Night Rider (1974) # 3

Cover Artist: Dick Ayers

Published: Feb. 1975
Original Price: $.25

 

Title: "Circus of Fear!"
Writer: Gary Friedrich
Artist: Dick Ayers
Inker: Vince Colletta
Letterer: John Verpoorten
Colorist: None Credited
Editor: Roy Thomas

 

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 

This issue is a reprint of The Ghost Rider (1967) # 3.

To avoid confusion with the then-current Johnny Blaze character and series, when Carter Slade was reintroduced in the pages of Avengers his name was changed to Night Rider.  In this reprint series, all instances of the Ghost Rider's name were re-lettered to "Night Rider".  Marvel would change the name again to "Phantom Rider" in the 1980s when they realized the white-garbed Ku Klux Klan called their soldiers Night Riders, an unfortunate coincidence to say the least.

This issue also had back-up story, "The Gun!", from Wyatt Earp (1955) # 10.