to the case, word comes (for readers, as two excerpted pages from Ghost Rider #19 – August 1976 by Tony Isabella, Frank Robbins & Vince Colletta) depicting Karen Page being kidnapped by friend and ally Stuntman… 

It leads directly into Daredevil #138 where Wolfman, John Byrne & Mooney ask ‘Where is Karen Page?’ as the Man Without Fear drops everything for his one true love: heading for Los Angeles where Page is a Hollywood star with a complex convoluted life. However her relationship with hell-tainted Johnny Blaze is not why she was targeted, but rather from her father’s inventions and career as super-maniac Death’s Head …and the impostor now using the name to further his own insane plans… 

The saga concludes in Ghost Rider #20 (Wolfman, Byrne & Don Perlin) as ‘Two Against Death!’ exposes who is truly pulling all the strings with Satan-spawn and Scarlet Swashbuckler pairing to save Karen. Meanwhile in Manhattan, Foggy continues investigating Glenn Industries and is shot… 

The plot thread expands in Daredevil Annual #4’s ‘The Name of the Game is Death!’ Plotted by Wolfman, scripted by Chris Claremont, drawn by George Tuska and inked by Frank Chiaramonte, it finds The Black Panther aiding an industrialist whose son is abducted. 

Thanks to friendship with King T’Challa and judicious use of Vibranium, Robert Mallory has built the world’s first Tidal Power Station. Someone thinks holding his son will win them the plans but hasn’t counted on T’Challa paying his friend a visit at this inopportune moment… 

Daredevil, meanwhile, fights for his life, having stumbled into a furiously rampaging Sub-Mariner. Prince Namor has returned to the vile surface world because of a man named Mallory and a power station that while providing cheap clean energy for mankind will overheat the seas and divert the tides…  

Concluding chapter ‘And Who Shall Save the Panther?’ begins with the Great Cat prowling Manhattan, having tracked the crime to ambitious mobster Ruffio Costa. Sadly, he is unable to defeat the gangsters alone and eventually DD steps in to deliver a ransom, accidentally brining Sub-Mariner along for the ride… 

When the superbeings converge and clash, Costa is caught in the carnage and a lab explosion transforms him into something far worse that gradual climate crisis and the factions must all temporarily unite to defeat the threat of Mind-Master…  

The editorial story behind Wolfman, Sal Buscema & Mooney’s ‘A Night in the Life’ (Daredevil #139) is a true insight to comics at their best, but for readers it’s simply a chance to enjoy enhanced drama, suspense and action as the search for a missing haemophiliac boy overlaps a police manhunt for a mad bomber demanding the return of his drug-addicted wife. Wolfman was unsurpassed at interleaving soap opera melodrama with costumed cavorting, and the fraught tone carried over to in #140 as Bill Mantlo, Sal B & Klaus Janson detailed ‘Death Times Two!’ when a runaway bus dumped Daredevil into a hunt for accidentally united old enemies The Gladiator and The Beetle who then aimed a runaway train at Grand Central Station and attempted to settle old scores with the hero amidst the dead and dying… 

An even bigger change in tone began in #141. ‘Target: Death!’ was plotted by Wolfman, and scripted by Jim Shooter, with pencils divided between Gil Kane and Bob Brown, and Jim Mooney inking. It is very much a forerunner of what Roger McKenzie and Frank Miller would conceive of in months to come, opening with another murder attempt on Foggy and fresh insights into the abduction of his fiancée Debbie. More secrets of Glenn Industries are teased out, a killer dies and DD’s ultimate arch-nemesis returns for another killing spree before abruptly changing his mind and tying defeated Daredevil to a giant arrow and firing him at the New Jersey Palisades… 

Pulling out all the stops for his final forays, Wolfman – with Brown & Mooney – resurrected more classic villains for #142. Escaping one doom, DD meets new hero Nova, even as Mr. Hyde and The Cobra reunite, targeting the Scarlet Swashbuckler as he passes the rooftop rainforest garden of a young millionaire – ‘The Concrete Jungle’…  

This transitional selection concludes for now with ‘“Hyde and Go Seek” Sayeth the Cobra!’ (Wolfman, Brown & Keith Pollard) wherein the villains leave our hero to the carnivores populating the skyscraper Eden while they plunder the penthouse below. The goal is not wealth but ancient books and formulas to enhances their powers, but as ever, they grievously underestimate the boldness and ingenuity of the Man Without Fear… 

Also included in my dynamic digital edition is the two-issue try-out tale starring hero/villain The Torpedo who first accidentally battled DD in Daredevil #126-127. After the brief reprise recounted above he was given his big shot at fame Marvel Premiere #39-40 (from December 1977-January 1978) before ultimately dying in Rom: Spaceknight and being replaced by a teenaged female.  

‘Ride a Wild Rocket!’ and ‘…Battle with the Big Man!’ was a rushed-seeming collaboration of Wolfman, Mantlo, Brown, Al Milgrom, Josef Rubinstein, Bob Wiacek and Alan Weiss showing Brock hunting the rocketeer gang who originally owned his turbo-suit, but all his efforts to reclaim the acclaim of his quarterbacking days seem pointless. Harassed at home and bored at work, his American Dream is dying.  

After almost triggering a nuclear meltdown he is considered a menace, even though he saved the state from atomic catastrophe, and a critical change comes after the hidden mastermind behind all his woes and superhero aspirations decides enough is enough.  

As seen Captain America, Machine Man, and The Incredible Hulk, long-time villain Senator Eugene “Kligger” Stivak is a leader of criminal capitalists The Corporation and decides he will take care of Brock personally, but he has seriously underestimated the over-the-hill hero’s stubbornness and desperate need to regain his self-esteem… 

Supplementing all the amazing comics adventures, the extras sections include Wolfman’s editorial from #133 detailing the circumstances of Geller/Marvel’s publicity stunt, followed by original art pages all inked by Jim Mooney, a cover and splash page from John Buscema plus a splash each for Byrne and Brown, and an extensive biography section.  

As the social upheaval of the 1970s receded, these fabulous fantasy tales strongly indicated that the true potential of Daredevil was finally in reach. Their narrative energy and exuberant excitement are dashing delights no action fan will care to miss. 

…And the next volume heads into darker shadows, the grimmest of territory and the breaking of many boundaries… 
© 2019 MARVEL  

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Marvel Two-in-One Masterworks volume 1


By Steve Gerber, Len Wein, Mike Friedrich, Chris Claremont, Jim Starlin, Gil Kane, Sal Buscema, George Tuska, Herb Trimpe, Bob Brown & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-6633-7 (HB)

Imagination isn’t everything. As Marvel slowly grew to a position of dominance in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, they did so less by risky experimentation and more by expanding and exploiting proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was their en masse creation of horror titles in response to the industry down-turn in super-hero sales – a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

The concept of team-up books – an established star pairing, or battling – and usually both – with less well-selling company characters, was not new when Marvel decided to award their most popular hero the lion’s share of this new title, but they wisely left their options open by allocating an occasional substitute lead in the Human Torch. In those long-lost days, editors were acutely conscious of potential over-exposure – and since super-heroes were actually in a decline, they may well have been right.

After the runaway success of Spider-Man‘s collaborations in Marvel Team-Up, the House of Ideas reinforced the trend with a series starring bashful, blue-eyed Ben Grimm – the Fantastic Four‘s most iconic member – beginning with two test runs in Marvel Feature before graduating to its own somewhat over-elaborate title.

This compelling compendium – available in hardback and digital formats – gathers the contents of Marvel Feature #11-12 and Marvel Two-In-One #1-10, covering September 1973 – July 1975, and opens with a Roy Thomas Introduction explaining how it was Stan’s idea…

Then the much told tales take centre stage with a perennial favourite pairing and the Thing once more clashing with The Incredible Hulk in ‘Cry: Monster! by Len Wein, Jim Starlin & Joe Sinnott (from MF #11).

Here, Kurrgo, Master of Planet X and the lethal Leader manipulate both blockbusting brutes into duking it out – ostensibly to settle a wager – but with the mighty minded, misshapen masterminds each concealing hidden agendas…

That ever-inconclusive yet cataclysmic clash leaves Ben stranded in the Nevada desert where Mike Friedrich, Starlin & Sinnott promptly drop him in the middle of the ongoing war against mad Titan Thanos with Iron Man helping Ben crush monstrous alien invaders in ‘The Bite of the Blood Brothers!’ (Marvel Feature #12, November 1973): another spectacular and painfully pretty all-action punch-up.

Still stuck in the desert when the dust settles, Ben laboriously treks to a minor outpost of civilisation just in time to be diverted to Florida for the grand opening of his own title. Cover-dated January 1974, Marvel Two-In-One #1 sees Steve Gerber, Gil Kane & Sinnott magnificently detail the ‘Vengeance of the Molecule Man!’, with Ben learning some horrifying home truths about what constitutes being a monster after battling with and beside ghastly, grotesque anti-hero Man-Thing.

With the second issue Gerber cannily trades a superfluous supporting character from his Man-Thing series to add some much-needed depth to the team-up title. ‘Manhunters from the Stars!’ pits Ben, old enemy Namor, the Sub-Mariner (another series Gerber was currently writing) and the Aquatic Avenger’s feisty and single-minded cousin Namoritaagainst each other as well as aliens hunting the emotionally and intellectually retarded superboy Wundarr. Another dynamically, intoxicating tale illustrated by Kane & Sinnott, this case also leaves the Thing as de facto guardian of the titanic teenaged tot…

Sal Buscema signed on as penciller with #3 as the Rocky Ranger joins the Man Without Fear ‘Inside Black Spectre!’: a crossover instalment of the extended epic then playing out in Daredevil #108-112 (in case you’re wondering, this action-packed fight-fest occurs between the second and third chapters) after which ‘Doomsday 3014!’ (Gerber, Buscema & Frank Giacoia) finds Ben and Captain America visiting the 31st century to save Earth from enslavement by the reptilian Brotherhood of Badoon, leaving Wundarr with Namorita for the foreseeable future…

The furious future-shocker concludes in MTIO #5 as the original Guardians of the Galaxy (not the movie group) climb aboard the Freedom Rocket to help our time-lost heroes liberate New York before returning home. The overthrow of the aliens was completed by another set of ancient heroes in Defenders #26-29 (which is also the subject of a different review)…

Marvel Two-In-One #6 began a complex crossover tale with the aforementioned Defenders as Dr. Strange and the Thing witness a cosmic event which begins with a subway busker’s harmonica and leads inexorably to a ‘Death-Song of Destiny!’ (Gerber, George Tuska & Mike Esposito) before Asgardian outcasts Enchantress and the Executioner attempt to seize control of unfolding events in #7’s ‘Name That Doom!’ (pencilled by Sal Buscema).

As they are thwarted by Grimm and the valiant Valkyrie, there’s enough of an ending here for casual readers, but fans and completists will want to hunt down Defenders #20 or Defenders Masterworks link please volume 3 for the full story…

Back here, however, MTIO #8 teams Grimm and supernatural sensation Ghost Rider in a quirkily compelling Yuletide yarn. ‘Silent Night… Deadly Night!’ – by Gerber, Buscema & Esposito – finds the audacious Miracle Man trying to take control of a very special birth in a stable…

Gerber moved on after plotting Thor team-up ‘When a God goes Mad!’ for Chris Claremont to script and Herb Trimpe & Joe Giella to finish: a rushed and meagre effort with the Puppet Master and Radion the Atomic Man making a foredoomed power play, before issue #10 concludes this initial compendium.

Crafted by Claremont, the still much-missed Bob Brown & Klaus Janson, it is a slice of inspired espionage action-intrigue with Ben and the Black Widow battling suicidal terrorist Agamemnon who plans to detonate the planet’s biggest nuke in blistering thriller ‘Is This the Way the World Ends?’.

These stories from Marvel’s Middle Period are of variable quality but nonetheless represent an honest attempt to entertain and exhibit a dedicated drive to please. Whilst artistically the work varies from adequate to utterly superb, most fans of the frantic Fights ‘n’ Tights genre would find little to complain about.

Although not really a book for casual or more maturely-oriented readers there’s still buckets of fun on hand and young readers will have a blast, so why not to add this colossal comics chronicle to your straining superhero bookshelves?
© 2020 MARVEL

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Ghost Rider Marvel Masterworks volume 2


By Tony Isabella, Gary Friedrich, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Steve Gerber, Jim Mooney, Frank Robbins, George Tuska, Sal Buscema, Bob Brown, John Byrne & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-2214-6 (HB)

At the end of the 1960s American comicbooks were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for much of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by radical trends in movie-making where another, new(ish) wrinkle had also emerged: disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth on Motorbikes seeking a different way forward.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and many others all took the Easy Rider option to boost flagging sales (and if you’re interested, the best of the crop 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-lighted 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 published a western masked hero named Ghost Rider: a shameless, whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy hero 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 rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – scary comics came back in a big way. A new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began to appear on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact, the lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles (new stories and reprints from the first boom of the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting 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 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before chancing something new with a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider‘s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the prevailing supernatural zeitgeist.

The all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5, August 1972 (preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4).

This sturdy hardback and equivalent digital compendium collects more of those early flame-filled exploits: specifically Ghost Rider #6-20 pairing with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One #8 and a crossover with Daredevil #138, spanning June 1974 to June 1976, and preceded by an informative Introduction in writer Tony Isabella’s ‘The Remembrance Run’…

What Has Gone Before: Carnival cyclist Johnny Blaze sells 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 Johnny, his beloved virginal girlfriend Roxanne Simpsonintervenes. Her purity prevents the Devil from claiming his due and, temporarily thwarted, Satan spitefully afflicts Johnny with a body that burns with the fires of Hell every time the sun goes down…

Creative team Isabella, Gary Friedrich, Jim Mooney & Sal Trapani hit the kickstart here as GR #6 sees a perhaps ill-considered attempt to convert the tragic haunted biker into a more conventional superhero. ‘Zodiac II’ sees Blaze stumble into a senseless fight with a man possessing all the powers of the Avengers‘ arch-foes. However, there’s a hidden Satanic component to the mystery as Blaze discovers when reformed super-villain turned TV star Stunt-Master turns up to help close the case and watch helplessly as the one-man Zodiac falls foul of his own diabolical devil’s bargain in ‘…And Lose His Own Soul!’ (Isabella, Mooney & Jack Abel).

A final confrontation – of sorts – begins in Ghost-Rider #8 as ‘Satan Himself!’ comes looking for Johnny’s soul, with a foolproof scheme to force Roxanne to rescind her protection. She finally does so as the Hell-biker battles Inferno, the Fear-demon and most of San Francisco in a game-changing epic called ‘The Hell-Bound Hero!’. Here Blaze is finally freed from his satanic burden by the intervention of someone who appeared to be Jesus Christ…

The cover of issue #10 (by Ron Wilson & Joe Sinnott) featured GR battling the Hulk, but a deadline cock-up delayed that tale until #11 and the already included origin from Marvel Spotlight #5 filled those pages. Gil Kane & Tom Palmer reinterpreted the scene for their cover on #11 as the issue finally detailed ‘The Desolation Run!‘ (by Isabella, Sal Buscema, Tartaglione & George Roussos).

As Johnny joins a disparate band of dirt-bikers in a desert race, he collides with the legendarily solitary and short-tempered Green Goliath and learns who his true friends are, after which we divert to Marvel Two-in-One #8, teaming Ben Grimm with the supernatural sensation in a quirkily compelling Yuletide yarn. Crafted by Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito ‘Silent Night… Deadly Night!’ sees the audacious Miracle Man attempting to take control of a very special birth in a modern-day stable…

Artists Frank Robbins, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito limn Ghost Rider #12 wherein Isabella reveals the fate of World War I fighter ace Phantom Eagle. When Blaze tries to rescue a stranger from a ghostly aerial assault, he soon learns he has innocently thwarted justice and helped the warrior’s murderer avoid the ‘Phantom of the Killer Skies’…

Ghost Rider #13 declares ‘You’ve Got a Second Chance, Johnny Blaze!’ (Isabella, George Tuska & Vince Colletta) as the terms of the hero’s on-going curse are changed again, just as the dissolute biker heads to Hollywood and a promised job as Stunt-Master’s body-double. No sooner has he signed up, however, than Blaze becomes involved with starlet Karen Page – Daredevil‘s one-time girlfriend – and a bizarre kidnap plot by super-villain The Trapster.

‘A Specter Stalks the Soundstage!’ features Blaze’s revenge-hungry nemesis The Orb who returns to destroy the Ghost Rider, an action yarn that spectacularly concludes with ‘Vengeance on the Ventura Freeway!’ (illustrated by Bob Brown & Don Heck).

Whilst hanging out on the West Coast Blaze joins new superteam The Champions, but they play no part in Bill Mantlo, Tuska & Colletta’s fill-in yarn ‘Blood in the Waters’, as the Ghost Rider oh, so topically tangles with a Great White Shark in the gore-soaked California surf.

Back on track in #17, ‘Prelude to a Private Armageddon!’ by Isabella, Robbins & Colletta sees a team-up with the Son of Satan wherein fellow stunt-actor Katy Milner is possessed by a demon and only Daimon Hellstrom can help…

The saga continues in ‘The Salvation Run!’ as Blaze must race through the bowels of Hell and relive his own traumatic past before finally saving the day, Katy and his own much-tarnished soul in ‘Resurrection’.

All this time the mystery of Karen’s attempted abduction had percolated through the subplots here, but explosively boil over in Daredevil #138 as ‘Where is Karen Page?’ (by Wolfman, John Byrne & Mooney) reveal the machinations of criminal maniac Death’s-Head to be merely part of a greater scheme involving Blaze, Stunt-Master, the Man without Fear and the homicidal Death Stalker. The convoluted conundrum cataclysmically climaxes in Ghost-Rider #20 with ‘Two Against Death!’ by Wolfman, Byrne & Don Perlin…

This spooky compendium compounds the chilling action with a cover gallery from repint series The Original Ghost Rider #14-20, and original art covers from Gil Kane to truly complete your fear-filled fun fest.

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, the Christian boycotts and moral crusades of a later decade were what compelled the criticism-averse and commercially astute corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these early tales into generic and presumably more palatable or “acceptable” demonic creatures such as Mephisto, Satanish, Marduk Kurios and other equally naff downgrades, but the original intent and adventures of Johnny Blaze – and indeed series spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana, respectively the Son and Daughter of Satan – tapped into the period’s global fascination with Satanism, Devil-worship and all things Spooky and Supernatural which had begun with such epochal films as Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski’s 1968 film more than Ira Levin’s novel) and remember these aren’t your feeble bowdlerised “Hell-lite” horrors.

These tales are about the real-deal Infernal Realm and 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…
© 2020 MARVEL.

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Marvel Masterworks: Ghost Rider volume 1


By Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich, Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Len Wein, Mike Ploog, Tom Sutton, Jim Mooney, Herb Trimpe, Ross Andru & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-1302918170 (HB)

At the end of the 1960s American comicbooks were in turmoil, much like the youth of the nation they targeted. Superheroes had dominated for much of the decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Older genres such as horror, westerns and science fiction returned, fed by radical trends in movie-making where another, new(ish) wrinkle had also emerged: disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth on Motorbikes seeking a different way forward.

Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and many others all took the Easy Rider option to boost flagging sales (and if you’re interested the best of the crop 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-lighted 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 published a western masked hero named Ghost Rider: a shameless, whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy hero 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 rewritten – amazing how plunging sales can affect ethics – scary comics came back in a big way and a new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters began to appear on the newsstands to supplement the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of the surviving mystery men titles.

In fact, the lifting of the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles (new stories and reprints from the first boom of the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (and narcotics – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always in entertainment, the watch-world was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before chancing something new with a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider‘s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the prevailing supernatural zeitgeist.

The all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5, August 1972 (preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4).

This sturdy hardback and equivalent yet barely tangible digital compendium collects those earliest flame-filled exploits: adventures from Marvel Spotlight #5-12, Ghost Rider #1-5 and a terror-tinged Marvel Team-Up (#15), spanning August 1972 to November 1973 and supplemented by an informative Introduction from then editorial head honcho Roy Thomas on how the series came to be. At the collection’s conclusion there’s also an effusive Afterword by Mike Ploog as he relates ‘My Ride with the Ghost Rider’…

The comics thrills, spills and chills begin with that landmark first appearance introducing stunt biker Johnny Blaze, his fatally flawed father-figure Crash Simpson and Johnny’s devoted girlfriend: sweet innocent Roxanne Simpson.

Plotted by Thomas, scripted by Gary Friedrich and stunningly illustrated by Ploog, ‘Ghost Rider’ sees carnival cyclist Blaze sell his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father Crash from cancer. As is the way of such things, Satan follows the letter but not spirit of the contract and Simpson dies anyway, but when the Dark Lord later comes for Johnny his beloved virginal girlfriend Roxanne intervenes. Her purity prevents the Devil from claiming his due and, temporarily thwarted, Satan spitefully afflicts Johnny with a body that burns with the fires of Hell every time the sun goes down…

Haunting the night and terrorising thugs and criminals at first, the traumatised biker soon leaves the Big City and heads for the solitary deserts where – in ‘Angels From Hell’ – the flaming-skulled fugitive joins a biker gang led by enigmatic Curly Samuels: a resurrected agent of Satan attempting to destroy the protective Roxanne and claim Blaze’s soul.

No prizes for guessing Curly’s true identity then, since the next chapter (inked by Frank Chiaramonte) is entitled ‘Die, Die, My Daughter!’

The origin epic concludes with a monumental battle against ‘…The Hordes of Hell!’ (offering a rather uncomfortable artistic collaboration by Ploog & Jim Mooney), resulting in a torturous Cold War détente between the still nightly-transforming Blaze and the Lord of Lies, as well as the introduction of a new eldritch enemy in Native American Witch Man Snake-Dance…

With Marvel Spotlight #9 the tragically undervalued Tom Sutton takes over the pencilling – with inks by Chic Stone – for ‘The Snakes Crawl at Night…’ as Medicine Man magic and demonic devil-worship combined to torment Blaze just as Roxanne goes west to look for him. To further confound the accursed cyclist, Satan decrees that although he must feel the pain, no injury will end Johnny’s life until his soul resides in Hell… which comes in very handy when Roxanne is sacrificed by Snake-Dance and the Ghost Rider has to battle his entire deviant cult to rescue her…

In #10, ‘The Coming of… Witch-Woman!’ (Friedrich, Sutton & Mooney) opens with Blaze a fugitive from the police and rushing the dying Roxanne to hospital. Meanwhile, on the Reservation tensions remain high as Snake-Dance’s daughter Linda Littletrees reveals her own connection to Satan, culminating in a devastating eldritch assault on Blaze in #11’s ‘Season of the Witch-Woman!’ (inked by the incomparable Syd Shores).

That cataclysmic conflict continued into Ghost Rider #1 (September 1973), which further extends the escalating war between Blaze and the Devil whilst introducing a new horror-hero who would take over the biker’s vacant slot in Spotlight.

Linda Littletrees isn’t so much a Satan-worshipping witch as ‘A Woman Possessed!’, but when her father joins fiancé Sam Silvercloud in calling Boston-based exorcist Daimon Hellstrom for help, they are utterly unprepared for the kind of assistance the demonologist offers.

With Roxanne slowly recovering and Blaze still on the run, Ghost Rider #2 depicts the bedevilled biker dragged down to Hell in ‘Shake Hands With Satan!’ (Mooney & Shores) before the saga concludes in Marvel Spotlight #12 with the official debut of ‘The Son of Satan!’ by Friedrich, Herb Trimpe & Frank Chiaramonte, which reveals Daimon Hellstrom’s long-suppressed inner self to be a brutal scion of the Infernal Realm eternally at war with his fearsome father.

The liberated Prince of Hell swiftly rushes to Blaze’s aid – although more to spite his sire than succour the victim – and, with his own series off to a spectacular start, continues to take the pressure off the flaming-skulled hero. From Ghost Rider #3’s ‘Wheels on Fire’ (Friedrich, Mooney & John Tartaglione) a fresh direction is explored with more mundane menaces and contemporary antagonists such as the thuggish gang of biker Big Daddy Dawson – who has kidnapped the still frail Roxanne…

Blaze also learns to create a spectral motorcycle out of the Hellfire that perpetually burns through his body: a most useful trick considering the way he gets through conventional transport…

Eager to establish some kind of normal life, the wanted fugitive Blaze accepts a pardon by the State Attorney General in GR #4’s ‘Death Stalks the Demolition Derby’ (inked by Vince Colletta) in return for infiltrating a Las Vegas showman’s shady operation, leading to another supernatural encounter, this time against a demonic gambler dubbed Roulette in ‘And Vegas Writhes in Flame!’ by the transitional creative team of Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Mooney & Sal Trapani.

Closing up the show here – and slightly out of chronological order – is a yarn where Ghost Rider and Spider-Man battled a demented biker bad-guy. Marvel Team-Up #15 (November 1973 and by Len Wein, Ross Andru & Don Perlin) introduces lame-duck villain The Orb who had been maimed and disfigured years previously in a confrontation with Crash Simpson and now seeks belated revenge against his heirs in ‘If an Eye Offend Thee!’ He’d have been smarter to wait until Blaze’s roadshow was far away from superhero-stuffed New York City and its overly protective friendly neighbourhood webslinger…

Adding extra cachet following Ploog’s afterword are the August 1972 Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page announcing the debut of the Biker Ghost Rider and stunning selection of original art pages, cover and design sketches by Ploog, Chiaramonte, John Romita, Mooney & Shores, Gil Kane & Frank Giacoia and Andru & Perlin plus an eerie back-cover from FOOM #7 featuring early Ploog visualisations of the Blazing Biker.

In the 1990s The Original Ghost Rider reprinted these classic tales and the 13 covers by Mark Teixeira, Jimmy Palmiotti, Javier Saltares, Andy Kubert, Joe Quesada, Jan Anton Harps, Kevin Maguire, Brad Vancata, Mark Pacella, Jeff Johnson, Dan Panosian, Ploog, Klaus Janson, Michael Bair, Darick Robertson, Chris Bachalo, Kris Renkewitz & Andrew Pepoy suitably bring the fearsome fun to close for now…

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, the Christian boycotts and moral crusades of 1980s and 1990s compelled the criticism-averse and commercially astute corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of the early episodes into generic – and presumably more palatable or “acceptable” – demonic creatures such as Mephisto, Satanish, Marduk Kurios and other equally naff, low-rent downgrades.

However, the original intent and adventures of Johnny Blaze – and spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and Satana (respectively the Son and Daughter of Satan), tapped into the late 1960’s global fascination with Satanism, Devil-worship and all things Spookily Supernatural which had begun with such epochal releases as Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski’s 1968 film more than Ira Levin’s novel), so please remember these aren’t your feeble bowdlerised “Hell-lite” horrors here. These tales are about the real-deal Infernal Realm and a good man struggling to save his soul from the baddest of all bargains – as much as the revised Comics Code would allow – so brace yourself, hold steady and accept no supernatural substitutes…
© 2019 MARVEL.

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Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire


By Jason Aaron & Roland Boschi (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4235-5

In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales, Marvel shifted focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters with one of the most adaptable and enduring proving to be a certain 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, the devil afflicted Johnny was with a condition which made his body burn with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and become the unwilling, unknowing host for outcast and exiled demon Zarathos – the Spirit of Vengeance.

After years of travail and turmoil Blaze was (temporarily) freed of the demon’s curse and seemingly retired from the hero’s life. As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined doom, a tragic boy named Danny Ketch assumed the role of Zarathos’ host and prison by a route most circuitous and tragic…

Over the years a grim truth emerged: Johnny and Danny were actually half-brothers and both the Higher Realms and Infernal Regions had big plans for them. Moreover the power of the Ghost Rider had always been a weapon of Heaven not a curse from Hell…

This riotous, rollercoaster grindhouse supernatural thriller collects the 6-issue miniseries Ghost Riders: Heaven’s on Fire (from August 2009 to February 2010) by Jason Aaron & Roland Boschi, featuring a horde of fan-favourite villains, a variety of previous fire-headed hosts, a gaggle of grim guest-stars and assorted Spirits of Vengeance in a bombastic, Hell-for-Leathers romp which concluded a long-running saga.

It all began when usurper Archangel Zadkiel – thanks to his unwitting dupe Danny Ketch – finally achieved his appalling ambition: ousting God to become the new Supreme Power of the universe. The sinister Seraph hadn’t reckoned on a motley crew of sinners and worse, led by Blaze, who were utterly resolved to stop Him…

With covers and variants by Jae Lee, Phil Jimenez, Das Pastoras, Dustin Weaver, Greg Land and Christian Nauck, the dark drama begins when Zadkiel’s angels raid a satanic fertility lab and slaughter all the infants and children. The victims were all prospective Antichrists, but one escaped…

When Hellstorm – a fully grown, naturally conceived Son of Satan – arrives, he finds himself in a peculiar position. Having spent his entire rebellious life battling his sire, Daimon Hellstrom and has no desire to aid the Evil One’s schemes, but by his murderous acts Zadkiel is actually trying to unmake Biblical Prophecy.

God always intended for an Apocalypse to finish His Divine Plan, and the usurper’s coup is actually beyond all concept of right and wrong. Thus the die is cast and Hellstorm must, albeit reluctantly, find the last Earthborn heir of Hell and ‘Save the Antichrist, Save the World’…

Simultaneously, Blaze, accompanied by mystic Caretaker/combat nun Sister Sara, is tracking Zadkiel’s angelic agents, determined to find a door to Heaven and confront the renegade face to face. They also want to kill Johnny’s brother Danny, whose pig-headed hubris has led to Zadkiel replacing God and occupying the Vault of Heaven…

When the bikers wipe out a brace of boastful rearguard cherubim and learn of The Plan, they immediately change tack, joining the hunt for missing Anton Satan (AKA Kid Blackheart) to save him from the wrath of the Pretender God…

Oblivious to the threat Anton is exactly where you’d expect an Antichrist to be: making millions as the youngest executive at a Wall Street Hedge Fund. His cruel, calm arrogance is soon shaken, however, when a Seraphic Assassin bursts in only to be promptly eradicated by occult terrorist Jaine Cutter and her “Breathing Gun”: another player determined to restore the Biblically-scheduled Armageddon.

She, however, has severely underestimated Zadkiel’s determination and sense of proportion and drags the protesting Hell-brat straight into an angelic ambush. And far across the country someone is gathering a small army of Ghost Rider villains. They already have Orb, Blackout and The Deacon on board…

With tormenting demons replacing his lost arms, Master Pandemonium is a living doorway to Hell, but even he had no idea what true suffering was until Danny Ketch kicked his door in, looking for a quick introduction and shortest route to the Big Bad Boss of Gehenna…

Now, three days later in New York, Hellstorm explosively saves Cutter and Anton from the ruthless Flight of Angels, but when the self-serving kid bolts he runs right into the newly returned Ketch.

Blaze and Sister Sara arrive moments later and all parties very reluctantly agree to suspend hostilities for a team-up in ‘Are You There, Devil? It’s Me, Danny.’

The anti-Ghost Rider Squad is growing too. Freshly signed up are Zadkiel’s own flame-headed fanatic Kowalski AKA Vengeance, plus Scarecrow, Madcap, motorised maniac Big Wheel and a savagely sentient steam-shovel called Trull…

Thanks to Pandemonium, Ketch has met the Devil and made a deal. In return for preserving the last extant Antichrist from Zadkiel’s forces, Satan will provide the brothers with access to Heaven and give them their shot at restoring the previously incumbent Deity…

After brutally working out their operational differences in time-honoured fashion, Johnny and Danny at last unite just as ‘The Brothers Ghost Rider’ are bushwhacked by Big Wheel and Trull (an alien mind-force which could possess any mechanical contrivance: tractor, bulldozer, chainsaw…)

The catastrophic clash brings the boys to a temple which is a gateway to the Eternal Realm, but thanks to Blackout they miss their chance to use it…

Meanwhile in a hidden location the secret sacred order of Gun Nuns prepare for their last battle…

‘Here Comes Hell’ starts in the Jasper County Sheriff’s holding cell where Scarecrow and Madcap have just slaughtered all the other occupants. Outside, Hellstorm, Sara, Jaine and obnoxious Anton have entered the quiet town, seeking safety and a useable satanic sanctuary to stash the kid in.

Zadkiel’s converts are waiting for them and a deadly duel ensues. In the melee Anton shows his true colours by attacking Sara and allying with Master Pandemonium even as Vengeance and the Orb lead an army of killer angels, demons and zombie bikers against the primed-for-martyrdom Gun Nuns protecting a fully operational highway to Heaven…

‘Sole Reigning Holds the Tyranny of Heaven’ finds the triumphant, power-drunk Zadkiel remodelling Paradise to his own gory tastes and fitfully rewriting snippets of Creation when the Ghost Riders storm in through the nun’s gate…

Meanwhile on Earth equally blockbusting battles break out as Hellstorm and Cutter at last suspend their truce and renew their personal vendetta. Elsewhere Kid Blackheart brutally uncovers Sister Sara’s impossible hidden destiny as a living portal to Heaven, and utilises her to transport battalions of demons to conquer Kingdom Come…

The occult overdrive thus rockets to a cataclysmic conclusion as Zadkiel personally smashes the invading Spirits of Vengeance in ‘If You Can’t Lower Heaven, Raise Hell’. With the streets of Heaven knee-deep in blood, even a pep talk from his own dead wife and kids cannot keep Blaze battling against the new Omniscience, but when the Legions of Hell attack and Danny incites all the previously expired Ghost Riders to rise, Johnny sees one last chance to make things right…

Fast, frantic, irreverent, satirically funny, violently gratuitous and clearly not afraid to be daft when necessary, this is a fabulously barmy, two-fisted eldritch escapade in the manner of TV’s Supernatural or Angel that will reward any fans of raucous road thrillers, magical monstrosity tours and the minutiae of Marvel’s horror continuity.
© 2009, 2010 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Ghost Rider – Danny Ketch Classic volume 1


By Howard Mackie, Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira with Jimmy Palmiotti (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3735-1

In the early 1970’s, following a downturn in superhero comics sales Marvel shifted focus from straight costumed crusaders to supernatural and horror characters and one of the most enduring was a certain 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 afflicted with a body that burned with the fires of Hell every time the sun went down and 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.

As Blaze briefly escaped his pre-destined 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” super-heroics in the early 1990s comes this slight but engagingly fast-paced horror-hero re-imagining courtesy of writer Howard Mackie and artists Javier Saltares & Mark Texeira, which quickly secured the new Ghost Rider status as one of the hottest hits of the period.

This first Danny Ketch Classic volume reprints issues #1-10 of the revitalised series spanning May 1990 – February 1991, and opens, following a reminiscence from the author, with the bonanza-sized introductory tale ‘Life’s Blood’ which sees young Danny and his photographer sister Barbara looking for Houdini’s tomb in the vast Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn on the eve of Halloween.

Unfortunately they stumble into a bloody criminal confrontation between ninjas and gangsters over a mysterious briefcase. Discovered, the siblings flee but Barb is hit by an arrow, whilst the case itself is snatched by a juvenile gang who plague the wooded necropolis.

The ninjas and their macabre leader Deathwatch are the victors of the fire-fight and are soon 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, his 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 – a Spirit of Vengeance hungry to assuage the pain of innocent blood spilled with inhuman vitality, toting an infinitely adaptable bike chain and a mystic “Penance Stare” which subjected 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 the dying Barbara, they naturally jump to the wrong conclusion…

As the Ghost Rider flees on a bike with wheels of fire, causing spectacular amounts of collateral carnage, Barb is rushed to hospital, where a re-transfigured, bruised, bleeding and totally confused Danny finds her the next morning…

In the richest part of Manhattan, Wall Street shark and psionic monster Deathwatch makes a ghastly example of the man who lost his briefcase twice even as his rival for its possession, 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 that 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 plagued by guilt and anger. Unable to help his comatose sister the lad determines to investigate what happened to him. When he awoke the blazing bike had returned to a normal configuration and now Danny climbs aboard and heads back to Cyprus Hills to look for answers just as the competing packs of killers are turning the streets into a free-fire zone.

Riding straight into the bloodbath, Danny sees his bike gas-cap glowing again and, almost against his will, slams his palm onto it, unleashing his skeletal passenger once again…

Devastating the assembled mobsters and murderers, the Ghost Rider then takes wounded Cyprus Pool Jokers Ralphie and Paulie to hospital and another pointless confrontation with the authorities…

‘Do Be Afraid of the Dark!’ finds open war between Deathwatch and the Kingpin’s forces for the canisters neither side possesses, with the Ghost Rider roaming the night tackling the increasingly savage hunters on both sides. The girl Paulie has admitted that she has no idea where two of the containers could 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 man-made 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 and utterly unable to share the horror that his life has become. Between days at Barb’s bedside, and nights as the slave to a primal force obsessed with blood and punishment, Ketch is drowning…

When Blackout tracks down the recovering Ralphie, the Ghost Rider is too late to save the young felon’s parents and only just manages to drive the vampire away before the boy too succumbs, leading to the inevitable final clash in ‘Deathwatch’, wherein the Wall Street dilettante’s forces find the canisters before being overwhelmed by the Kingpin. Ever pragmatic, the ninja-master simply surrenders, but the wildly unpredictable Blackout refuses to submit and slips into a berserker rage of slaughter, before escaping with the containers and terrified hostage Paulie.

The albino maniac knows the canisters contain a toxin that will wipe out New York and harbours an impossible plan to use them to kick-start an atomic war which will produce a nuclear winter on 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 which leaves his face a melted, agonising ruin and burns the canisters to harmless slag…

Issue #4 found Danny, unable to resist the constant call to become the Furious Flaming Apparition, decide to lock up the cursed motorcycle beyond the reach of temptation in faraway Manhattan, only to find it had a mind of its own when a clash between a biker gang and an old Thor villain trapped both Ketch and an car full innocent bystanders in a subterranean parking garage. ‘You Can Run, but You Can’t Hyde!’ taught the troubled young man that the Rider was a cruel necessity in a bad world, an argument confirmed by the beginning of an extended subplot in which children began vanishing from the streets of Brooklyn…

The very epitome of Grim’n’Gritty stopped by for a two issue guest-shot in #5-6 as ‘Getting Paid!’ and ‘Do or Die!’ saw a mysterious figure distributing free guns to children, drawing the attention of not just the night-stalking Spirit of Vengeance but also the merciless, militaristic vigilante Frank Castle, known to criminals and cops alike as The Punisher.

The weapons are turning the city into a deadly battleground, but the cops and unscrupulous TV reporter Linda Wei seem more concerned with stopping the Ghost Rider’s campaign against the youthful killers than ending the bloodshed. Danny decides to investigate in his 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 was to becoming the Punisher’s latest statistic…

The situation changes that night and the flaming-skulled zealot clashes with the Punisher before uniting to tackle the true mastermind – a manic anti-nationalist, anti-capitalist terrorist known as Flag-Smasher.

With the insane demagogue determined to unleash a storm of death on Wall Street, the driven anti-heroes are forced to briefly unite to end the scheme and save the “bad” kids and the system that created them…

‘Obssesion’ in #7, illustrated solely by Texeira, saw the return of animal-trainer and contortionist the Scarecrow, who had barely troubled Iron Man, the X-Men and Captain America in his early days, but after having slipped into morbid thanophilia had become a death-preoccupied maniac who presented a truly different threat to the mystic agent of retribution.

A far greater menace was seen – or rather, not seen – with the return of Blackout who silently stalked Danny Ketch, savagely slaughtering everybody who knew him. Not even the police guards at Barbara’s hospital bedside could stop the fiend with half-a-face…

Through dreams Danny debated his cursed existence with the Spirit of Vengeance in #8’s ‘Living Nightmare’ (Mackie, Saltares & Texeira) constantly bemoaning his fate but seemingly unable to affect the implacable, terrifying being he couldn’t stop becoming. Adding to his fevered nights were visions of Deathwatch, Barbara and the vile psycho-killer Blackout.

As Blackout continued to murder anybody coming into contact with the troubled Ketch – who was seemingly paralysed by his dilemma – girlfriend Stacy neared the end of her training as a cop, and her father increased patrols to catch the blazing Biker. Impatient and scared, the Cypress Hills Community Action Group took controversial steps to safeguard their streets by 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 decided Ghost Rider was the cause of all the chaos and went after him with an arsenal of high-tech military hardware and a helicopter gunship…

The Spirit of Vengeance was already occupied, having found Blackout attacking a girl, but their final showdown was interrupted when the fiery skeleton was attacked by a colossal Morlock (feral mutants who live in tunnels beneath New York) who mistook the saviour for the assailant…

Issue #9 guest-starred the X-Factor – a reformed X-Men team comprising Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Iceman and the Beast who uncover the mystery of the missing children in ‘Pursuit’ (with additional inks by Jimmy Palmiotti) when they follow the 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…

This volume ends on a thematic cliffhanger with ‘Stars of Blood’ as Danny begins a new phase of life reconciled to his burden. When a series of horrific murders are attributed to a publicity-seeking serial killer named Zodiak, the boy begins investigating the deaths and discovers that 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, the Ghost Rider then 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 across town, the humiliated H.E.A.R.T. team accept a commission from Deathwatch to destroy the Spirit of Vengeance, whilst in the western USA the previous victim of the curse of Zarathos is riding his motorcycle hard, determined to get to New York and destroy the latest Ghost Rider as soon as possible…

To Be Continued…

This expanded re-issue of the 1991 Ghost Rider Resurrected trade paperback also includes the cover and introduction to that volume, pin-ups by Saltares, Texeira & Palmiotti and a full cover gallery and, despite being markedly short on plot and utterly devoid of humour, does deliver the maximum amount of uncomplicated thrills, spills and chills for action-starved fight fans.

If you occasionally feel that subtlety isn’t everything and yearn for a vicarious dose of simple wickedness-whomping, this might well be the book for you…
© 1990, 1991, 2009 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.