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| Cover Artist: Dick Ayers |
Original Price: $.12
Title: "Circus of Fear!"
Writer: Gary Friedrich
Artist: Dick Ayers
Inker: Vince Colletta
Letterer: John Verpoorten
Colorist: None Credited
Editor: Stan Lee
SYNOPSIS
The Ghost Rider approaches the town of Bison Bend just as a band of outlaws perform a bank robbery. The outlaws are chased by Sheriff Benjamin Brooks, who manages to shoot the gang's leader. The rest of the robbers are apprehended by the Ghost Rider at the edge of town, but when Brooks arrives to arrest them he attempts to arrest the vigilante as well. The Rider barely manages to evade arrest at Brooks' hand, leaving the Sheriff with doubts as to whether he can perform his job.
The next morning, Natalie Brooks enters Carter Slade's schoolhouse and tells him that a circus has just arrived in town. Slade dismisses his students and laments to himself about how he is in love with Natalie despite her being engaged to another man. After the circus sets up in town, owner Barton refuses to give his star attraction, animal tamer Andriani Adano, a raise due to his former background as a criminal called the Cougar. Furious, Adano storms off and swears revenge, unaware that he's been overheard by Slade's ward Jamie Jacobs, who tells Carter. When the circus begins later that evening, the show is disrupted by Barton's murder at the hands of a cougar. Brooks immediately arrests Adano, thinking him guilty as he's the only animal trainer present.
That night, the Ghost Rider frees Adano from jail, believing the man to be innocent and needing his help to find the real murderer. Their escape is witnessed by Ben Brooks, who gathers up a posse to arrest the two men. Ghost Rider and Adano arrive at the circus, but the Rider is knocked unconscious from behind. When he awakens, he finds Adano's brother-in-law Phillip standing over him. Now thinking Adano is guilty, the Rider goes off to find him, only to be attacked by a cougar. Brooks saves the Rider by shooting the animal, but then turns to arrest him. Ghost Rider escapes and confronts the true killer, knocking him unconscious just as Brooks and his men catch up. Adano emerges from a nearby trailer, having also been knocked unconscious, and the killer is revealed to be Philip. The Ghost Rider scares Phillip into confessing that he killed Barton in order to get out of Adano's shadow. While the Ghost Rider departs on his horse, Brooks is still convinced that the vigilante should be arrested.
ANNOTATIONS
Carter Slade makes his next chronological appearance (as the Night Rider) in Ghost Rider (1973) # 50.
This issue was reprinted in Night Rider # 3, where all instances of Ghost Rider's name were changed to "Night Rider" following the debut of Johnny Blaze.
REVIEW
Gary Friedrich and Dick Ayers produce another done-in-one story for the Western Ghost Rider series, one that leans more toward a traditional mystery tale than one with supervillains.
Dick Ayers, the co-creator and artist for the original Ghost Rider (in both incarnations) passed away not long ago, so this review had a bit of a sad connotation to it. Ayers was an artist that was intrinsically linked with this character, producing stories for him well into the late 1990s for Marvel's Phantom Rider and the Haunted Horseman series that continued the Rex Fury version from the 1950s. Ayers was one of the early Marvel pioneers that I think tends to get overshadowed by the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but his work still holds up today.
His work on this issue, in fact, is the strongest yet for this series. I remarked in previous reviews how the finishes by Vince Colletta hindered the artwork instead of enhancing it, but this issue looks great. The work looks more polished and professional than in the two prior issues, and the way the Ghost Rider's "ghostly" powers are depicted actually look other-worldly. Perhaps Colletta had more time to work on this issue than he did on others, because a lot of the shortcuts he usually took aren't as prominent here.
The story is markedly better than the last two installments as well, mainly because Friedrich and Ayers steer the plot away from "old west superhero" and more into a traditional mystery format. The plot is fairly predictable, of course, but it's still entertaining with a couple of nice twists that attempt to keep the suspense going even when there's really only one possible outcome. The only detriment, I'm afraid, is the scripting by Friedrich, especially when it concerns Adano and his terrible Italian accent ("I work'a hard and draw'a big crowds! Your circus would be like'a the catacombs without me!"). There's also the standard Marvel trope of the era, with the authority figure so determined to label the hero a menace that he ignores all evidence against his claims. Ben Brooks is no J. Jonah Jameson, the charisma isn't there, but you can see the attempt being made.
Dick Ayers will be missed by many comics fans, and his legacy as an integral part of early Marvel cannot be denied. Plus, his design for the Ghost Rider will always be a classic.
Grade: B+
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