Anyone who read Marvel’s recent Ghost Rider 0.1 issue was treated to a sneak peek of a new look, and host, for everyone’s favorite blazing biker. For those who don’t normally read the book, Johnny Blaze was assisted, or perhaps tricked, out of the spirit of vengeance by a mysterious wanderer who seems to have designs of his own for it. These designs, based on the promotional image at the end of the book, seem to indicate that not only will the new Spirit of Vengeance have a female host, but that she’ll be joining an Avengers team that includes Red Hulk and Venom in his black-ops agent form. I could not be more excited about almost every part of this.
I’ve always liked Ghost Rider. From a kid’s standpoint he’s pretty much the perfect character: leather jacket, flaming skull, giant motorcycle, what wasn’t to like? As I got older, he slipped into a bit more of a guilty pleasure since he didn’t really seem to fit in with the rest of the Marvel U, so he never got a great deal of attention. He always seemed like a profitable hero from a purely mercenary business perspective, very easy to make into toys and such, but he never seemed that popular amongst actual readers and the publication seemed at a loss when figuring out what to do with him. Sure he was in the New Fantastic Four and he shows up in an event book here and there, but for his long-term storytelling, he never quite resonated enough. This is why I think this is a great idea.
== TEASER ==
First of all, as our own Tony 'G-Man' Guerrero pointed out: Marvel lacks a strong female presence in solo books. I don’t know why that is, and I’m certainly not going to cast aspersions at the publisher nor the creative teams since they’ve tried before and female heroes are extremely well represented on teams.
Beyond that, though, as I’m also not a big fan of tokenism, it’s a team that I feel like a Ghost Rider could do well on. The New Fantastic Four seemed like someone throwing darts at a board, which has happened before, but this seems more like a group of individuals who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. It seems almost like an X-Force team that the US government can use.
As for whether or not the transformation will be permanent, I really hope so. Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch had their moments, Blaze in particular had quite the renaissance recently, but the cool thing about Marvel’s B-tier characters is that they can go through changes and those changes stick. Eric O’Grady is still Ant Man, Madrox is still a transcendental jack-of-all-trades, and Kraven the Hunter stays dead...okay, two out of three ain’t bad.
What are your thoughts on a female Ghost Rider (and how does her hair not catch on fire)?