The Ghost Rider #1

Ghost Rider (1950)

by Gardner Fox

Who is the Ghost Rider, where did he come from? All this is answered and more in "Tale of the Ghost Rider." The Ghost Rider fights an insidious foe in "The Fire Ghost." With help from a friend, Ghost Rider becomes a transparent, bullet proof, crime fighter in "Spook Justice." A criminal thinks he can outsmart the Ghost Rider by hiding in his secret base in "A Trap for Nemesis."

38 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2014

About the author

Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic book historians estimate that he wrote more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics.
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!"

Pseudonyms: Gardner F. Fox, Jefferson Cooper, Bart Sommers, Paul Dean, Ray Gardner, Lynna Cooper, Rod Gray, Larry Dean, Robert Starr, Don Blake, Ed Blake, Warner Blake, Michael Blake, Tex Blane, Willis Blane, Ed Carlisle, Edgar Weston, Tex Slade, Eddie Duane, Simon Majors, James Kendricks, Troy Conway, Kevin Matthews, Glen Chase

Reviews

[C. John Kerry]

These stories feature the original Ghost Rider of the 1950's. In the 1960's Marvel used the name for a similar character who didn't have a long career. In the 1970's Marvel resurrected the name, but this time for a supernatural oriented character, who is still being published. When they later revived the western hero they renamed him the Night Rider. As well AC Comics has reprinted some of these 1950s stories but have renamed the character the Haunted Horseman, for obvious reasons.

Having gotten all that explanation out of the way let us turn our attention to this volume. Quite interesting. The Ghost Rider's origin is the first story and it is definitely different from the norm. Of course our here is different from the usual western hero so that is not surprising. Including that origin story there are four tales featuring The Ghost Rider. All of them are pretty decent stories. If I had been around and reading comics at the time this is a title I might actually have read, and I was never a big western fan, save for The Lone Ranger. Mind you given the writing credit the fact these are good stories as Gardner F. Fox is a well-known and well respected name in comic fandom, at least among those of us who are either old enough to remember him or are cognizant of comic book history.
So inconclusion we have a collection of western stories that are both entertaining and different from the norm as far as the genre goes. Definitely an item that belongs the shelf of any comic or western fan. Happy reading.