Cover Date: February 1967; Publication Date: November 1966
Writers: Gary Friedrich & Roy Thomas; Artist: Dick Ayers; Inker: Vince Colletta; Letterer: John Verpoorten; Colorist: None Credited; Editor: Stan Lee; Cover Artist: Dick Ayers
Carter Slade, a school teacher on his way out west, sees a ranch being attacked by a group of Indians. When he tries to intervene, the Indians shoot him, but not before he realizes that the "Indians" are actually white men in disguise. Left for dead by the marauders, a mortally wounded Slade is found by a young boy named Jamie Jacobs, the only survivor of the ranch attack. He manages to put Slade on his horse, and the two begin their march toward help. They stumble across a group of Sioux, who take the dying Slade to their medicine man, Flaming Star. Slade awakens, his wounds suddenly healed, and Flaming Star tells him of the prophecy delivered to him by his gods. He witnessed a falling meteor and was told to gather up the luminous dust left in the rock's wake and wait for the coming of a great champion, known as "He Who Rides the Night Winds". Flaming Star leads Slade and Jacobs to a white horse, whom Slade easily tames and gives the name Banshee. They leave the Sioux, and after making camp that night Slade offers to raise Jacobs himself. He then uses the glowing dust to fashion himself a costume and spooky identity as the Ghost Rider.
The next day, the faux indians have gathered at the ranch of their employer, Jason Bartholomew, who wants to chase off all of the settlers who have made their way to "his land". He orders his men, led by his foreman Blackie Clay, to burn down the schoolhouse in nearby Bison's Bend. When they do so, however, the townspeople easily see through their disguises, and in return Clay kidnaps a woman named Natalie, sister to settler Ben Brooks. Slade and Jacobs arrive in town and are told the news, prompting Carter to ride off to find Natalie.
That night, Bartholomew is chastising his men for bringing Natalie back to his ranch when the lights suddenly go out. The Ghost Rider appears before the men, seemingly impervious to their gunshots, and he makes quick work of the men that attempt to fight instead of flee in terror. Slade frightens Bartholomew into agreeing to turn himself into the marshals, then departs while Natalie herself escapes, unaware of what has really happened. The next day, Slade and Jacobs are invited to remain in Bison's Bend, and the two go off to start their new lives.
THE ROADMAP
This is the Marvel Comics revamp of the 1950 Ghost Rider, Rex Fury, and this story shares many similar elements to that of The Ghost Rider (1950) # 1.
It is confirmed that Carter Slade is indeed an incarnation of the Spirit of Vengeance in Ghost Riders: Heaven's On Fire # 6, where he appears in Heaven as one of the supernatural Ghost Riders that defeat Zadkiel.
Carter Slade appears next (as the Phantom Rider) in The Original Ghost Rider (1992) # 3.
This issue was reprinted in Night Rider # 1, where all instances of Ghost Rider's name were changed to "Night Rider" following the debut of Johnny Blaze.
CHAIN REACTION
Vengeance Unbound finally turns its attentions back to the original Marvel Comics Ghost Rider (though not the FIRST Ghost Rider, of course), and finds a very mixed bag of ideas both good and really, really bad.
First off, this is of course a Silver Age comic, and any review of it needs to be given through a lens of the time it was written, because for someone reading it for the first time today it doesn't come off well at all. The characters are cardboard and the scripting is, well, pretty terrible. But for the time it was written, was this a good comic or not? Sadly, I have to lean more toward "not".
Back in the late 1940s, Dick Ayers co-created the very first Ghost Rider for Magazine Enterprises, a publisher that had gone out of business by the time Marvel surged in popularity a decade and a half later. In preparation for writing this review, I went back and read some of those Rex Fury Ghost Rider comics (and yes, I'll eventually be reviewing THOSE as well), and I realized something that I'm sure Golden Age comics fans already knew. Marvel straight-up stole the Ghost Rider lock, stock, and smoking gun barrels, and since the character had lapsed into public domain there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. It goes a long way that Ayers was brought back to co-create Carter Slade as well, Stan Lee at least had the sense to do that much. But the 1950 Ghost Rider comics were weird as shit, and the Marvel version really lacks that in favor of "western superhero". They really did steal the premise almost in total, too; outside of changing Rex Fury, US Marshall, into Carter Slade, timid school teacher, the plot for the Ghost Rider provided by Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich is nearly identical. The white men posing as indians? Yeah, that's from Rex Fury. The ranch owner wanting to drive away settlers? Yeah, that's from Rex Fury. The gimmick "superpowers"? Yeah, that's from Rex Fury too.
There's a lot that's different, though, and it definitely makes Slade a totally different character from Fury, both in origin and personality. Flaming Star and his glowing meteor was a new addition and it IS a much better origin than the one Fury had (where he was taught to be a ghostly gunslinger by the spirits of Wild Bill Hickock and Annie Oakley). Jamie Jacobs, though he is of course an atypical teenage sidekick (a la Bucky, I suppose), he's absolutely better than Fury's stereotypical Asian manservant, Sing Song. There are, naturally since this is a 1960s comic, still stereotypes everywhere, especially when it comes to the depiction of Native Americans. Sadly, that's equally embarrassing and expected.
The big saving grace is, of course, the artwork by Dick Ayers, whose work on the previous Ghost Rider series was fantastic (just go online and check out some of those covers he did for that series, they're amazing!). Here, though, Ayers' work is finished by Vince Colletta, whose inks just suck the life out of the drawings. Colletta was known as an incredibly fast inker who also took lots of liberties with the pencils, erasing figures and lines to make the job go by faster. He's incredibly controversial, even amongst comic fans today, and I personally have never liked his work. Ayers was an amazing artist, and his design for the Ghost Rider is absolutely timeless, but having Colletta as his co-artist damages the work to the point where it looks like a rushed Marvel product of the times.
Unless you're a diehard fan of western or Silver Age comics, I wouldn't bother paying the hefty price tag this comic usually demands. As a part of Ghost Rider history, it certainly has its place, but by itself it's just not very good.
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