Ghost Rider (1973) # 10

"Ghost Rider"

Cover Date: February 1975

On Sale Date: November 1975

Writer: Gary Friedrich
Artist: Mike Ploog
Letterer: Jon Costa
Editor: Len Wein

Cover Artist: Ron Wilson

Johnny Blaze, the Ghost Rider, rides through the streets of New York City and accidentally witnesses two men killing another. Wanting no part of what's happened, he rides on, but is then chased by the killers. Upon trapping him in an ally, the men are shocked to see Blaze's flaming skull. The Ghost Rider points his finger, causing flame to erupt on the ground. The men make a run for it, and Blaze rides back to Madison Square Garden, where he transforms back into his human form. He thinks back to try and remember what happened, hoping to find some answers in the past.

Johnny's father, Barton Blaze, died in a motorcycle accident when his son was very young. Johnny was then adopted by Crash Simpson, another stunt rider that ran his own cycle show with his wife Mona and daughter Roxanne. Johnny grew into adolescence, and had followed his step-father's footsteps by taking up cycle riding. When he was fifteen, his motorcycle caught fire during a practice session. Though he attempted to save his family, Mona Simpson is killed in the bike's explosion. Before she dies, she makes Johnny promise her that he'll never ride in the show due to the danger, which he agrees to. Five years later, Johnny is discovered riding in secret by Roxanne, who tells him that she is in love with him. Later on, Crash tells the two that he has cancer, and that the show's performance at Madison Square Garden will be his last, if he lives to even see that.

Determined to keep his step-father from dying, Johnny researches some occult books, finally using them to summon Satan. In exchange for Johnny's soul, the Devil will spare Crash Simpson from the cancer that's killing him. Three weeks later, Crash tells Johnny that he plans to try and break the world's cycle jump record at the Garden. Johnny knows he'll be fine, due to the deal he made with Satan. When Crash attempts to jump it, he doesn't make it, and dies in the resulting accident. Furious at what happened, Blaze suits up, mounts a bike, and does the same stunt...and makes it, breaking the world record. That night, Satan returns to claim Johnny's soul, claiming that he only said he'd spare Crash from the disease and nothing else. As the Devil prepares to take Johnny to Hell, Roxanne enters and banishes the demon with the pure essence of her soul. She tells Johnny that she read his books behind his back, and learned how to send the devil away. The next night, however, Johnny begins to burn with fever, until his head suddenly transforms into a flaming skull. Every night since, he has undergone the transformation into...the Ghost Rider!

Somehow still in continuity!

THE ROADMAP

This issue is a straight reprint of Marvel Spotlight (1972) # 5, only the captions on the first page have been rewritten to acknowledge the title's current continuity.

The Hulk story promised on the cover is printed in the next issue, Ghost Rider (1973) # 11.

CHAIN REACTION

So, yeah, no Hulk in this comic, instead it's a reprint of the first Ghost Rider comic.  Tony Isabella, who was the series writer at the time, explained what happened in Comic Book Artist # 13 (published in 2001):

Isabella: Sal Buscema had done very tight layouts from my plot for “The Desolation Run” (which ended up appearing in Ghost Rider #11). I had scripted the issue and it had been lettered. That’s where the problems started.

The finisher was supposed to be Bill Draut, a terrific artist who had worked with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby on Black Magic and many other classic comics. Most recently, he had been drawing stories for Joe Orlando’s mystery titles over at DC. 

For some reason, Draut wasn’t getting work or enough work from DC. He came to Marvel and we all thought his style would work well on Ghost Rider. What I didn’t know was that Draut was going through some serious personal problems. I won’t speculate on the nature of these problems, but, whatever they were, we never received even a single page of finished artwork from him. Worse, he didn’t return any of the penciled and lettered pages either.

Out of desperation, I grabbed the biggest assistant editor I could find – Scott Edelman – and took a taxi to where Draut lived. Where he lived was some sort of enormous welfare hotel in Hell’s Kitchen. The cab driver refused to wait for us. He said he would circle the block for ten minutes and then he was out of there. I was usually too stupid to let stuff like that scare me, but this time, it did. When Draut refused to answer his door, we returned to Marvel empty-handed. I figured a reprint issue was a small price to pay for my and Scott’s lives.

If memory serves me correctly, Mike Esposito, Frank Giacoia and John Tartaglione had to ink the issue from Xeroxes of Sal’s layouts and on vellum overlays. The lettering had to be redone and pasted down onto the overlays. What a nightmare.

We never heard from Draut, but the post office eventually returned one of the two packages of layouts he had been sent. He had never picked them up. Naturally, the package arrived weeks after we had sent Ghost Rider #11 to the printer.

Pretty interesting!  I grabbed the above quoted passage from the Comics Should Be Good blog, which grabbed it from the aforementioned Comic Book Artist magazine.  Naturally, this issue of Ghost Rider is for completists only.