Hell on Wheels
Article by Bindi Lavelle

In 1972, Marvel took a risk in the era of squeaky clean super-heroes and released Ghost Rider.

This era of comics saw characters such as the X-men invading the collective conscience of children. This was contrasted by creators, Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog and their concept of a hero whose power comes from the damned.

Last year Roy Thomas filled Comic Book Artist Magazine in on the character’s origins: "I had made up a character as a villain in Daredevil — a very lackluster character — called Stunt-Master... a motorcyclist. Anyway, when Gary Friedrich started writing Daredevil, he said, "Instead of Stunt-Master, I'd like to make the villain a really weird motorcycle-riding character called Ghost Rider." He didn't describe him. I said, "Yeah, Gary, there's only one thing wrong with it," and he kind of looked at me weird, because we were old friends from Missouri, and I said, "That's too good an idea to be just a villain in Daredevil. He should start out right away in his own book." When Gary wasn't there the day we were going to design it, Mike Ploog, who was going to be the artist, and I designed the character. I had this idea for the skull-head, something like Elvis' 1968 Special jumpsuit, and so forth, and Ploog put the fire on the head, just because he thought it looked nice. Gary liked it, so they went off and did it."

The premise of the comic is: motorcycle stunt-man Johnny Blaze (don’t ya just love comic book character names?) sells his soul to save the life of his mentor. However after being ticked by the demon Mephisto, (anyone surprised by that?) Blaze ends up bonded to other demon, Zarathos. This allows him to become the Ghost Rider in the presence of evil, exacting the devils revenge.

In a period of didactic heroes and villains, Ghost Rider broke the mold and became the first Superhero from Hell. The concept of a hero who did the wrong thing for the right reasons brought something new to the genre, it also allowed for the continued exploration of horror origins; Ghost Rider was the first of many successful horror/super-hero hybrids.