The Ghost Rider (1950) # 2

Cover Art: Frank Frazetta

Published: October 1950
Original Price: $.10

Title: "Death's Stagecoach"

Title: "The Taming of Wild-Man Feeney!"
Title: "Death Wears a White Mask"
Title: "The Haunted Castle"
Writer: Unknown
Artist: Dick Ayers
Letterer: Dick Ayers
Colorist: Unknown

SYNOPSIS

"Death's Stagecoach"
Four ranchers control the Cactus Gap, and one night a cloaked man on a stagecoach places a skull with one of the rancher's names, Luke Mormon, on the rancher's fence post, stating that the man will die.  The next day, Mormon is murdered and another skull is delivered to the second rancher, Jeb Nolan, who becomes fearful for his life.  The next morning, Rex Fury is riding along the Gap and finds Nolan's dead body.  That night, Fury investigates as the Ghost Rider and confronts the masked stagecoach driver, but the villain is able to escape.  The third rancher, Roger Boofer, receives a skull and later almost dies from a dynamite explosion in front of the Ghost Rider.  His survival raises the Ghost Rider's suspicions and he realizes that Boofer is the stagecoach driver that is killing his rivals to gain their land.  Boofer goes out on the stagecoach to kill the final rancher but he is stopped and captured by the Ghost Rider, who states that Boofer will hang for his crimes.

"The Taming of Wild-Man Feeney!"
Notorious bandit Wild-Man Feeney has been called to town by a crook wanting to steal a herd of horses from a local rancher.  The conversation and plan is overheard by Sing-Song, who goes to tell Rex Fury.  Fury tells the local sheriff, but the lawman is too afraid of Feeney to intervene, so Fury decides to take action as the Ghost Rider.  He uses all of his ghostly tricks to fool the thieves, scaring Feeney half to death and causing the men to flee.  The next morning, Feeney and the men arrive at the bar and surrender themselves to the sheriff out of fear of the Ghost Rider.

"Death Wears a White Mask"
Settlers, or "nesters", are hated by the cattle ranchers for taking the land, and one of the ranchers has assembled a group of white-cloaked marauders called the Nightriders to kill the nesters.  Rex Fury infiltrates the group and is taken back to their cave headquarters for an initiation test of Russian Roulette with one silver bullet and five blanks.  Sing-Song sneaks in and replaces all of the Nightriders' bullets with the blanks, and when they go to kill a family of nesters Fury is able to save them.  Fury himself is caught and executed, but feigns death when shot by the blanks.  He turns into the Ghost Rider, who captures all of the Nightriders, the ineffectual blanks making it seem like he's an actual ghost. 

"The Haunted Castle"
Rex Fury and some locals ride by a purported "haunted castle" in the desert and Fury is told the story of the strange rich man who built the castle so he could be alone and was found dead outside its walls ten years later.  Fury makes a wager with the men that he and Sing-Song can spend the night inside the castle to prove there's no ghosts.  When they go into the castle, they are seen by bandits who killed the owner and have been using the castle as a hideout ever since.  The bandits "haunting" tricks are easily seen through by Fury, but then he and Sing-Song are dumped into a watery pit beneath the castle.  They escape the pit and leave the castle, but come back that night as the Ghost Rider, who scares the bandits into feeling the castle and admitting their crimes.

ANNOTATIONS 

Creator credits were not included in the comic other than the artist's signature.

The Rex Fury Ghost Rider is not part of Marvel continuity and is unrelated to the Carter Slade Ghost Rider, outside of inspiration of course.

REVIEW

It's four short stories of Golden Age goodies in this second issue of the original Western Ghost Rider.

It's difficult to review this series.  The comic and the stories within are such products of their times that it's hard to look at them with a modern critical eye.  So, for the most part I'm just going to gauge the series on how entertaining it is from issue to issue, and this one wins out for the most part.  The opening story, "Death's Stagecoach", is a pretty tight mystery that's also responsible for the awesome Frazetta cover.  It's a great gimmick for a villain, using the skulls with his victim's name painted on.  The second story about Wild-Man Feeney is hilarious and as over-the-top as you could probably go with one of these stories, especially with all the "cowboy" dialogue complete with misspellings.  "Let's get outta hyar" indeed, you spooked jasper, you. 

The other two stories aren't as solid as the first two, because both have some pretty fundamental problems with their concepts.  "The Haunted Castle" has the ludicrous premise of an Eastern European castle sitting in the middle of the desert, and even when it goes to great lengths to justify its existence it still can't get past the disbelief it took the creators to get Ghost Rider inside a haunted castle.  The biggest problem lies with "Death Wears a White Mask", as it deals with a group of white-garbed men on horses called the Nightriders that actively hate another group of people, yet doesn't address the elephant in the room.  The link to the Ku Klux Klan is obvious (Nightriders, people, Nightriders!) but slotting in the "nesters" in place of real life persecution of African Americans is about as tone deaf as you can get.  Perhaps this is all they could get away with in 1950?  I can't even hazard a guess.

The real star of this comic, the whole series even, is obviously the artwork of Dick Ayers.  Even in this rough Golden Age format, Ayers version of the Ghost Rider is wonderful.  He takes what could be just stock cowboy stories and gives them this ominous, sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere.  There's problems there, sure, such as Sing-Song's caricature and Rex Fury's jaw being so square it looks like a piece of bread, but every time the Ghost Rider is on panel the comic just flat out works.

It's the Golden Age, it's not for everybody, but at least two of the four stories in this one were pretty entertaining.

Grade: B-

The Ghost Rider (1950) # 1

Cover Artist: Frank Frazetta

Published: August 1950
Original Price: $.10

Title: "This is the Tale of the Ghost Rider"

Title: "The Fire Ghost!"
Title: "Spook Justice"
Title: "A Trap For Nemesis"
Writer: Gardner Fox
Artist: Dick Ayers
Letterer: Dick Ayers
Colorist: Unknown

SYNOPSIS

"This is the Tale of the Ghost Rider"
US Marshall Rex Fury and his companion Sing Song are ambushed on the prairie by a group of Apaches, led by a white man disguised as one of the indians.  They throw Fury and Sing Song into a watery cave to die, and after they wash into the cave a dying Fury is approached by the ghost of Wild Bill Hickock.  Wild Bill tells Fury that he and his comrades attempted to bring law to the west but find that work still needs to be done, so they have chosen Fury to act in their place.  Trained by Hickock, Calamity Jane, Bill Tilghman, Pat Garrett, and Kit Carson, Fury becomes the Ghost Rider.  He awakens in the cave along with Sing Song and sees his new horse, Spectre, waiting for him.  He soon creates the Ghost Rider costume and rides out to bring justice to the west.

"The Fire Ghost!"
The Osage medicine man Many Feathers has called forth the spirit of Wakonda, a Native American god, and roused the tribes of the west to attack settlers.  After rescuing a group of cavalrymen, the Ghost Rider travels to Many Feathers' tribe, where the chiefs of the assembled nations have met for council with Wakonda.  Realizing that the ghost indian is a trick played by Many Feathers and his sub-chief Hunting Horse, the Ghost Rider descends into the hut and fights the mortal "god".  He exits the hut and proves that Many Feathers has tricked them, causing the chiefs to end their attacks.

"Spook Justice"
Rex Fury's friend Sam Harberg and his family have set up a settlement with Fury's help, but local rancher Jeb Cole is angry about the newcomer taking the land.  He and his men ride out to scare Harberg away, but they are stopped by the Ghost Rider.  The next night Cole's men attack the Harberg ranch again, but the Ghost Rider is able to apprehend them all using his ghost tricks and a new lantern projector created by Sing Song.

"A Trap For Nemesis"
A gang of bank robbers gloat about their secret hideout that contains all of their stolen loot, and even an attack by the Ghost Rider doesn't dissuade them from robbing another bank.  They set a trap for the Ghost Rider by covering up a dug hole, which the vigilante and his horse fall into when they ride over it.  However, they both fall through the bottom of the hole into an abandoned mine, the same mine that the robbers are using as their hideout.  They seal themselves into the mine, but the Ghost Rider finds them.  After subduing them, he forces the men to dig their way back out of the mine before they go to jail.

ANNOTATIONS 

Rex Fury was created by Raymond Krank and Dick Ayers in Tom Holt # 6 as the Calico Kid, and he became the Ghost Rider in Tim Holt # 11.

The Ghost Rider last appeared in Tim Holt # 14 and appears next in Tim Holt # 15.

Creator credits were not included in the comic other than the artist's signature, but it has been verified that "This is the Tale of the Ghost Rider" was written by Gardner Fox.  It has been assumed that he was the writer for the rest of the stories in this issue as well.

The Rex Fury Ghost Rider is not part of Marvel continuity and is unrelated to the Carter Slade Ghost Rider, outside of inspiration of course.

REVIEW

The very first Ghost Rider, Rex Fury from Magazine Enterprises, gets his own series after appearing in a few Tim Holt back-up stories.

I'd imagine that most readers are completely unfamiliar with the 1950 Ghost Rider, perhaps just peripherally aware that Carter Slade wasn't the first white-costumed western hero.  He's pretty much just a footnote in comic history now, way overshadowed first by Marvel's (more or less stolen) iteration and then even more so by the introduction of Johnny Blaze.  These comics did exist, though, and despite not being connected to Marvel's Ghost Rider outside of adopted inspiration and a shared name, I would be remiss as a Ghost Rider historian NOT to feature the series in some capacity.  So, here are are with the first issue of the adventures of Rex Fury, and I'm happy to report that these stories hold up much better than I assumed they would.

 Most Golden Age comics do not read well today, they're anachronistic and the style of storytelling is generally dull and simplistic in comparison to comics from not only today, but even from the Silver and Bronze Ages.  This comic, however, does not read like it was from 1950...okay, well, YES, it definitely DOES read like it came from 1950, but it's so much better than other comics from that time period.  The stories aren't much to dwell on, they're fairly run-of-the-mill cowboy stuff, so that's not what sets the comic apart.  No, that comes down to the details and the artwork, the latter of which I'll talk about later.  For the former, what I mean about "details" is the amount of imagination that went into the character to separate it from its western comics brethren.  It would have been pretty easy to just make the Ghost Rider a standard cowboy vigilante, but Fox (and creator Ray Krank) at least put in the attempt to give the character something distinct.  The origin story, with the ghosts of the frontier heroes, is pretty inspired stuff for its time.  There are problems, too, of course, such as the stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans that was so prevalent in comics around this time.  And then there's Sing Song, who is a conundrum of a character.  He's an obviously racist caricature of frontier Asians, with the Oriental dress, buck teeth, and horrendous dialect; but then he's also the most intelligent and personable character in the book.  He definitely shines in comparison to Rex Fury himself, who outside of his Ghost Rider identity is about as interesting as burnt toast.

It's also funny (well, not really funny so much as dastardly) just how much Marvel lifted from this series when they debuted Carter Slade.  The "ghost tricks" like the disappearing cape and the lantern projector were lifted right along with the character's design, but there's more to it than that.  While they discarded the origin story with Wild Bill Hickock's ghost, they kept the specific plot point about the white man disguised as an indian bandit.  That's such an odd element to include in this issue, since the origin story doesn't bother to address it again.  Where's the conclusion to that story?  Where's the fucking VENGEANCE?  I suppose with only 7 pages to work with the creators did what they could, but it's so glaring in its omission that I'm perplexed.  I guess stopping two murderous prospectors was more important than stopping the man who killed you, Rex?

The main reason, and if I'm being honest the ONLY reason outside of historical curiosity, to read this series is for Dick Ayers' artwork.  This guy is the reason this series looks like it's several decades ahead of its publication date, because while he's still rough around the edges his work has more dynamism and excitement to it than most other artists of the time.  His design for the Ghost Rider is instantly iconic and is intrinsically tied to the artist, so much so that when Marvel stole the concept in 1967 they at least got Ayers to draw the series for them.  This issue also has a cover by a very young Frank Frazetta, so artistically the Ghost Rider had a whole lot going for it.

You can find this comic, and the 14 issues series as a whole, archived to read online due it now being in the public domain.  I'd recommend reading through them, if only to see where the Ghost Rider truly originated from.

Grade: B-