Ghost Rider

• 1. Introduction

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  Ghost Rider is a Marvel Comics character whose first supernatural form was a stunt motorcyclist named Johnny Blaze. Blaze makes a desperate trade. To save the life of his foster father, he agrees to give his soul to a being called "Satan." The comics later reveal that this being is really an arch-demon named Mephisto. After that bargain, nightfall or the presence of evil sets Blaze's flesh ablaze with hellfire. His head becomes a flaming skull, and he rides a fiery motorcycle. He can also hurl blasts of hellfire from his body, usually from his hands. Blaze is far from the only person to carry the name. So where did the name come from before him? What can the fire actually do? And who rides after him?

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• 2. A Borrowed Name

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  Before any skull caught fire, Marvel had already used the name Ghost Rider for a Western character. That cowboy was later renamed Phantom Rider, which left the title free for something far stranger. Johnny Blaze debuted in Marvel Spotlight issue #5, dated August 1972. Marvel editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, writer Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog created him. A series of his own followed in 1973, with penciller Jim Mooney handling most of the first nine issues. After that, several creative teams traded the book back and forth until penciller Don Perlin began a long stint with issue #26. Writer Michael Fleisher eventually joined Perlin and stayed through issue #58. The original run ended with issue #81 in June 1983. Blaze did not stay away. Writer Devin Grayson produced a six-issue miniseries in 2001, and Garth Ennis wrote another in 2005. An ongoing monthly series began in July 2006. The comics also give Blaze a family tree. His parents are named as Naomi Blaze and Barton Blaze, and Naomi is described as an earlier Ghost Rider. Barton was a friend of Craig "Crash" Simpson, who owned one of the country's most popular motorcycle expedition shows.

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• 3. Hellfire and Chains

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  A bullet fired at a Ghost Rider simply passes through. Knives do worse, because they melt while inside the body. Conventional weapons rarely hurt these figures at all. The comics suggest they may be genuinely immortal, since God created them and only God can destroy them. Their strength is just as startling. A rider can pick up a truck and throw it across a road. One account puts Johnny Blaze's bench press at around 25 tons, or 50,000 pounds, and the story "World War Hulk" implies even more. The motorcycle is no ordinary machine. It outruns any conventional vehicle, rides up vertical surfaces, crosses water, and leaps distances no normal bike could manage.

  Each rider also has gifts of his own. Early on, Blaze's body changed when he transformed but his clothes did not. Later versions of him wear a spiked leather jacket and chains. His hellfire "burns the soul" and leaves no physical injury on the victim. During "World War Hulk," Doctor Strange said Blaze might be as powerful as the "Green Scar" persona of the Hulk and could possibly defeat him. Strange added that Ghost Rider protects only the innocent, which none of the Illuminati are. Blaze eventually gained a shotgun that can discharge hellfire, hellfire breath, and chains that grow from his throat or chest. He can also travel between incorporeal realms.

  Danny Ketch's most famous power was the Penance Stare. He locked eyes with a target and made that person feel all the pain they had ever inflicted on anyone else. Venom and Carnage resisted it because their alien symbiote "costumes" have no eyes. Madcap resisted because he is so masochistic that he claims to enjoy it. In the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series, the stare brought down Galactus, who was forced to feel the suffering of "A billion souls." The original comic, Fantastic Four issue 243, had Doctor Strange cast a spell to do that instead.

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• 4. Passing the Flame

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  In May 1990, Ghost Rider (volume 3) #1 introduced a young man named Daniel Ketch, known as Danny. After gangsters injured his sister, he came into contact with a motorcycle that held the essence of a Spirit of Vengeance. Blaze shows up in that series as a supporting character, and it is later revealed that Danny and his sister were Blaze's long-lost siblings. Danny's costume was a black leather biker jacket with spiked shoulder pads and grey leather pants. Across his chest he wore a mystic chain that obeyed his mental commands and served as his main melee weapon. His new motorcycle looked like a futuristic machine with wheels of hellfire, and its front end could lower to serve as a battering ram.

  Ketch's relationship with his demon was different from Blaze's. The two cooperated. In volume 3 #91, from December 1997, that demon is revealed to be Marvel's version of the Angel of Death or Judgment. At first Danny could transform only when he was present as "innocent blood was spilled," and he had to touch the gas cap of his motorcycle. Later he no longer needed the gas cap. Later still, willpower alone was enough. The series closed with issue #93 in February 1998, and Ketch apparently died. Peter Parker: Spider-Man #93, from July 1999, revealed he was alive. Nearly a decade later, in January 2007, Marvel published Ghost Rider Finale, which reprints the last issue and the previously unpublished volume 3 #94. By then, comics from the 2000s had put Blaze back in the role as Ketch's successor.

  During the 2011 storyline "Fear Itself," a Nicaraguan woman named Alejandra Jones became Ghost Rider through a ritual performed by a man named Adam. She showed several powers nobody had seen before, but Blaze took back most of the entity's strength in volume 7 #9. Carnage later killed her during the Absolute Carnage event.

  In 2014, as part of the Marvel NOW! initiative, Roberto "Robbie" Reyes took the mantle. Reyes is a Mexican-American resident of East Los Angeles, and his brother Gabriel helped raise him after their mother Juliana died. Writer and artist Felipe Smith created him, and Smith and artist Tradd Moore designed him. Instead of a motorcycle, he drives a black muscle car reminiscent of a modified 1969 Dodge Charger. The ghost of Eli Morrow inhabits Robbie's body, and Blaze says Morrow is not a true Spirit of Vengeance. Even so, Robbie gains chains ending in thin knives or sickles. He can teleport to the car or merge with it. The car can drive itself into foes, and its trunk opens as a portal that carries people anywhere. When Robbie gives in to negative emotions, Morrow takes full control, and Robbie's skin turns pallid and both his eyes turn orange.

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• 5. Riders Across Time

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  In the 18th century, a young man named Noble Kale grew up under an abusive father, Pastor Kale, alongside a younger brother named Dante. Noble fell in love with a girl named Magdelena. Because of her skin color and his father's religious views, the couple hid their love until she bore Noble's child. Soon after the wedding, Magdelena discovered that Pastor Kale served the dark lord Mephisto. To bury the secret, the pastor accused her of witchcraft and had her burned at the stake. Before she died, she used a curse to summon demons called "Furies" that avenge wronged women. Mephisto then took Noble's soul and activated a piece of the Medallion of Power to make him the original "Spirit of Vengeance." After the Furies were destroyed, Pastor Kale offered Noble his own son's flesh to eat. Noble refused and killed himself. When Mephisto came to claim the soul, his brother, the archangel Uriel, demanded it be spared. They compromised, leaving the soul in the void until it could be re-bonded with certain family members. Noble was also established as an ancestor of Jennifer Kale.

  The oldest rider of all lived in 1,000,000 B.C. A boy gifted with speech watched a mysterious stranger turn into a beast and devour his entire tribe. The stranger spared him and named him "Ghost." Years later, Mephisto appeared to him as a snake and told him to say its name, and Ghost was bonded with a Spirit of Vengeance. He poured hellfire into a woolly mammoth, and other humans, who had never seen anyone ride an animal, called him "the Rider." Five years on, he caught up with the stranger, who proved to be the first Wendigo. The Rider fashioned bones of the dead into the earliest version of the signature chain. The Wendigo and the mammoth tumbled over a cliff together. Odin and Lady Phoenix then recruited him to a prehistoric version of the Avengers.

  Other eras have their own riders. In the 11th century, a Sioux chieftain named Hellhawk wielded the powers and served in Thor's Avengers of 1,000 A.D. During the Edo period in Japan, the famed swordsman Musashi Miyamoto was the Ghost Ronin. In the miniseries Ghost Rider: Trail of Tears, published from April to September 2007, writer Garth Ennis and artist Clayton Crain follow Confederate officer Travis Parham during the American Civil War. He avenges the murders of an ex-slave named Caleb and Caleb's family. An unnamed 19th century rider on the American frontier targeted anyone who killed Native American women and children or who took scalps. During World War II, a soldier named Sal Romero was reanimated as a Ghost Rider to protect someone named Leo. Writer Jason Aaron and artist Tan Eng Huat later brought seven riders together in one story arc, the first time those flaming heads appeared together.

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• 6. Rogues and Allies

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  Mephisto is Johnny Blaze's archenemy and the reason Ghost Rider exists at all. Blaze resisted the evil that overcame him long ago, and he now uses his powers for good. That angered Mephisto, who keeps trying to win his creation back. Mephisto's son, Blackheart, created a group of Spirits of Vengeance to fight Ghost Rider, hoping to conquer Hell. Instead Noble Kale defeated him and took over his portion of Hell. Mephisto bound the demon Zarathos to Blaze. Zarathos came to exert control over the entity, but was separated from Blaze in the conflict with Centurious, a servant of Mephisto who headed the Firm. Zarathos later renewed an alliance with Lilith.

  Some enemies come from the world of stunt riding. Drake Shannon was partner to Crash Simpson in his traveling motorcycle show. He lost most of his face in a challenge against Crash for the business. The helmet he received from They Who Wield Power was shaped like an eyeball and could hypnotize others, and he became the villain Orb. Ruriko Tsumura was remade as a cyborg by Freakmaster and beat Blaze in a cycling challenge at the Quentin Carnival. She later fought Ghost Rider and was left comatose. Her sister Sadae gave her soul to Centurious to save her and became the cyborg Steel Vengeance, bent on killing Ghost Rider. Ruriko herself eventually turned ally. A contortionist named Ebenezer Laughton turned thief, then murderer, and the Firm remade him as the undead Scarecrow, who heals his wounds by inducing fear.

  Lieutenant Michael Badilino sold his soul to Mephisto to become Vengeance and destroy the hero he blamed for his family's death. When he learned Zarathos was responsible, he became an ally. The most dangerous foe was the renegade archangel Zadkiel, who hated God's admiration of humanity. Using Ghost Rider to kill other Spirits of Vengeance, Zadkiel empowered himself, took the throne, and cast the hero out. Ghost Rider returned with the dead Spirits of Vengeance, defeated him, and imprisoned him in Hell for all eternity. Lucifer was then charged with torturing Zadkiel there.

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• 7. Other Earths

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  On an alternate Earth where Thanos conquered the universe, Frank Castle, the Punisher, died in the last stand of the heroes, and his soul went to Hell. He made a demonic deal with Mephisto to punish Thanos and became Ghost Rider. When he returned, everything on the planet was dead. After countless years alone, he offered the dead planet to a badly injured Galactus in exchange for the chance to punish Thanos as his herald. Bestowed with the Power Cosmic, he became Cosmic Ghost Rider.

  In the Marvel 2099 timeline, Zero Cochrane is a cybernetic Spirit of Vengeance, with a digitized copy of his mind. In Infinity Warps, Ghost Rider is fused with Black Panther. T'Challa, renamed Johnny Blaze, is revived by Zarathos, here a half-sister of Bast, and becomes Ghost Panther, riding a burning black panther. In Marvel Zombies: Dead Days #1, from May 2007, Ghost Rider is one of the uninfected. In Marvel Zombies 3 he is infected and easily decapitated. During "Devil's Reign," Doctor Octopus recruits an alternate-universe Otto Blaze, whose chains serve as tentacles.

  The Ultimate Marvel version is darker. Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson, a twenty-something couple on a cross-country trip, befriend a biker gang in a bar. The gang kills the intoxicated Blaze in a Satanic ritual, and the gang members trade their souls to Satan for wealth and power. Blaze makes his own deal, his soul for Roxanne's safety. He trains for 20 years to become Ghost Rider and hunts the gang members down one by one. The White House orders his death and recruits the Avengers. They learn that Vice President Robert R. Blackthorne led the gang and became a Ghost Rider called Vengeance. Blaze drags him into a church, which turns both men human, and the Punisher finishes Blackthorne. Satan agrees to let Roxanne live her life if Blaze continues as his Ghost Rider.

  Issue #45 of the second volume of the series asks "What If Barbara Ketch Became Ghost Rider." In it, Danny dies in the graveyard, and Barbara takes his place as a more vicious and ruthless rider. In the Spider-Gwen universe, Earth-65, Betty Brant dresses as a version of Ghost Rider for Halloween.

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• 8. Beyond the Page

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  In May 2011, Ghost Rider placed 90th on IGN's "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" list. Nicolas Cage played Johnny Blaze in the 2007 film Ghost Rider, with Matt Long as the teenage Blaze. Blackheart is the main antagonist, and Mephisto appears under the name Mephistopheles. Cage returned for the 2012 sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, where Blackout appears as a henchman of Mephisto. In May 2013, the film rights reverted from Sony Pictures to Marvel Studios, which confirmed no plans for another film in the immediate future.

  Television has been busier. Richard Grieco voiced the Danny Ketch version in the Fantastic Four episode "When Calls Galactus" and again in The Incredible Hulk. Ghost Rider was to appear in The Spectacular Spider-Man, but Disney's purchase of Marvel Entertainment led Sony to return Spider-Man's TV rights to Marvel, and the series was cancelled. In the fourth season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Gabriel Luna played Robbie Reyes, and stand-in stunt actor Tom McComas played Johnny Blaze. In the episode "The Good Samaritan," Blaze gives Reyes the Spirit of Vengeance. Blaze is not named in the episode, but series star Clark Gregg confirmed the character's identity on Twitter. In the episodes "Deals with Our Devils" and "World's End," the Spirit leaves Reyes and briefly inhabits agents Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie, played by Henry Simmons, and Phil Coulson, played by Gregg. At the end of that season, Reyes used his flaming chains the way a Sling Ring works, to carry the Darkhold away so it could not be used again.

  In October 2016, Luna discussed plans for a Reyes series of his own, and he hoped Norman Reedus might play Blaze. On the 1st of May 2019 it was announced that a Hulu series based on Reyes would premiere in 2020. In September 2019, Hulu decided not to move forward with it.

  In video games, Crystal Dynamics planned a Danny Ketch game for the PlayStation in 1997 before it was cancelled. Later games gave Blaze a playable role in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, voiced by Nolan North, and in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. He is also a purchasable outfit in Fortnite Battle Royale. In Marvel's Midnight Suns, Robbie Reyes is playable, and Johnny Blaze appears as a supporting character voiced by Graham McTavish.

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