This Weeks Pick Up.

[DelBubs]

Just got back from the shop. Main intention was to get AF#2, but you know how it is?

Ghost Rider #0.1 ~ I haven't read Ghost Rider for a while, so wasn't sure what to expect. Reasonable read, but 'Tone it down on the angst Johnny.

Ghost Rider #1 ~ Saw this late, but decided to pick up due to the wonderful skills of the salesman. Geezer loves Ghost Rider as much as I love Alpha. If he wasn't already picking up Alpha I would have insisted that he do so if I picked this up. Read it on the way back. Uhm, will give it a few more to see if it can make me care.

Defenders One Shot ~ If the Marrina panel had been in most other comics I would probably have given it a miss, but I really enjoyed the Original Defenders comic. Good story, but could have replaced Defenders with Star Trek characters and the story would still have been the same.

Alpha Flight #2 ~ I shall speak of this elsewhere . Will say however that imho, one of the Alphans ain't who they say they are.

The Boys : Highland Laddie TPB ~ Haven't read this yet, The Boys need to be read without any interuptions. I hate getting dragged out of my enjoyment and then spend the next few pages trying to lose myself again. This will be read later, but I have no doubt it will be excellent. Ennis : The Quentin Tarantino of comics.

[Phil]

I've heard good things about Ghost Rider and I really enjoyed Williams' take on Captain America a few weeks ago, so I might take a look at some point.

Highland Laddie was the weakest of all The Boys stories so far. More filler than anything else IMO, but mildly amusing.

[Alpha Rider]

Ghost Rider is my all time fav, net to AF. I've been collecting GR since 1978. If you don't know much about GR let me know, I can fill in all the blanks for you.

[DelBubs]

Just Finished Highland Laddie and although not exactly a 'The Boys' type story, still found it an entertaining interlude. Also showed me I'm missing a couple of TPB's which I'll have to hunt down.

I remember Johnny Blaze being Ghost Rider and I have this memory of reading 'The Champions' in British reprints and thinking he was an excellent character. Kinda lost track of him after that. Heard that someone had taken over the mantle for a while and the name Ketch comes to mind. I don't remember the name Ketch from this however, but from some other source. That's about all I know.

[Alpha Rider]

Okay, break open the history books, grab a pen and paper, crack open a drink and prepare to make notes, because this will take a while to read, and I’m going by Marvel’s timeline, Nuff Said.
20,000 B.C. The original Spirits of Vengeance (4), were created by God to police the evil nature of mankind, were allies of a race of immortals known as the Blood. Together, the two groups stood against the demon Zarathos when he attempted to gain control of the Medallion of Power. The Spirits of Vengeance and Zarathos were absorbed into the Medallion of Power, and Zarathos’s body had turned to stone. The medallion was shattered and place in the bloodline of two families to keep them safe from the Fallen (members of the Blood who sided with Zarathos).
Centuries later, a tribe led by the shaman K'Nutu discovered Zarathos' stone body and revived him. Forming a cult that worshiped the demon, the tribe built the City of Ten Thousand Souls, which held regular human sacrifices to their soul-eating god, Zarathos.
Zarathos' actions on Earth attracted the attention of Mephisto, who came to see Zarathos as a potential rival. Empowering the mortal later known as Centurious, Mephisto defeated Zarathos in battle and claimed the hellfire that housed his spirit. Enslaved to Mephisto's realm, Zarathos was sent to Earth several times to possess Mephisto's followers.
It was around this time that the arch angel Zadkiel was put in charge of overseeing the inheritances of the Medallion of Power and transformed in to a Spirit of Vengeance (because the essences of the 4 riders and Zarathos were entrapped into the medallion).
We now skip to the 1700’s in colonial America The son of a strict holy man in the small town of Patience, Noble Kale fell in love with a stranded gypsy woman named Magdalena and secretly had a child with her. When Magdalena witnessed the elder Pastor Kale communicating with demons, the Pastor had her burned at the stake as a witch. While she burned, Magdalena cursed the town to death by calling down the hellish Furies, who began to slaughter the townspeople. To combat the Furies, Pastor Kale offered his son Noble to the demon Mephisto as a weapon. Noble was bound with one of the Spirits of Vengeance and became a Ghost Rider. The Rider killed the Furies and then himself when he realized what he had become.
Mephisto and the angel Uriel came to a decision regarding Noble, which he would rest in the interdimensional Void until called to Earth to seek vengeance for the spilling of innocent blood. Mephisto secretly added to this compromise, cursing the first born of each Kale generation to be the human host for the Ghost Rider. Each time he was called forth, Noble would have no memory of his true identity. Noble spent his time as the Spirit of Vengeance in colonial America, where he fought against witches and over-zealous witch hunters.
In 1867 another recorded appearance of a Ghost Rider came two years after the end of the American Civil War. A former slave named Caleb took in a wounded confederate soldier named Travis Parham and nursed him back to health. While working off his debt, Parham discovered a cave that held a collection of glowing skulls. Upon touching the skulls, Parham saw a vision of a hellish netherrealm populated by a creature with a burning skull for a head. Caleb told Parham that the creature he saw came from his ancestor's country and could be called upon when something needed to be made right; an instrument of vengeance.
After Parham's departure, Caleb and his family were murdered by a band of marauders led by George Reagan. Parham returned years later and swore to kill Reagan and his band, unaware that a mysterious cloaked rider was already on their trail. This Ghost Rider killed each of Reagan's men and finally Reagan himself, but the killers returned after having made a deal with a demon. In a final showdown between Reagan's band and the Ghost Rider, Parham discovered that the Rider was actually his former friend Caleb.
In the late 1800’s An East Coast teacher who moved to Bison Bend, AZ, Carter Slade was attacked and left to die by a group of bandits. A local tribe of Native Americans discovered him and their leader, Flaming Star, used mystical means to give Slade life once again. To repay this debt, Carter took a vow to protect innocents in the West. Donning an all-white outfit and riding atop the ghostly horse Banshee, Slade became "He Who Rides the Night Winds": the Ghost Rider! During his time in the saddle, he was also known as both the Night Rider and the Phantom Rider.
There would several others who would take up the Ghost Rider/ Phantom Rider name
A) Jamie Jacobs who was Carter’s sidekick.
B) Lincoln Slade who was Carter’s brother and federal marshal who tried to capture the Phantom Rider.
C) Reno Jones (from the Marvel western books Kid Cassidy and Reno Jones
D) Hamilton Slade Carter’s Great Great Grandson.
E) Jamie Slade who is the daughter of Hamilton Slade.
Now Skipping ahead to WWII a superhuman adventurer during World War II, the Blazing Skull was a reporter named Mark Todd. While on assignment covering the second Sino-Japanese War, Todd discovered a hidden cave and was taken in by a race of subterranean Skull Men. These beings with flaming skulls told Todd that he would be their "emissary to the world of flesh" and gave him a skull mask to don in their image. Upon donning the mask, Todd himself had a flaming skull and pyrokinetic power over flame. He fought alongside the Invaders during World War II and then fell into obscurity. He was recently uncovered by the present-day incarnation of the Invaders in an Iraqi prison, having aged not a day since the 1940s.
Though connections between the two have been made, it has never been substantiated whether or not Todd was the Ghost Rider of his time. There are amazing coincidences in his story, particularly the flaming skull and the race of "Skull Men" that could have actually been the Spirits of Vengeance of old. The Blazing Skull remains as an adventurer in the modern era alongside his teammates in the Invaders.
By the 1970’s a young woman named Naomi Kale. Living with the curse for most of her life, Naomi eventually fell in love with and married a stunt biker named Barton Blaze. Together the two birthed three children: John, Barbara, and Daniel. When the curse reasserted itself, Naomi left Barton and John while faking the deaths of herself and her two younger children. While Barbara and Daniel were given to the Ketch family by the Caretaker, Naomi spent her time studying witchcraft.
Through numerous spells (which unfortunately shortened her life span considerably) and demonic deals, Naomi thought she had freed her oldest child Johnny from the Ghost Rider curse. Naomi was finally caught by the demon lord Mephisto, who forced her to transform into the Ghost Rider one last time, an act which she could not survive. As she lay dying, Mephisto's proxy Pastor Kale informed her that the Kale curse had skipped to the second oldest child - Barbara - and that while Johnny would not become "the" Ghost Rider he could still become "a" Ghost Rider. Naomi died and was buried in an unmarked grave in Cypress Hills Cemetery. Years later, her disembodied spirit guided her son Daniel into recovering the lost memories of their ancestor, Noble, and she was finally allowed to die.
By the Mid 1970’s A noted archaeologist, Max Parrish became involved in the hunt for the mysterious "Amulet of Z" alongside his niece, Cammy, and her adolescent friends Susan and Johnny Storm (later the Invisible Woman and Human Torch of the Fantastic Four). While in possession of the Amulet, Parrish and the children were pursued by the demonic Comte St. Germaine, who wanted the Amulet for his master, Dracula.
While on the run from the Comte, the Amulet of Z began to speak to Parrish and Johnny Storm, appearing as a ghostly apparition consumed by flames. The Amulet was in truth the fabled Medallion of Power, and the spirit was that of Zarathos. When Zarathos offered to possess young Storm to save them, Parrish stood in his place and was transformed into the Ghost Rider. After defeating the Comte, Zarathos was set to ride off with the body of Parrish, but was stopped by Johnny Storm when the boy ripped the Medallion of Power free from the front of the demon's motorcycle (actually a car mystically transformed into a bike). Parrish was freed from Zarathos' possession and the remains of the destroyed car - along with the Medallion - was placed in a junkyard adjacent to Cypress Hills Cemetery.
Enter Johnny Blaze. Johnny grew up in the carnival world and was introduced to the occult through various road crew members. When Johnny was 15 years old his foster mother killed in a motor cycle accident (caused by Johnny) and made a promise to her never to ride in the show. This caused a rift between him and “Crash” Simpson who believed that Johnny was a coward, though Johnny found a loophole in the promise he had made with his dying step mother. Instead of riding in the show, like he promised, he did stunts for the fun of it in secret.
After “Crash” reviled that he was dying from cancer and that he had no one to turn the show over to, that’s when Johnny had made a pact with Satan (Memphisto) . “Crash” was cured from the cancer, but was killed in a cycle stunt. Mephisto came to claim Johnny’s soul, but instead he bonded the essence of Zarathos to him instead. Now Roxanne Simpson (Johnny’s girlfriend) had also made a pact with the arch angel Zadkiel and a member of the Blood known as Regent.
For a short time Johnny and Roxanne ran the cycle stunt show, until Roxanne had decided to leave Johnny. Johnny had sold the show and moved out to Los Angeles to become a stunt cyclist for the Stunt Master T.V. show (Stunt Master is from Dare Devil). Johnny’s powers were changing as well, instead of transforming at night time he would transform whenever the presence of evil would be around. He also joined the super team the Champions.
Johnny had forced the transformation of the Ghost Rider and was able to do so anytime he’d like. However things were not going so well for him with the Champions. After the Champions had rescued the Black Widow from the Crimson Dynamo and his group (Titanium Man, Rampage, the Griffin, and Dark Star) Dark Star was made a full member and accepted her while they still feared him. Hercules once said in Champions #9 “The youth called Ghost Rider is in trouble. Though he makes my blood run cold, but I have allied myself with all the Champions.”
As Johnny kept transforming into the Ghost Rider the more vicious he became as the Ghost Rider. It all came to a boiling point when the Champions had stopped the Sentinels, and Ghost Rider had quite the team, as well as his hole stunt career when up in smoke when Doctor Druid came to stop Ghost Rider and force Johnny to transform in front of everybody including Karen Page (from Dare Devil) who he was having a relationship with, and had frightened them all. Not being able to go back, Johnny took off for the open road going from town to town as a drifter, and he even came across his old teammate the Angel who he burned with his Hellfire and fought the Avengers (Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and Tigra) and handed their asses to them.
After a few months (Remember this is Marvel’s time) he joined a traveling circus where his old girlfriend Roxanne Simpson found him and asked for his and Ghost Rider’s help. He agreed and went to help the towns’ people of Holy, to stop Centurious, who was the man that caused Zarathos’s downfall thousands of years prior. Eventually Johnny was separated from the Ghost Rider who was entrapped along with Centurious in the Crystal of Souls. Johnny and Roxanne got married bought the carnival that he worked for and had two kids Craig and Emma.
Not too long after two young kids Barbra and Danny Ketch were walking through a cemetery at night trying to take photos of some people trying resurrect Houdini, but ended up seeing a gang killing to where Barbra was shot and Danny dragged her to the junkyard where they found the Max Parrish motorcycle that was abandoned there and became the next incarnation of the Ghost Rider. Johnny had found out about this new Ghost Rider and came to New York to kill it, but was hesitant to do so, and found out that he was not Zarathos, eventually it was revealed that Johnny and Danny were brothers. Regent had come for Roxanne and the two kids, but was stopped by Johnny Blaze.
Roxanne was killed and the kids had disappeared during a battle when the Criminal Hellgate attacked both Johnny and Danny. Johnny went to look for his missing kids while Danny stayed to clean up New York. Danny would eventually be separated from the Ghost Rider, but only for a short term before rejoining with Noble Kale to become the Ghost Rider again. During this time Johnny had needed money to continue the search for his kids, so he sold the carnival and took a job in New York and seemed to have settled down with another woman, until he had realized that it had been 3 years since he had tried to find his kids and somehow became the Ghost Rider again. (Don’t ask. No one really knows how it happened)
Zadkiel and the Devil made a pact to get Johnny’s soul which ended in Johnny dying and going to Hell. While Danny was finding it hard to lead a normal life and had a local technomancer named Mary LeBow perform an exorcism to remove the spirit of Noble Kale from him, however he had missed the adventures he use to have as being the Ghost Rider and wanted the power back. That’s when Zadkiel stepped in and tricked Danny that he needed to kill the other Ghost Riders before they would self destruct and take their powers away.
Johnny was in Hell and was hired out by an angel named Malachi who wanted to cover up his dealings with a demon known as Kazann, who had escaped from Hell and wanted to create a new Hell on Earth. When Kazenn was defeated it was revealed that he and Malachi were revealed to be brothers and that, they were exchanging information with each other for centuries.
Satan wanted to escape from Hell and tricked the Ghost Rider in getting him out. Ghost Rider possess the ability to traverse both planes, so when the Devil hitched a ride with Ghost Rider he broke into 666 pieces and reanimated recently deceased bodies. Ghost Rider had to hunt them down and was found out the truth of his origins. After the Devil was sent back to Hell, Johnny made it his mission to take down Zadkiel.
It came to a final battle between Johnny and Danny, where Danny defeated Johnny and gave the power of the Ghost Riders to Zadkiel, only to find out that he was planning on overthrowing God and take over Heaven for himself. Johnny and Danny both regained the power of the Ghost Rider and entered Heaven with all the other Ghost Riders to take down Zadkiel. During the Shodowland event Johnny made a deal with God in which he became free from under any control, from Heaven or Hell. In Ghost Rider 0.1 Adam gave Johnny a way out of being the Ghost Rider, to as usual Johnny Blaze stupidity, he took the way out, and now we see a whole new Ghost Rider.
There were several other Ghost Riders that I did not cover in this little note. Check out Ghost Rider vol 5 #33 for more details. Plus Ghost Rider 2099, and 31st Century (Guardians of the Galaxy) .

[suzene]

*slow applause*

[Flightpath07]

There was a Defenders one-shot?!? And I missed it?!? Who was on the team?

http://canadas-own-the-flight.blogsp...defenders.html

[DelBubs]

Alpha Rider. Mucho Respect for the info on Ghost Rider and thanks for taking the time. I think I like Ghost Riders on horses. One of my favourite bits of the film is watching the two GR's racing through the night.

Flight Path. The Defenders story was nit in continuity, but an unused story which they decided to publish. Members where Doctor Strange, Sub Mariner, Hulk and Silver Surfer.

[Flightpath07]

an unused story which they decided to publish

oh. still, better than nothing.

Members were Doctor Strange, Sub Mariner, Hulk and Silver Surfer.

Blech; not even CLOSE to my favourite lineup!

[DelBubs]

I'm guessing you're a fan who liked the more regular line up? Not sure if this is any good to you.

[Flightpath07]

Possibly could be good. I preferred characters like Nighthawk and Gargoyle, Hellcat, et al. Thanks for the heads-up tho.

[Alpha Rider]

Alpha Rider. Mucho Respect for the info on Ghost Rider and thanks for taking the time. I think I like Ghost Riders on horses. One of my favourite bits of the film is watching the two GR's racing through the night.

Origianaly Ghost Rider was a western ledgen/story. When ever rolling thunder clouds came across the perrie sky it was said to be the condemed souls who road for the devil, gathering his herd. Then a song was made from the ledgen called Riders in the Sky. I forget the persons name, but he liked the song and made the western Ghost Rider (known to Marvel fans as the Phantom Rider) but when the comic code too effct back in the mid 50's Ghost Rider was canned, because the code did not want want any crime or horror stories, that included people pertending to dress up as a ghost.

However 10 years later Marvel bought the rights to the Ghost Rider charater from M.E. publications and wrote a whole new series based on the Ghost Rider (Phantom Rider), but it failed because western titles were not popular any longer. A few years later Gary Friedrich was writting Dare Devil and wanted to create another motercycle villan for Dare Devil called Ghost Rider (the Stunt Master was the first based off of Evil Kanevil), but Roy Thomas said "No. It's too good of a name to waste on a villan. Let make him a hero." So Friedrich along with Mike Ploog created the modern Ghost Rider on a bike instead of a horse.

They made him have a pact with the devil for sevral reasons 1) based on the old western ledgen/story and song. and 2) the comic book code was starting to losen up and Marvel created a whole new horror line of books back in the 70's.

[Le Messor]

Alpha Rider. Mucho Respect for the info on Ghost Rider and thanks for taking the time. I think I like Ghost Riders on horses. One of my favourite bits of the film is watching the two GR's racing through the night.

Yes! The heroism of Whistler using up his final ride ever to ride out across the desert with Johnny Blaze, to go to the town of the villain and then... turn around and go home.
And do precisely nothing.

I love the image too, shame about the follow-up.

- Le Messor
"Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT trying to get you."
~ Anonymous

[DelBubs]

Over here are some posters for, what I assume is a follow up to the Ghost Rider movie. Nick Cage may get to exercise his facial muscle in that role again.

[Le Messor]

Yep, he's filming a sequel.