Collected Editions, or Lack Thereof

Came across something interesting on Amazon last night: in October Marvel will be releasing a new Ghost Rider trade paperback collection called Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons that collects a host of issues from the 1990s.  I'll post the information for the book and then some observations I have about it below.

Not the final cover art, I assume


Johnny Blaze and Dan Ketch race side-by-side as the Spirits of Vengeance, as Marvel's Midnight Sons rise to face a hellish threat like no other! Former Ghost Rider Blaze joins his successor Ketch and fellow Sons including Morbius, Blade, the Nightstalkers and the Darkhold Redeemers in the fight against Lilith, Mother of Demons, and her horrifying progeny!

COLLECTING: GHOST RIDER (1990) 28, 31; GHOST RIDER/BLAZE: SPIRITS OF VENGEANCE 1-6; MORBIUS: THE LIVING VAMPIRE (1992) 1; DARKHOLD: PAGES FROM THE BOOK OF SINS 1; NIGHTSTALKERS 1; WEB OF SPIDER-MAN (1985) 95-96; MATERIAL FROM MIDNIGHT SONS UNLIMITED 1

Okay, the first thing is that the existence of this book lends a LOT of credence toward my theory that a Spirits of Vengeance book will be launching in October as a spin-off from the recent Ghost Racers mini-series.  Marvel is usually really good about timing odd-ball collections of past material with the release of new titles (like last year's trade for the 1970s Weirdworld series, which was timed with the Secret Wars mini of the same name), and the fact that this book is specifically labeled "Spirits of Vengeance" and not "Ghost Rider" is a big flashing neon clue that we're getting something new under the Spirits title very soon. 

While I always applaud the release of collected Ghost Rider material, the contents of this book have me a bit confused.  The original "Rise of the Midnight Sons" trade has been out of print for decades, so I really love that it's getting re-released in a new edition, but there's a curious assortment of issues gathered here.  You have the main "Rise" tie-ins: Ghost Rider 28 and 31, Spirits of Vengeance 1, Morbius 1, Darkhold 1, and Nightstalkers 1, all of which make sense.  Then you get the rest of the book padded out with the first six issues of Spirits of Vengeance and the tie-in issues of the Web of Spider-Man crossover, "Spirits of Venom" (another great story with a long out of print collection).  They even include what I assume is the Spirits story from Midnight Sons Unlimited # 1 that had art by Klaus Janson.  "Rise" had unlabeled tie-ins in Spirits 2 and 3, so including them is totally understandable, but why not include the just-as-significant Ghost Rider 29, 30, and 32?  Because skipping those (especially 30 and 32) leave big narrative gaps for the Spirits issues, such as just how Dan Ketch comes back to life in GR 32.  If they just wanted to collect Spirits of Vengeance, you could probably collect up through issue 3, throw in the three missing Ghost Rider issues, and label your next trade "Spirits of Venom" to collect up to, say, issue # 12 of Spirits.  I dunno, it just strikes me as really, really odd.

But that brings me to a wider point about Marvel's collections department and Ghost Rider, because the character really gets ignored to the point that seeing this book was coming out genuinely shocked me.  We live in an age where stuff like Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu and Werewolf by Night are getting huge hardcover Omnibus editions, with Marvel scrambling to get everything in their back catalogue onto our bookshelves.  And that's awesome, don't get me wrong; the fact that I can get Steve Gerber's Howard the Duck and Man-Thing runs as massive hardcovers is wonderful. 

But where the fuck is my Ghost Rider Omnibus?

The Jason Aaron run was collected as an Omnibus edition, but why not give the 1970s and 1990s series the same respect?  New Warriors, one of the 90s Ghost Rider title's contemporaries, has received an Omnibus with promises of more on the way, and Howard Mackie had a MUCH more successful series with Ghost Rider.  That run can't even get collected in its entirety in paperback form, with only two Ghost Rider: Danny Ketch Classic trades released, taking the book up through I believe issue # 20 (meaning there will be a gap between it and this Spirits trade, enough of one that third GR Classic volume could be released I suppose).  Marvel's releasing recent titles like Ms. Marvel in Hardcover and Omnibus formats, why not a hardcover collection of All-New Ghost Rider? 

Anyway, here's the link to the Spirits of Vengeance: Rise of the Midnight Sons collection on Amazon, if you'd like to pre-order it (and please do, or at least order at your local comic shop or elsewhere online, because if this book doesn't sell we likely won't see any more volumes!).