Marvel Spotlight #5. Ghost Rider: A legend is born!

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The Ghost Rider. He was in two terrible movies that starred Nic Cage.

But, then again, he achieved the remarkable feat of single-handedly making TV's Agents of SHIELD actually watchable.

However, he didn't start out life on either the big screen or the small screen.

He started it on the small page.

The comic book page.

And here's where we take a look at that start, as we visit his first-ever adventure, thanks to the pages of Marvel Spotlight #5.

Marvel Spotlight was, of course, the book that first introduced the Son of Satan to the world, and all sane judges know the first Son of Satan tale's one of the comic book highlights of the 1970s. So, how will Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog's offering compare to that one?

It's night time and a strange figure rides the streets of whatever town it is we're in.

It's the Ghost Rider, a motorcyclist with a flaming skull for a head.

Who is he?

Where's he from?

And doesn't he know it's illegal to ride without a helmet?

But he's not the only one crimeing on the streets tonight. So are two murderers who decide they should try to kill him because he's the only witness to their latest slaying.

Fools! As though the mighty Hell-spawned of Ghost Rider has anything to fear from the likes of them!

Well, it turns out he does because he's completely useless in a fight and has no choice but to flee them.

Finally, trapped by a dead end, our hero must, at last, unleash his full power!

Of jumping off a plank, with his bike, allowing him to escape before they can hurt him.

But now it's dawn and, his pursuers left far behind, the terrifying figure transforms into a more conventional form. That of Johnny Blaze, motorbike stunt rider. And, here, we discover just how he got his amazing, "powers."

He's a man whose adoptive father - motorbike stunt rider Crash Simpson - had only a month to live, due to an unnamed disease. To prevent his death, Johnny struck a deal with the Devil who agreed that Simpson wouldn't die from the unnamed disease if Johnny agreed to become his servant in Hell.

For some reason, Johnny decided this was a great deal and eagerly said yes.

Happy as Larry with his pact with evil, Johnny was then shocked when Crash promptly lived up to his name and died in an attempt to jump over some cars. Thus, as promised, not dying from the disease.

And now that means Johnny must serve Satan!

Forever!

Except he mustn't. Just as Satan's about to take him to Hell, Johnny's girlfriend Roxanne shows up and drives the fiend away with the self-declared goodness of her soul. There's a woman with a high opinion of herself. One that's not necessarily justified by her behaviour at any other point in the book.

Thanks to that, whenever it's nighttime, Johnny Blaze turns into the Ghost Rider and zooms around the streets, on his bike, in order to avoid being seen by anyone. I'm not sure how riding around the streets, at night, with a flaming skull, making big motorbike noises, is a good way to avoid being noticed. Wouldn't it make more sense for him to just stay in his house?

I've already mentioned that the Nic Cage Ghost Rider movies are catastrophically bad but it's depressing to discover the original story's no better, stricken with clunky dialogue, unlikely behaviour and hateful characters.

Johnny's clearly a moron, having a level of trust in the Devil that makes you wonder if he knows who the Devil even is. At one point, he cheerfully reminds himself, "I have the Devil's word on it."

Not one of the characters is remotely likeable. His adoptive mother uses her deathbed as leverage to blackmail him into not riding a bike. His adoptive father keeps calling him a coward and trying to bully him into riding a bike. His girlfriend Roxanne makes it clear she's only willing to love him if he's willing to endanger his life every night.

And yet, somehow, he's willing to do anything for these people.

Then again, he's not noticeably likeable himself. His reaction to the death of Simpson is to instantly climb aboard his bike and attempt to complete the stunt that just killed the man, leaving his body still warm on the floor and making no secret he's doing it purely for his own personal glory.

But perhaps the biggest letdown is just how pathetic the Ghost Rider himself is. There are clear parallels with the early Hulk, in him being a tortured soul who changes into his monstrous form at night but this is a very feeble Hulk who can't even fight off two perfectly normal criminals.

Granted, he does have the ability to fling a modest dollop of Hellfire from his index finger but, this being a 1970s comic, he's clearly not allowed to use it on people, just as the Valkyrie was never allowed to use her sword on them.

All in all, you don't really read this tale and think the character has any great potential. Nor do you feel any urge to read his future adventures.

With its clumsy dialogue, charmless characters and massive lapses in logic, it feels like something Atlas Comics would have produced. The difference being that, at least an Atlas take on the character would have seen him leaving a trail of corpses behind him. Admittedly, they'd be ones who'd been eaten by him.