GHOST RIDER # 68 (volume 1)
SYNOPSIS
During a late night thunderstorm, a priest walks through his church with candle in hand. He hears the doors creak open, and when he turns he finds a lone man standing in the archway. The priest asks who is there, unable to see him with the power out due to the storm. Johnny Blaze walks in an apologizes for startling him, then says that he guesses he's looking for sanctuary. He was out on his bike when the storm took him by surprise. The priest, still shaken, invites Johnny inside and provides more light with some candles. Johnny notices that the ornaments in the church are all made from solid gold, but the priest dodges the statement by asking if Johnny needs any guidance. Johnny reluctantly acquiesces and says he'd like to make a confession. The priest agrees and leads Blaze into the confessional booth, the two men separated by a steel gate.
Johnny, unsure of how to begin, goes back to the beginning for his confession. He tells the priest about his father dying and him then being adopted by Crash and Mona Simpson. As he grew older, he began to practice for inclusion in his foster parents' cycle show...until one day, when a bike accident killed Mona. On her deathbed, Mona asks Johnny never to ride in the show, to which her agrees. Johnny then explains that after Mona's death he began to go in weird directions. Taking a heavy interest in the occult, he was disgusted by most of what he read and went back to simple mechanic work for the cycle show, keeping his promise. He told neither Crash nor Roxanne Simpson, their daughter and the woman that Blaze loved, making them think he was a coward. It hit Johnny that while he vowed never to ride in the show, that didn't mean he couldn't ride for the sheer thrill of it...so he began to practice at night until finally being discovered by Roxanne. While the cycle show grew in popularity, Crash was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Blaze tells the priest that there was nothing anyone could do...anyone except him.
Going back to the occult books, Blaze contacted Satan himself and offered the demon his soul in exchange for Crash's life being spared from the cancer. The next night, however, Crash died anyway - not from the disease but from a motorcycle accident. The next night, Satan came calling for Johnny's soul, but was interrupted by Roxanne, who chants a spell read from Blaze's books that drove Satan away. In the confessional, Johnny breaks down, saying that Roxanne saved his soul and he doesn't even know now if she's alive or dead.
The priest tries to calm Blaze by saying the devil was merely a delusion, to which Johnny snaps back that he wishes he was crazy. He tells the priest about the Ghost Rider, a demon taken from Hell and bonded to his soul, and about the hellfire at the demon's command. Johnny is locked in a constant struggle against the Ghost Rider, but he admits that there are times he wants to set the demon loose to give the guilty what they deserve. He then tells the priest that tonight he came across a man laying in a ditch. A man left for dead...a man that was a priest. Before the man died, he told Johnny that his murderer had stolen his clothing, which had puzzled him until he saw all of the gold in the church. As the "priest" removes a gun from his jacket, an intense light begins to glow through the grate separating the confessional booths...and suddenly a flaming skeletal hand comes ripping through the grate.
The murderer runs from the confessional, chased by the Ghost Rider. As he runs out the front door, the "priest" steals Blaze's motorcycle and rides off, only to see the Ghost Rider - on his hellfire cycle - right behind him. After a frantic chase across the countryside, the killer is eventually knocked off the road and falls onto train tracks, his arm painfully lodged between the steel rails. As a train bears down on him, the Ghost Rider appears and frees his arm. The demon says that "death is too good for you"...and then fries the man with hellfire.
The next morning, paramedics and police pull the man up to the road on a stretcher. He is paralyzed by fear, his mouth wide open but no sound coming out. Johnny Blaze talks with one of the police, who tells Johnny that while normally he'd hold him for questioning they just found out that the victim is wanted for a string of thefts and the murder of a priest. The cop asks what would possess a man to do such a thing, to which Johnny replies "a man can have a lot of demons locked up inside of him".
ANNOTATIONS
This issue features a re-telling of the Ghost Rider's origin from Marvel Spotlight # 5. In fact, many of Budiansky's panels are a straight homage to Mike Ploog's original artwork.
The "Satan" that Blaze contacts is revealed in this issue to actually be Mephisto, lord of the underworld. This retcon is reversed nearly 20 years later in Ghost Rider # 1 (vol. 5), once again making Lucifer the originator of Blaze's curse.
This issue was reprinted in The Original Ghost Rider Rides Again # 1.
This issue came in at # 1 on the Top Ten Ghost Rider Comics of All-Time list!
REVIEW
For the past 30+ issues, Ghost Rider had been under the pen of writer Michael Fleisher, whose run started out very strong but was weighed down in the last year by some incredibly lackluster - and at times ridiculous - stories. This issue marks the first story by new writer Roger Stern, whose run was unfortunately all too brief.
With a new creative team coming on board, and a possible in flux of new readers, this issue provided the creators to do something that hadn't been done for quite a few years: a re-telling of the Ghost Rider's origin. Normally, origin recaps aren't much to get excited about; if not out-right reprints, the stories are generally flat and uninteresting in the flashback framing sequences. Not the case with this issue, as Stern comes out the gate with both barrels blazing to produce one of my all-time favorite Ghost Rider stories.
With the framing concept of a confession, Stern allows Johnny Blaze to not only tell his origin story, but to also comment on it with years of experience behind him since the origin was first told. Plot holes are filled in - such as Johnny's first interest in the occult - and Blaze's emotions are fleshed out with a chilling accuracy. I point, for example, to Johnny's reaction to the priest when telling about his decision to make a pact with the devil. The entire confession sequence is incredibly powerful and makes a wonderful and intriguing way to look back at the Ghost Rider's history.
But as I said, origin stories are generally weighed down by a bland story surrounding the flashbacks. I freely admit that, upon my first reading of this issue, I truly didn't see the surprise twist coming halfway through. That the priest wasn't truly a priest at all, Stern gleefully tosses hints all throughout the issue, all leading up to the absolutely amazing sequence on page 16 when all the cards are finally laid out on the table.
I cannot, in good conscience, review this issue without going in depth about the art. This issue marks the first interior work by Bob Budiansky, who had been the cover artist for the series since the start of Fleisher's run 30 some issues before. With this one issue, Budiansky proves that he is the quintessential Ghost Rider artist, making each page and every rendition of Blaze and the Ghost Rider a sight to behold. I point you again to the sequence of panels on page 16: as the "priest" realizes the jig is up and removes his gun, you see the intense glow of light through the confessional's grate...and then the Ghost Rider's flaming, skeletal hand bursts through, showing that the Ghost Rider has been unleashed. One of - if not THE - most powerful sequences ever in the pages of Ghost Rider.
So, while this issue is somewhat difficult to find these days, I implore any fan of the character to track down either it or The Original Ghost Rider Rides Again # 1, which reprints both this and the next issue. It truly is one of the highest points of the series, kicking off what will be an amazing roller-coaster ride that culminates with the final story 13 issues later. Absolutely recommended.
Grade: A+
Ghost Rider # 68 (volume 1)
Published: May 1982
Original Price: $0.60
Cover: Bob Budiansky
Title: "The Curse of Jonathan Blaze!"
Writer: Roger Stern
Artist: Bob Budiansky
Inker: Josef Rubinstein
Letterer: Diana Albers
Colorist: George Roussos
Editor: Tom DeFalco
Editor In Chief: Jim Shooter