I'm much less certain for how the editors chose what issues to include, as the half-dozen comic books within consist of two issues of the original 1973-1983 Ghost Rider monthly and single issues of four other books.
Given that they all date between 1976 and 1981, I'm going to assume the idea was to collect Ghost Rider team-ups that hadn't already been collected elsewhere, in various Essential volumes, which would explain the absence of some appearances from notable guest stars within earlier issues of Ghost Rider, as well as the character's initial team-ups with Spider-Man and The Thing from Marvel Comics Presents and Marvel Two-in-One. But then, that's just a guess.
What we have here then is a bit of a grab bag, stories from a bunch of different creators, and featuring a variety of different Marvel characters, some big (Spider-Man, The Avengers), others decidedly less so (see the cover above).
Marvel Premiere #28 (1976) "Legion" seems like a pretty big word for a group of just four monsters, doesn't it...? Still, that four-word phrase was one that someone at Marvel apparently liked, as it had previously shown up as the title of a 1975 black and white anthology magazine. And so it was recycled for the cover of this issue, which I had previously read, but certainly didn't mind reading again (It was also collected in the 2019 Decades: Marvel in the '70s—Legion of Monsters trade paperback).
The short, 18-page story by writer Bill Mantlo is a rather simple one, a sci-fi parable sort of story that doesn't necessarily need to star these particular characters, and is easy to imagine appearing sans Marvel monsters in one of those old fantastic story anthologies.
Mantlo writes in second-person, addressing the four main characters each as "You", which probably isn't the best strategy for an ensemble piece, as there are a few bits where who the specific "You" is meant to be can get a bit of confusing.
On the first page, he and artists Frank Robbins and Steve Gan introduce the four Legionnaires: Man-Thing, Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze, Morbius The Living Vampire and Jack Russell, the so-called Werewolf By Night.
On the first page, he and artists Frank Robbins and Steve Gan introduce the four Legionnaires: Man-Thing, Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze, Morbius The Living Vampire and Jack Russell, the so-called Werewolf By Night.
Then they introduce the inciting incident, the sudden, cataclysmic appearance of a mountain on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
Johnny Blaze, who at this point was still working as a stuntman in Stunt-Master and Karen Page's TV motorcycle show, was in town to take in a movie, and, during the cataclysm, he transforms into his worse half and starts up the mountain to investigate. Morbius and W.B.N., who have a brief scuffle when the former attempts to feed on the latter, similarly head up the mountain (It's not clear where they are in relation to the mountain but, as we'll soon see, it doesn't seem to matter). And in the swamps of Florida, Man-Thing spies the mountain and ponderously makes his way towards it.
Atop it they are greeted by a bizarre golden man astride a golden horse, a beast that seems equal parts divine and strange in Robbins' rendering. The man introduces himself as "The STARSEED" and tells the assembled monsters or monster-adjacent characters his story, even though only half of them would really be able to actually understand it.
Johnny Blaze, who at this point was still working as a stuntman in Stunt-Master and Karen Page's TV motorcycle show, was in town to take in a movie, and, during the cataclysm, he transforms into his worse half and starts up the mountain to investigate. Morbius and W.B.N., who have a brief scuffle when the former attempts to feed on the latter, similarly head up the mountain (It's not clear where they are in relation to the mountain but, as we'll soon see, it doesn't seem to matter). And in the swamps of Florida, Man-Thing spies the mountain and ponderously makes his way towards it.
Atop it they are greeted by a bizarre golden man astride a golden horse, a beast that seems equal parts divine and strange in Robbins' rendering. The man introduces himself as "The STARSEED" and tells the assembled monsters or monster-adjacent characters his story, even though only half of them would really be able to actually understand it.
Thousands, perhaps millions of years ago, he and his people separated themselves from the majority of humankind, which was then consumed by brute violence. They fled to a mountain and lived there, until the day some particularly weird-looking aliens arrived on Earth, and took their whole mountain off into space within them. There, the people of the mountain gradually learned from the aliens and, once they had mastered their technology, took control of the ship and headed back home.
The last survivor, Starseed, apparently dropped his mountain back where it was all those years ago, and now, with his powers and knowledge, he can offer Earth peace and prosperity, giving the weird quartet that were there to greet him something they have all long lacked, hope.
But being monsters (and/or men, I suppose), they almost immediately attack him.
The werewolf and Morbius attack the golden man, and while Ghost Rider fights with them, trying to defend the visitor, Man-Thing shambles up to Starseed and places his hand upon him and, as we all well know by now, "whoever knows fear burns at the Man-Thing's touch!"
With the last of his strength, the Starseed shows the Legion of Monsters what he could have done for them, briefly transforming each of them back to their original, pre-monstrous, human forms, but then he dies and the monsters each turn and leave, Morbius and G.R. the only ones who are really aware of what just unfolded.
As for the mountain, it's still there in the last panel, but I suppose it too must have faded away like Starseed's dream and his life, since I don't think there's currently a mountain in Marvel's version of LA.
As for the mountain, it's still there in the last panel, but I suppose it too must have faded away like Starseed's dream and his life, since I don't think there's currently a mountain in Marvel's version of LA.
It's probably the strongest story in the collection.
I suppose this all relates to whatever was going on in Avengers at the time...?
Marvel Team-Up #91 (1980) Ghost Rider returns to the pages of Marvel Team-Up for the third time, although this story, by writer Steven Grant, pencil artist Pat Broderick and inker Bruce D. Patterson, reads more like a Spider-Man story that just so happens to feature Ghost Rider than a true team-up.
Peter Parker seems to be on a date with a woman named Glory Grant, whom I don't think I've ever seen before. They're taking in a carnival in Connecticut. When they stop by the freak show, featuring a six-armed "Spider-Man" and a guy in a Man-Thing costume, Peter is sure he recognizes one of their number: "The Blazing Skull," a flaming skeleton with big, staring red eyeballs in its sockets.
Peter recognizes him as The Ghost Rider, of course.
As to why the villain has targeted Hawkeye, who is, at the time, rather inconveniently located at a ranch in the American southwest, far away from the rest of the team, well, as he tells the purple archer once he's taken him captive, "You're the easiest mark!"
At this point, Hawkeye seems to be in semi-retirement from Earth's Mightiest Heroes and is working at the Cheery-O Ranch with his new friend, the time-lost hero of the Old West, Two-Gun Kid. If, like me, you weren't reading Marvel comics in 1977 (perhaps because of the fact that you, like me, were a baby at the time), well, you're probably still well aware of this, as Hawkeye and Two-Gun showed up in one of the early issues of The Champions, which I covered not too long ago.
As for Ghost Rider, he is, according to writer Jim Shooter's pages of recap via remembrance, in a pretty bad place at the moment. He's apparently just fled his friends, job and life in LA after Dr. Druid attacked him and he transformed into Ghost Rider right in front of them, fighting back against Dr. Druid so savagely that he apparently scared and disturbed his onlooking friends.
After some adventures on his motorcycle in the desert, Johnny ends up breaking down, and he heads to the nearby Cheery-O for supplies to repair his bike. There he meets Clint Barton and Matt Hawk, but Johnny doesn't recognize them, as they are wearing bright, primary colored-cowboy clothes (seeing their garish outfits here reminded me of the virtue of reading Marvel's seventies comics via black-and-white Essential collections). And, of course, they don't recognize him either, since his head isn't on fire.
After some adventures on his motorcycle in the desert, Johnny ends up breaking down, and he heads to the nearby Cheery-O for supplies to repair his bike. There he meets Clint Barton and Matt Hawk, but Johnny doesn't recognize them, as they are wearing bright, primary colored-cowboy clothes (seeing their garish outfits here reminded me of the virtue of reading Marvel's seventies comics via black-and-white Essential collections). And, of course, they don't recognize him either, since his head isn't on fire.
Johnny decides to hang around the ranch for a while, teaching Matt how to ride a motorcycle just as Matt teaches him how to bust broncos, until the night the Manticore attacks (Perhaps presciently, Hawkeye puts on his superhero costume just before the Manticore does so), at which point the heroes all go into action and realize that they had actually met before.
The adventure ends on a down note for Blaze, when Hawkeye and Two-Gun seem unconvinced that his demon act as Ghost Rider, during which he told Manticore he couldn't care less whether he killed the hostage Hawkeye or not, was just a bluff.
This one was drawn by Don Perlin and Dan Green.
The adventure ends on a down note for Blaze, when Hawkeye and Two-Gun seem unconvinced that his demon act as Ghost Rider, during which he told Manticore he couldn't care less whether he killed the hostage Hawkeye or not, was just a bluff.
This one was drawn by Don Perlin and Dan Green.
Peter Parker seems to be on a date with a woman named Glory Grant, whom I don't think I've ever seen before. They're taking in a carnival in Connecticut. When they stop by the freak show, featuring a six-armed "Spider-Man" and a guy in a Man-Thing costume, Peter is sure he recognizes one of their number: "The Blazing Skull," a flaming skeleton with big, staring red eyeballs in its sockets.
Peter recognizes him as The Ghost Rider, of course.
Quick aside: Is this the first time we've seen the Johnny Blaze version of Ghost Rider naked before? In all the appearances I've read so far, he's always clad in leather toe to neck, and I just assumed it was only his head that changed when he becomes Ghost Rider; this story seems to imply that it's his whole body. Oddly though, as Spidey will later note, the Ghost Rider is strong, and we can see his big muscles bulging beneath his leather, so apparently the dude has muscles; maybe they are just translucent, as Johnny once said of his transformed face early in the Ghost Rider saga...?
Peter is forcibly ejected from the carnival when he starts shouting for Ghost Rider, and he's perplexed that the men who throw him out are so strong, as he reacted so quickly that he originally fought back using his "spider-strength", and "they didn't even feel it!"
Ghost Rider #50 (1980) Though the cover boasts that this is "Ghost Rider's Strangest Adventure Ever!", I don't buy it. It's a pretty simple time travel story, and I've certainly seen him engaged in far stranger.
Peter is forcibly ejected from the carnival when he starts shouting for Ghost Rider, and he's perplexed that the men who throw him out are so strong, as he reacted so quickly that he originally fought back using his "spider-strength", and "they didn't even feel it!"
So Spidey returns in costume that night to investigate, and a mysterious man in a cape and turban (seen on the cover above) orders the oddly strong roustabouts and freaks to attack him, including Ghost Rider (at this point fully dressed in his traditional leathers).
Eventually, the guy in the turban captures Spidey and reveals his story: He's Moondark The Magician, who apparently crossed paths with Spider-Man before and seemingly died during a plunge into San Francisco Bay.
But "the dark beings" he worshipped struck a bargain with him: He was returned to the land of the living, sans his own soul, and tasked with gathering the souls of others, with which he might one day buy back his own. And so he took a job as the carnival's magician, gradually stealing the other employees' souls and storing them in an orb. Doing so gave him control over his victims. And I guess also made them supernaturally strong, maybe...?
One of the folks working at the carnival was, of course, stunt-rider Johnny Blaze. Unlike the souls of the others, Moondark kept Johnny's soul in a special ring he wore, a cool panel by Broderick depicts the magician thrusting his fist toward the reader to display the ring, in which he can see a tiny Johnny seemingly pressing against the gem of the ring and saying "Help me..." in a tiny little dialogue balloon.
One of the folks working at the carnival was, of course, stunt-rider Johnny Blaze. Unlike the souls of the others, Moondark kept Johnny's soul in a special ring he wore, a cool panel by Broderick depicts the magician thrusting his fist toward the reader to display the ring, in which he can see a tiny Johnny seemingly pressing against the gem of the ring and saying "Help me..." in a tiny little dialogue balloon.
You probably won't be surprised to learn that Spider-Man is able to free Johnny's soul, and, along with Ghost Rider, take on Moondark and his soul-less slaves, eventually breaking open the orb and restoring the victims to normal.
I think there are a couple of points of particular interest here.
I think there are a couple of points of particular interest here.
First is that this Ghost Rider seems more remote and alien than those in the previous stories in this collection, or that I had read elsewhere. Whereas Johnny used to have a Ghost Rider "act" he would slip into, the character no longer seems to be an act in this issue, but an entirely different entity from Johnny. Their dual identities now seem to be more of a Hulk/Bruce Banner situation than in comics from earlier in the character's history. (Spider-Man grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him when Ghost Rider turns his hellfire on Moondark, convinced it is too severe a punishment, even for the soul-stealing villain).
Second, whereas G.R.'s hellfire previously just seemed to be regular fire, now it burns cold, affecting the souls of those it touches, rather than their bodies. While how exactly that works isn't spelled out, it apparently hurts like hell, as we see in this and in some of the later stories in this collection.
Second, whereas G.R.'s hellfire previously just seemed to be regular fire, now it burns cold, affecting the souls of those it touches, rather than their bodies. While how exactly that works isn't spelled out, it apparently hurts like hell, as we see in this and in some of the later stories in this collection.
Finally, this seems to be yet another Ghost Rider story in which someone has done a deal with the devil, but here Grant doesn't use the word "Satan" or "Mephisto" or even "devil." Instead, we get Moondark's "the dark beings I worshipped", "my dark masters" and, when one appears on-panel at the climax, simply "master."
The best look we get at this entity is that of a huge green humanoid giant, with clawed hands, a pink face and horns and prominent fangs. It's a weird, cool monster design, but it seems, much like Grant's word choices, to be a quite conscious choice not to use Satan or more traditional devil figure. I guess that by this point, Marvel had grown rather gun shy about using Satan as a comic book character...?
Though only 16 pages long, this story is very dense, thanks to how many small panels Broderick manages to pack onto the pages. It opens with a splash page establishing the carnival, but some of the pages contain as many as 12 panels. Thanks to Broderick's highly detailed art, there's a lot in each of them, too.
The best look we get at this entity is that of a huge green humanoid giant, with clawed hands, a pink face and horns and prominent fangs. It's a weird, cool monster design, but it seems, much like Grant's word choices, to be a quite conscious choice not to use Satan or more traditional devil figure. I guess that by this point, Marvel had grown rather gun shy about using Satan as a comic book character...?
Though only 16 pages long, this story is very dense, thanks to how many small panels Broderick manages to pack onto the pages. It opens with a splash page establishing the carnival, but some of the pages contain as many as 12 panels. Thanks to Broderick's highly detailed art, there's a lot in each of them, too.
I'm not super familiar with his work (that which most immediately springs to mind is his 1991 Ragman series with Keith Giffen and Robert Loren Fleming), but he does a pretty incredible job here, and his Ghost Rider is magnificent, featuring a far more detailed skull than most artists usually give him, and boasting nicely unsettling expressions, thanks in large part to the eyeballs the character has in this story.
Anyway, this 35-page story does finally team our hero with his namesake, the original Ghost Rider.
That guy's history is a little complicated. From what I've read, the first iteration of the character was co-created in 1949 by artist Dick Ayers for a Magazine Enterprises Western comic. After the trademark lapsed due to inactivity, Marvel had Ayers recreate a new version of the character in 1967, along with Gary Friedrich and Roy Thomas, the latter two of whom would later co-create the flaming-skull motorcyclist version of the character. They of course recycled the name for the motorcycle guy in 1973 and so, when Johnny Blaze meets the cowboy guy here, the latter was renamed Night Rider (Later changed to The Phantom Rider, given the term Night Rider's association with the Ku Klux Klan).
So in this issue, by Michael Fleisher and Don Perlin, Ghost Rider is caught in a wall of water released by an exploding dam from the previous (and, of course, uncollected here) issue. He awakes as Johnny Blaze in a cave, where an old Native American woman is yelling at him. Before his eyes, she de-ages into a beautiful young woman, walks him out of the cave, and gestures to the landscape, "a glorious bygone world," before she disappears.
Marvel Two-in-One #80 (1981) Ghost Rider returns to the pages of Marvel Two-in-One for another Thing team-up in this issue, this one by writer Tom DeFalco, penciler Ron Wilson and inker Chic Stone.
Avengers #214 (1981) Jim Shooter makes his second appearance in this collection, penning an issue of Avengers drawn by Bob Hall and Dan Green in which the team try to track down and take on the Ghost Rider.
That guy's history is a little complicated. From what I've read, the first iteration of the character was co-created in 1949 by artist Dick Ayers for a Magazine Enterprises Western comic. After the trademark lapsed due to inactivity, Marvel had Ayers recreate a new version of the character in 1967, along with Gary Friedrich and Roy Thomas, the latter two of whom would later co-create the flaming-skull motorcyclist version of the character. They of course recycled the name for the motorcycle guy in 1973 and so, when Johnny Blaze meets the cowboy guy here, the latter was renamed Night Rider (Later changed to The Phantom Rider, given the term Night Rider's association with the Ku Klux Klan).
So in this issue, by Michael Fleisher and Don Perlin, Ghost Rider is caught in a wall of water released by an exploding dam from the previous (and, of course, uncollected here) issue. He awakes as Johnny Blaze in a cave, where an old Native American woman is yelling at him. Before his eyes, she de-ages into a beautiful young woman, walks him out of the cave, and gestures to the landscape, "a glorious bygone world," before she disappears.
Then Johnny is attacked by native warriors on horseback and shot full of arrows, only to be rescued by the original Ghost Rider Night Rider. Somehow, Johnny has traveled back in time to the late 1800s.
While Johnny is still unconscious, we're told the origin of the Night Rider. His ghostliness is simply a schtick; he uses his luminous, all-white costume with a reversible black cloak to pretend to be a headless specter or a floating disembodied head, convincing his foes that he's really a ghost (Although there is an otherworldly aspect to his story, and maybe some magic, as he was nursed back to health by a native shaman after suffering terrible injuries, and a vision had lead that shaman to a falling star, dust from which is used to make the Rider's white garments glow).
By day, the Rider is school teacher Carter Slade. Once Johnny heals from his injuries, the two men hang out a bit and have some Old West adventures, mostly centering around a whip-wielding Mexican (?) outlaw who sprinkles his dialogue with Spanish. The villain goes by the name The Tarantula.
Eventually Johnny has occasion to become Ghost Rider and summon a hellfire motorcycle, fighting The Tarantula and his men, as well as a giant flying snake and a spirit warrior named The Manitou.
The two heroes learn one another's alternate identities, and the Native American woman from the second page is revealed to be the daughter of the shaman who had once saved Carter's life and helped him become the Rider. She leads Johnny back to the cave and, through it, to the twentieth century, where he actually arrives before he had even left—and is thus in time to stop the dam explosion that kicked off the whole adventure.
Johnny uses the word "Indian" throughout and, at one point, refers to Native Americans as "the redmen."
This is some seven years later than Ghost Rider's first adventure involving Native Americans (the Snake-Dance and "Witch-Woman" stories from his last Marvel Spotlight issues in 1973), but Johnny (and/or Marvel) haven't gotten any more enlightened on that score during all that time.
This is some seven years later than Ghost Rider's first adventure involving Native Americans (the Snake-Dance and "Witch-Woman" stories from his last Marvel Spotlight issues in 1973), but Johnny (and/or Marvel) haven't gotten any more enlightened on that score during all that time.
This story concludes with a three-page "Ghost Rider's Gallery of Guest Stars!", featuring pin-ups to some of the earliest appearances of other Marvel characters in his book: The Son of Satan, The Hulk and The Phantom Eagle.
Here, it's pretty clear that the Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze are at this point entirely different personalities, and that not only is Johnny no longer in control of himself when he's transformed, but the Ghost Rider doesn't even seem to be much in the way of a good guy.
The story opens not with Ghost Rider, but with Alicia Masters and Ben Grimm in the Baxter Building. For some reason, her studio is right next door to his gym, and so when her studio starts shaking, the ceiling falling in and her sculptures breaking, she runs next door to check on Ben, who is actually the cause of the disturbance, as he's punching some giant "hydraulic exerciser" contraption. Being blind, she can't see it and runs right into its path. Were it not for Reed and one of his super-stretchy arms, she would have been killed.
Gee, if only Ben and Alicia knew some kind of super-genius, maybe he would have known better than to put her sculpture studio right next to the incredibly loud and dangerous, building-shaking superhero gym...
Ben feels low for having almost inadvertently killed his girlfriend (to say nothing of all the sculptures of hers he ruins) and he leaves to go mope around about being an unlovable monster. He's cruising around on his little green flying bike thing from the cover when he sees an elaborate police chase involving Ghost Rider, who seems oblivious to how much damage he's causing and how many lives he's endangering as he streaks around New York City and plays chicken with a commuter train ("Ha! Ha! Ha!" he laughs when one police car flips over and he uses the hood of another as a springboard to jump off of).
When G.R. returns to Johnny Blaze, The Thing lands next to him and offers him a ride back to the "flea-bag hotel" he's staying in while performing at an auto show in Shea Stadium ("Us monsters have to stick together!" Ben tells him). Johnny thanks him with a pair of tickets to the show.
Ben and Alicia take in the car show, during which Johnny Blaze jumps sixteen cars and apparently pulls off a somersault while doing so, based on the trail of smoke from his motorcycle that the artists draw. A couple of teens decide to run onto the field and make off with one of the racecars, almost running into Johnny in the process.
As they speed away into town, Johnny transforms, and soon Ghost Rider runs the kids off the road, picks up the car after they've abandoned it and throws it at them. He is in the process of burning them with his special soul-burning hellfire when Ben arrives on the scene.
As they speed away into town, Johnny transforms, and soon Ghost Rider runs the kids off the road, picks up the car after they've abandoned it and throws it at them. He is in the process of burning them with his special soul-burning hellfire when Ben arrives on the scene.
Unable to reason with the Ghost Rider, Ben shouts his catchphrase and a slugfest ensues. Ben seems to have G.R. on the ropes, until he feels guilty for how badly he's walloping him, after which he switches to defense, eventually talking him into transforming back into his mortal self: "Blaze is somewhere deep down inside of you! He's a person like me, with feelings-- hopes-- and dreams! You gotta let 'im out sometime!"
Back home, Ben is in high spirits, realizing how much he's got—The FF, his friends, Alicia—while "there are others who have... ...nothing!"
That last word appears in a yellow narration box, hovering in a panel showing the Ghost Rider driving off towards the horizon.
Like Grant and Broderick's Spider-Man team-up earlier in the book, it's a very dense issue, reading far longer and more substantial than its 21 pages, thanks in part to how many panels are on each page, and just how many words Shooter manages to stuff into each of them.
Neither Johnny nor Ghostie makes an appearance until page seven, the first half-dozen pages of the issue devoted to Avengers goings-on. I guess this is kind of a historic and/or notorious point in the team's history, as it seems that Yellowjacket Hank Pym must have just struck his wife, Wasp Janet Van Dyne.
Neither Johnny nor Ghostie makes an appearance until page seven, the first half-dozen pages of the issue devoted to Avengers goings-on. I guess this is kind of a historic and/or notorious point in the team's history, as it seems that Yellowjacket Hank Pym must have just struck his wife, Wasp Janet Van Dyne.
In these pages, Captain America is working out so hard that Jarvis and Tigra are worried about him; Tigra makes her low opinion of Pym known ("He's proven he's a rat to me!" she tells Jarvis); Tony Stark and Don Blake talk about Pym, with Stark saying he'll pay any money needed to get Pym the help he needs and, ultimately, Pym visits his wife, whose eye is still black and swollen shut. She tells him she's divorcing him.
(Can we take a moment to appreciate just how weird a character Tigra is? In this issue, she demonstrates no superpowers or remarkable abilities and appears to just be a catgirl in a bikini, and thus an odd inclusion in a line-up of Earth's Mightiest Heroes, who here just consists of "The Big Three", plus team founders Pym and Van Dyne in the wider Avengers orbit).
When Johnny Blaze finally appears, he seems to be at a particularly low point, sitting on a cliff and shaking a fist at a Ferrari speeding by on the desert highway below: "Blast it! Some rich, carefree son of a gun is tooling around in his sixty-grand toy-- --while I'm wondering when I'll be able to afford a meal again!"
Mid-rant, he changes into Ghost Rider, who seems to have continued to be more and more of a bad actor, and a distinct, separate personality from that of Johnny Blaze. G.R. declares in his thought clouds that the world has wronged Johnny Blaze, and there must be "a reckoning!", starting with the guy in the fancy car.
As it turns out, that guy is known to the readers and, of course, to Johnny. It's Warren Worthington III, former X-Man The Angel, and Ghost Rider's former Champions teammate. Small world, huh?
There's an amusing panel where Ghost Rider speeds by Warren, taking the time to slow down and glare silently at him. Ghost Rider then speeds ahead, pops a wheelie and parks in the middle of the road, causing Warren to swerve to avoid hitting him and wreck his sportscar.
Ghost Rider continues to menace Warren and his apparent girlfriend Candy, ultimately tearing off Angel's shirt to reveal his bound wings and challenging him to a race. Soon they come to blows, and Ghost Rider knocks Angel out of the sky with his hellfire, laughing as he remounts his motorcycle: "Ha, ha, ha, ha! Never again shall he defy me!"
There's an amusing panel where Ghost Rider speeds by Warren, taking the time to slow down and glare silently at him. Ghost Rider then speeds ahead, pops a wheelie and parks in the middle of the road, causing Warren to swerve to avoid hitting him and wreck his sportscar.
Ghost Rider continues to menace Warren and his apparent girlfriend Candy, ultimately tearing off Angel's shirt to reveal his bound wings and challenging him to a race. Soon they come to blows, and Ghost Rider knocks Angel out of the sky with his hellfire, laughing as he remounts his motorcycle: "Ha, ha, ha, ha! Never again shall he defy me!"
Warren ends up in a local hospital in Alkalai Flats, and Candy calls the Avengers, looking for Warren's friend The Beast. Instead, she gets Captain America, and he, Iron Man, Thor and Tigra head out west, intent on dealing with Ghost Rider.
Meanwhile, Johnny is feeling guilty about what he did as Ghost Rider, and so he takes a job pumping gas at a station in town, in part to wait and watch over the injured Warren. He's forced to turn into Ghost Rider when a child is imperiled, hoping his faster alter ego can reach the boy in time...and that G.R. will actually bother to do so.
Meanwhile, Johnny is feeling guilty about what he did as Ghost Rider, and so he takes a job pumping gas at a station in town, in part to wait and watch over the injured Warren. He's forced to turn into Ghost Rider when a child is imperiled, hoping his faster alter ego can reach the boy in time...and that G.R. will actually bother to do so.
Thus revealed, the Avengers close in on him. He leads a motorcycle-riding Cap on a chase, he blasts Iron Man with a handful of hellfire through the eye and mouth holes in his mask (I guess those weren't always sealed in the early '80s?), and he even knocks Thor on his butt with his flaming motorcycle.
The Avengers fare better during round two, though, with Thor pinning Ghost Rider against a canyon wall with a wind vortex created by his spinning magic hammer. Ghost Rider remains defiant: "Stupid mortals! A hell-spawned spirit cannot surrender! I fight until the vengeance I crave is mine--or I am destroyed!"
Neither happens here, of course.
A semi-recovered Warren, wearing a bandaged arm in a sling, arrives on the scene and attempts to talk Ghost Rider down. "I heard you had shown yourself and I figured you'd need a friend," Warren says, to which Ghost Rider responds, "I have no friends!"
Warren offers a theory about the change Johnny and the Ghost Rider have seemingly been going through in his own book, I guess: "I think that the more bitter and unhappy you are as Johnny Blaze, the more ruthless and savage the Ghost Ride is when he emerges."
The words seem to strike home, and while Warren offers himself to the Ghost Rider—"I'm the one you picked to hate, demon! Here I am! Do it! Kill me!—Johnny eventually takes control again, transforming back to himself.
Warren offers to help Johnny, but Johnny asks to just be left alone and, after Captain America pauses to compare Johnny and Hank ("He lets things get to him...made one mistake...and then made it worse!"), they all walk off and leave Johnny alone.
This was just about a year and a half before the Ghost Rider ongoing would reach its conclusion, and Johnny Blaze's story would seemingly end...at least for a decade or so.
This was just about a year and a half before the Ghost Rider ongoing would reach its conclusion, and Johnny Blaze's story would seemingly end...at least for a decade or so.
Hopefully the character got some kind of happy ending then, as this collection sure doesn't give him one.
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