The Ghost Compendium Volume 1

by Eric Luke, Adam Hughes (Illustrator), Paul Guinan (Illustrator)

For the first time, collect the definitive saga of Ghost in two oversized trade paperback graphic novel collections.

Elisa Cameron is dead—murdered in cold blood. One intrepid reporter will not stop until she finds the perpetrator, even if it means crawling through the depths of hell to do it. That reporter is Elisa Cameron herself, risen from the grave as the spectral avenger Ghost!

She won’t rest in peace until she delivers a double dose of .45 caliber retribution to the wicked criminals who killed her. Ghost’s journey to the truth follows a dark, twisted path through the mean streets and corrupt towers of Arcadia, and the revelations she unearths may not lead to redemption, but damnation. Nothing is as it seems and mystery abounds!

Compendium Volume 1 collects over a thousand pages of story, including the entirety of series one of Ghost. A complex tangle of mystery, vengeance, eroticism, and absolution, Ghost pushes the definition of “hero” to the bleeding edge and is delivered by master storytellers featuring screenwriter Eric Luke, and superstar artists Adam Hughes, Terry Dodson, Ivan Reis, Jason Pearson, John Cassaday, Randy Emberlin, and Tony Harris!

This massive tome includes Comics Greatest Arcadia Week 3: Ghost, Ghost Special #1, Ghost (series one) #1–#12, A Decade of Dark Horse #2, Ghost (series one) #13–#36, Ghost Special #2 and #3, and Dark Horse Presents #145–#147.

Genres: Graphic Novels

1104 pages, Paperback

Published November 18, 2025

Reviews

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

There isn't much to love in this series, though it goes from Terrible to Okay when Ivan Reis takes the reins. some good early art from stars like Hughes, Dodson and Cassaday, intermixed with forgettable fill-in art that makes it difficult to follow Eric Luke's clunky narrative. It definitely finds more footing later in the book but the really rough first half isn't quite redeemed by a mediocre second.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 3 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

This is a title that didn't age very well: published at a time when the 80s hyperrealism was transitioning out in favor of puerile 90s Top Cow soft porn, the illustration work starts Patrick Nagel and ends with the prototypical suggestive posing that likely catapulted many a tween into puberty. The story wants to be deep but instead only feels very 'try hard'. One positive is that you do get a LOT for your money in this first volume.

Story: Elisa Cameron is a ghost - a murdered girl who is able to materialize and sometimes corporealize. She doesn't know why she is the only ghost but she knows she needs to discover why she was killed. As she starts delving further, she finds a horror story rooted deeply in the seedy underside of the city.

There are some excellent and informative introductions to several of the sections of the book: the character's creation as part of Dark Horse Comics expanded superhero universe, mostly as a side character. From there, it was decided to give her a full series in the universe and so the 1990s gave us a series of Ghost titles.

The plots and storytelling are very cringe - a lot of monologues where the character constantly contradict herself while trying to sound philosophical (e.g., she'll talk about knowing men and how to control them in early chapters but then in the next chapters becomes an ingenue who asks her sister to teach her how to control men). The tone is dark and almost dystopian, following the Watchmen and Dark Knight trend of the late 1980s. Since this title debuted in 1990, you can clearly see the influences there. But while the Watchmen and Dark Knight did give us some genre definingly new perspectives on the comic storytelling genre, Ghost falls very flat.

One of the larger problems I had with the title is the lack of consistency in the character/story. Ghost alternates between smart and stupid, jocular and deathly serious. It doesn't make her nuanced since these are not moods but rather entire personality traits that change from story to story. As such, she was more of a construct that a story was built around rather than a character who was organically developed and then cultivated and grown. There is a LOT of show but not a lot of tell, especially at the beginning with all the ridiculous monologues.

Similarly, the art is all style with no substance. The only good moment was a self referential one when the character has a dream sequence and jokes that she kept falling out of her outfit. We aren't really given much of a reason for why she looks as she does other then because it looks showy. This is compounded with the style changes that pulled her design from very dated 1980s (complete with pumps for shoes) to 1990s more grungier looks (natch with flat heeled slouchy boots). That is just an example but also things like hairstyles and even the cape changes within a few years of each publication. While character designs can indeed grow and reflect the period in which they are published, here the artist(s) just went for whatever was trendy at the time and didn't try too hard. I didn't get an impression of any originality. Just increasing excuses as the series went on to put the character in provocative (if physically improbable) poses.

To me, this was very dated, very shallow, and all grandiloquent. I couldn't help but wish that so much more had been done with the premise rather than aping whatever storytelling or style trend was popular at the time of publication. I kept hoping for an honest ounce of originality but never really found it in this first volume collecting Series one. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[ShamanT · Rating 5 out of 5]

How is this soft core porn? Because it features attractive women? Comics were always and will be made for males no matter how hard feminist try to hijack the medium. Ghost represents a past golden era of America comics where women could be sexy and badass without the worthless input of fake female fans. Ghost is about an estranged reporter named Elisa Cameron who is tragically killed and turns into an anti-hero to get revenge who those responsible for her death.


Apparently Elisa having character flaws makes her inconsistent? She never went from dumb to smart and she is able to manipulate and with her alluring figure or by force, that one instance where her sister tells her she can teacher she was referring to money and drinks rather than information, also this ain’t Batman,Ghost actually kills criminals she’s a anti-hero that at first starts of borderline insane which also serves a narrative purpose.

There is not a SINGLE instance where Ghost kills an innocent person but judging by a liberals stands innocent would mean defending yourself against a group of thugs (like what happens in the story) she never kills a civilian.

This also ISN’T a feminist comic, a common criticism levitated at this series by fake female comic fans is that this series tries to add feminist themes because Ghost hates men but it falls flat because she’s sexy and the written by a man and well we all know feminist can’t be attractive so I agree partially with that sentiment, and I guess you can’t write female characters unless you’re a male go tell Jk Rowling that vice versa. Elisa does hate men but not all men she hates the men that killed, who tormented her sister and ultimate her friend, she’s the sick twisted perverse of men not men as a whole, she grows a dangers as the series progress and unlike what feminism is which is hating males as a business.

Ghost is a broken complex character that grows and evolves she doesn’t stay the same which you can tell the people who rated this low didn’t even read past the first 80 pages or else you’d know by simply reading the story and femininity is a vocal point of the story but not the whole. Also there is zero watchmen or dark knight influence on this story I feel like when people bringing up popular things to compare to something else less popular they don’t have much of a critical eye or much engagement with the medium outside of popular movies or YouTube videos, because there is nothing in GHOST at all like those stories that are extremely derivative especially Watchmen.


Ghost is a sexy high energy with amazing Art, compare this to something like the terribly drawn Absolute Batman and it’s night in day, it’s a blast from the past that can never be replicated again even for its time it was a standout achieve in art and storytelling, a golden age where comics adhered to the true target demographics among a changing landscape of more in-depth storytelling. Seriously the people complaining about the sexiness in this comic would have a heart attack if they heavymetal or any French/euro comic outside activism superhero comics, complaints are most likely women that read smut so they’re hypocrites, such a non argument.

[Julio Valentin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stop reading at page 1059!!!
Beware, on page 1059, the dark horse presents story, a story which is completely separate from the main series, the main story is SPOILED terribly. I think the events that are described are part of compendium 2. Stop at page 1059. So annoying. This story incorrectly placed on this compendium is from 1999, the second volume of ghost (part of compendium 2) starts on 1998.
You've been warned

[Michael A · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume was 60% hit, 20% miss, and 20% what?.

The themes of violence and overcoming your own personal prejudice was solid, but the main plot points are missing in certain parts.

This is a complete compendium, and parts still do feel incomplete. The book uses sexual violence quite a lot, so be warned. Some are done well for the story, but most are not.

I am more excited to see Volume 2 by Kelly Sue DeConnick in April. I hope it better serves the interesting world and lore that this volume sets up. The book is rarely boring, but also rarely "great".