Essential Ghost Rider

    (Marvel, 2005)
™ and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Ironically, most Ghost Rider fans probably won’t enjoy this collection (which includes Marvel Spotlight #5-13, Ghost Rider #1-20, and Daredevil #139) of the character’s earliest appearances. They’re likely to find the stories too weird and old-fashioned. However, as a source of unintentional comedy, you really can’t beat Marvel’s wonky take on such 70s cultural touchstones as motorcycle gangs, Satan worship, Native American rights, street crime, shark attacks, and canyon jumping.

It’s a little sad watching a profoundly odd character turn into just another super-hero, when the horror boom goes bust—such as when he faces the new Zodiac (a one-man version of the villain team from The Avengers). He manages to avoid Ghost Rider by magically cross-dressing as the female member of the team Virgo, passing “herself” off as “just” an inexplicably masked streetwalker. (How this slipped past the Comics Code Authority, I don’t know.)

And it’s worth it to see art by such mostly forgotten greats as Jim Mooney, Frank Robbins (featuring a “ghost appearance” by The Phantom Eagle), and George Tuska.

— S. A. Bennett
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