Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider is the name of several comic book series published by Marvel Comics, and of several fictional characters in the Marvel Universe. more...

Western Ghost Rider

The original Ghost Rider was a masked gunfighter in the American Old West who battled frontier injustice while dressed in a luminescent white costume. The original version was created by writer Ray Krank and artist Dick Ayers in Magazine Enterprises' Tim Holt #11 (1949). After the trademark to the character's name and motif had lapsed, Marvel Comics debuted its own near-identical, horror-free version of the character in Ghost Rider Vol. 1, #1-7 (Feb.-Nov. 1967), by writer Gary Friedrich and original Ghost Rider artist Ayers.

With the introduction of the first motorcycle-riding, supernatural Ghost Rider (see below), this Western character's name was changed — first to the unfortunate Night Rider (a name that also refers to members of the Ku Klux Klan), and then to Phantom Rider.

Johnny Blaze

The second Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight Volume 1, #5 (Aug. 1972), co-created, like the Western Ghost Rider, by Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich, plus artist Mike Ploog. Johnny Blaze, a motorcycle stunt performer in a traveling circus, sold his soul to what he believed was Satan but was actually the demon Mephisto, in order to save the life of his friend and mentor, Crash Simpson. Blaze was bound with the demon Zarathos and transformed into a leather-clothed skeleton, his head cloaked in a sheath of flame. The character received his own series with a Sept. 1973 debut issue (see at left), with penciler Jim Mooney handling most of the first nine issues. Several different creative teams mixed-and-matched until penciler Don Perlin began a long stint with #26, eventually joined by writer Michael Fleisher through #58. This Ghost Rider's career ended when Zarathos fled Blaze's body in issue #81 (June 1983), the finale.

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