Marvel Mythos and Media #2 - Ghost Rider, Part Two

by Shawn Lampron | Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Mythos:

Welcome! If this is your first visit to Marvel Mythos and Media, be sure to take a look at my first column to orient yourself!

In the previous column, we left stunt-rider Johnny Blaze, Ghost Rider, estranged from humanity and cursed with superpowers granted from Satan. The exact nature of these abilities became clearer as the Ghost Rider’s adventures continued in the Marvel Spotlight series. Ghost Rider’s instant success caused him to assume this series as his own for over half a year after writer Gary Freidrich took over and attempted to flesh him out and find him some decent villains.

First, let’s examine the development of his powers. His head appears as a flaming skull, but what else is in his repertoire? The failure to use this consistently as Ghost Rider developed was a major factor in his decline in popularity after the emergence of his own series. Marvel has struggled with any character that has magic-based powers, having the character wildly powerful or weak depending on the writer. So, in one scene, we may see Johnny Blaze battling a demon of Hell with increased strength and stamina:

Nasty snake, but it appears as though Satan’s face is an afro.

The next time we see Johnny, he may be running frantically from the cops.

“I’m sure the captain won’t question our destroying the car in an unsuccessful chase when we tell him we almost caught the biker with the flaming head.”

This idea of writers struggling to work out the exact nature of a character’s powers is nothing new. Even such Marvel stalwarts as Spider-Man have struggled under various writers. In one issue, Spider-Man may struggle fighting Kingpin, who is nothing more than a really fat gangster without superpowers. The next writer go-round, he’s fighting Firelord, a former herald of Galactus. If you’re unfamiliar with Firelord, think the Fantastic Four movie and Silver Surfer. Silver Surfer is roughly on the same tier as Firelord, a galactic heavy with cosmic powers. Sure enough, Ghost Rider’s power problems would continue as it was later decided under writer Tony Isabella that he could wield fire and go toe-to-toe with the Hulk!  He even manages to defeat him!

The Hulk can toss around tanks, but Johnny takes him out with the aid of a few dirtbags?

Clearly, Ghost Rider started to suffer from some inconsistencies in power level. This is a dent in believability that can cause many fans to abandon a title and character. However, you can ride it out if you have a beefy rogues’ gallery. It’s cliché amongst hardcore comic geeks, but it still holds that a character’s success is defined by the rogues’ gallery. Here is where Ghost Rider started to struggle once more. Every villain either focused on the supernatural, motorcycles, or both. Often, Johnny Blaze would find himself at odds with human bikers, with the writers succumbing to the “criminal biker” stereotype.

Big Daddy Dawson’s Ruthless Riders sounds like a really good or really bad porno, depending on your outlook.

Given that most of the book takes place in the southwest, Native American characters make frequent appearances. While a few are portrayed well, a few stereotypical “injun” villains make appearances, including Snakedance. Take a look at his normal and “monster” forms and wince.

White eyes? Can that even be a racial thing? Aren’t all our eyes white?

Instead of inspiring terror, it just looks like he’s throwing up Alphabet soup.

Predictably, Snakedance wasn’t evil per se, but was just defending tribal lands from those “white devils”. This hackneyed story took up far too much time in Marvel Spotlight, but it did introduce us to a man who would be the first attempt to find a superhero “buddy” for Ghost Rider. This man was Daimon Hellstrom, an exorcist by trade.

And please give me my face back?

However, Daimon Hellstrom harbors a terrible secret. While he works as an exorcist and attempts to exorcise a Native American pal of Johnny’s, he is the son of Satan. Daimon’s human side possesses a desire to do well, but every once in a while, his dark side manifests itself. Unfortunately, his “evil” side looks like an evil elf mixed with an S&M enthusiast. Throw some bad eyebrows into the recipe and you get the Son of Satan.

Huge nipples, bad hair, and a trident? Evil or just homoerotic?

While Daimon would pop in every once in a while after the conclusion of his arc, he never really clicked with Ghost Rider. Thus, the search for Ghost Rider’s villains and friends continued into his brand new regular series. The first real attempt was a villain who could match him in supernatural abilities. A former gangster in life, Roulette was a man who was killed and buried in the desert outside Las Vegas. A deal with Satan later, he returns to the land of the living to terrorize Las Vegas in Ghost Rider #5.

Roulette looks like a lizard wrapped in rags with turd lining, but at least he’s a step up from Snakedance.

By this point, Roxanne Simpson has been reduced to little more than hostage bait as the image above indicates. The series spends a couple issues in Las Vegas and really starts to bog down and suffer. A villain team known as the Zodiac is introduced, but they’re nothing more than leftovers from The Avengers. Each member is a sign of the Zodiac, tapping into the lame astrology fad from the seventies. It became even more tragic when they forced a member or two onto motorcycles so they could mesh with Ghost Rider.

Mad cow disease, motherf***er!

Perhaps recognizing how tragic the title was becoming, Satan became less of a behind-the-scenes player and was thrust into more of a straight rogue role. No longer in the shadows, he was given a revamped look and asked to play a much more prominent role in the title. While he was busy playing the role of Richard Nixon at the time, he was more than happy to make the cameo.

Can some fellow Voltron fan please email me and agree that Satan’s new look makes him look like he’s from Planet Doom?

While he was making his presence known, Satan still left his work to underlings, so the series still lagged. If Satan himself started throwing around flames and evil, perhaps the series would have flowed more efficiently. However, his lackeys lacked pop and personality. Inferno, a beast from Hell, is a prime example.

Like the inkblot on his chest? I see a butterfly.

While lame, Inferno managed to beat around Johnny because of his size and ability to inspire fear in every human within a large range. Thus, he always had an army at his disposal to throw against Ghost Rider by inspiring legions of normal humans to attack him. At its lowest point, this epic arc against Satan is ended by the appearance of Jesus. No, that isn’t a typo or a lame joke.

The metaphor here is just too turgid for words.

To be blunt, this doesn’t work. I’m very open-minded about religion and respect anybody’s right to practice whatever they wish. Heck, as a Catholic, I’m a Christian myself, but this just rubs me the wrong way. Using Jesus as deus ex machina for a comic book is a bit underhanded. After Jesus saves Johnny, Satan disappears, leaving Ghost Rider with freedom from supernatural storylines for a while. 

With writer Tony Isabella trying to figure out what to do with the character, this is the point where Ghost Rider will find himself wandering about the west until he finds his way to California and Hollywood! Come back next time to see how Johnny flirts with fame in Cali!

*All images used are from Marvel Comics’ Essential Ghost Rider Volume 1.

Media:

Today in the media section, we’re going to talk about the Prince of Darkness and his portrayal as it pertains to Marvel Comics. Firstly, I may have lost some people in these two columns because of the movie version of Ghost Rider. Peter Fonda, the villain, is clearly referred to as Mephisto. In this column, I have been referring to Satan. What’s the difference?

To begin with, the entity that granted Ghost Rider his powers was referred to as Satan from the beginning and given a very distinctive look ad personality wholly separate from the Marvel character of Mephisto. Whereas Satan was just Satan, Mephisto was a sort of comic book sidesteps around Satan. Mephisto ruled another dimension that basically was like Hell, was all-powerful there, and basically conformed to the human conception of Satan.

“Pureed baby cocktail?”

However, at this point in time, Mephisto was strictly a baddie for the likes of Silver Surfer and Thor, with a Doctor Strange entanglement thrown in every once in a while for good measure. Years later, though, “Satan” was revealed to be none other than Mephisto. Why? It could be a move that was merely meant to tie up a loose end and connect Ghost Rider more fully to Marvel canon. It’s also possible that Stan Lee and/or Marvel caved to some sort of public pressure about using Satan in “kids’” books. Numerous informal meanderings indicate that Stan Lee, the father of Marvel, was notoriously susceptible to changing things around based on public opinion. 

Still, even with the name change, Mephisto’s appearances in media have been few and far between due to his demonic nature. His Satan-like appearance made him taboo for any of the comic cartoons, but he did manage to make it as a major villain in the abysmal and aforementioned Ghost Rider movie. Peter Fonda is barely passable as Mephisto, but he’s far from the worst performance in that movie.

As mentioned in my previous column, there was that wonderful video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance released a few years ago. In this game, Mephisto is finally given a chance to shine. Players spend an entire glorious level in his realm, battling through demons and even freeing Ghost Rider himself before getting a chance to battle Mephisto’s son Blackheart and Mephisto himself. At least once, the devil was given his due.

Until next time.

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