GHOST RIDER # 51 (volume 1)
SYNOPSIS
On a deserted stretch of mountain highway late at night, Johnny Blaze suddenly finds himself in the path of a diesel truck barreling down on him. When Johnny tries to move over to allow the truck to pass, the large vehicle hits him and knocks him over the guardrail and down the side of the cliff. With only moments to save his life, Blaze transforms into the Ghost Rider, who manages to grab onto a random ledge of rock. The demon then creates his flame cycle and rides back up the mountain, only to find the truck has vanished without a trace. Frustrated and angry, the Ghost Rider allows Blaze to regain control, who then sees a message painted on the side of the cliff in front of him that reads "To all bikers - stay off my road. Or else. - Clement". Johnny looks at his bike and discovers that the fuel tank was ruptured in the crash, so he sets off on foot to find a mechanic that can help him fix it.
Soon, Johnny comes across a young man changing the tire on his expensive sports car. The kid immediately recognizes Johnny and admits that he's a big cycle fanatic. The kid, Frederick William Mathew Mitchell the Third - or just plain "Mitch" - agrees to give Johnny a lift once his tire is changed. Someone had scattered a handful of spikes along the road, giving him a flat tire. At that moment, four armed men on motorcycles pull up, admitting that they put the spikes on the road so they could kidnap Mitch and hold him for ransom. Johnny transforms into the Ghost Rider, who makes short work of the bikers and then returns to Blaze's form, confusing Mitch. Two motorcycle policemen arrive, but Johnny realizes that something is amiss right before he's knocked unconscious. The two cops are with the bikers, and Mitch is kidnapped after all.
Several hours later, Johnny awakens to find all of the men gone and Mitch's car consumed by a fire. A diesel truck then pulls up, and the driver offers Blaze a ride - even though Johnny recognizes the rig as the one that ran him off the road. Johnny tells the trucker, Clem, about Mitch being kidnapped...but Clem tells him that the police won't save him in time and that it's up to the two of them to help. At the biker gang's hideout, the kidnappers speak via radio with Mitch's rich uncle, who refuses to pay the ransom. The gang's leader, Deever, tells his men that if the money isn't theirs by dawn then he'll slit Mitch's throat.
Meanwhile, Johnny rides with Clem, but finds it odd that the truck's radio only plays songs and commercials from several decades ago. The truck also seems able to pass under bridges that are way too low for the vehicle to make it past. When they arrive below the hideout, Clem tells Johnny that he'll have to go the rest of the way alone because he's not able to leave his truck. Johnny agrees, and once out of sight turns into the Ghost Rider, who crashes through the roof of the lodge. Deever is the only one not scared, and proceeds to throw a vial of nitroglycerin at the demon. The Ghost Rider catches the vial out of the air and tosses it into his mouth, allowing it to explode with no effect, laughing the entire time. The demon then fries all of the kidnappers with hellfire.
A short while later, Johnny and Mitch herd the men into the back of Clem's truck. Clem then refuses to give the two a ride back to town, and that he has to get going before the sun comes up. Johnny and Mitch then watch as Clem's diesel truck disappears before their eyes as it drives into the sunrise. An hour later at a gas station, Johnny and Mitch are approached by the store owner, who tells them that they must be crazy for riding bike's on "Clem's road". He then tells them a story of a diesel trucker named Clement Barstow, who was clubbed to death by a biker gang 30 years ago and now haunts the highway, killing bikers and helping out good people every now and then. But as the mechanic says he thinks the story is just an urban legend, Johnny and Mitch can only look at each other in disbelief.
ANNOTATIONS
This issue also contained a 6-page back-up story featuring the Night Rider (also known as the Phantom Rider), who Johnny met in Ghost Rider # 50 (vol. 1).
REVIEW
If there was one major flaw in Michael Fleisher's lengthy run on Ghost Rider, it was that there way too many stories such as "The Diesel of Doom!" - namely, stories that read as inconsequential filler.
There's nothing wrong with this story, of course. It reads fine for what it is, a ghost story with Johnny Blaze inserted. But anyone who didn't see the ending coming from a mile away probably wouldn't be able to digest anything more complicated. The revelation that the mysterious Clem was really a ghost is pulled from a number of similar urban legends, and while all suspense as to Clem's identity is gone from the first page the story still reads decently enough. It's just rather boring, that's all.
Even Don Perlin seems to be phoning it in with issue, but perhaps that's simply because he's been drawing the book for such a long time. I will give both the art and script points for one absolutely killer scene in the climax where the Ghost Rider ingests a vial of nitroglycerin and allows it to explode in his mouth.
All in all, it's a typical Fleisher story with typical Perlin art...nothing great, but far from the worst issue by this creative team. Those will be coming down the road in succession very soon.
Grade: C+
Ghost Rider # 51 (volume 1)
Published: Dec. 1980
Original Price: $0.50
Cover: Bob Budiansky
Title: "The Diesel of Doom!"
Writer: Michael Fleisher
Artist: Don Perlin
Letterer: Diana Albers
Colorist: Rob Carosella
Editor: Denny O'Neil
Editor In Chief: Jim Shooter