The Original Ghost Rider, Volume 1

Ghost Rider (1950) #1-5

by Gardner Francis Fox

A collection of vintage comic books featuring the masked Western hero, The Ghost Rider. Reprints the Ghost Rider stories from Ghost Rider comics, issues 1 -5, Tim Holt comics, issues 11-14.

Genres: Comics, Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2015

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

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Original Ghost Rider Volume 1 collects Ghost Rider 1-5 plus stories from Tim Holt, published by Magazine Enterprises in the late 1940s.

I was running low on Western comics and one of my guys on Twitter recommended this. I gave it a shot, not really knowing what to expect.

The Ghost Rider is US Marshal Rex Fury. After falling down The Devil's Sink, Rex Fury awakes in limbo and learns great skills from various dead Western figures, emerging to fight injustice as... The Ghost Rider!

Rex Fury and his offensive Chinese stereotype sidekick Sing Song go through standard Western adventures involving corrupt lawmen, claim jumpers, hostile Indians, and things of that nature. The stories are easily digestible at 8-10 pages apiece and somewhat goofy in the way that most comics from the 1940s are, clearly geared toward kids and not middle age guys wolfing them down one after another.

Dastardly Dick Ayers handles the art chores aside from some dynamite Frank Frazetta covers. Old Dick had some chops when he wasn't forced to draw super heroes in a Jack Kirby style. His Ghost Rider looks great and he's good Western scenery, locomotives, and horse after God damn horse. I think a lot of artists probably breathed a sigh of relief when the genre died so they wouldn't have to draw so many damn horses.

I really like the taste of the Ghost Rider I had hear. The stories harken back to the Lone Ranger stories I watched on TV before school and the Ghost Rider is a striking figure. Later stories feature horror elements so I'm definitely down with that. Sadly, this is the only volume Canton Street Press has put out to date so I'll have to settle for public domain reprints of the rest.

Marvel hi-jacked the Western Ghost Rider character when the trademark allegedly lapsed when Magazine Enterprises went out of business but I have no idea how their version compares, although they got Dick Ayers back for it. That's something, I guess.

Four out of five stars. There's a Ghost Rider shaped hole in my life now.

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 2 out of 5]

What can I say? The Ghost Rider was mediocre at best—and that’s me being generous. The dialogue was incredibly simple, and the plots followed the most cliché Western formula every single time. The only twist was the occasional "Ghost Rider effect" thrown in, but at its core, it remained a straightforward, predictable Western.

I won’t go into too much detail, but everything—from the plot to the dialogue—was just plain simple. As for the artwork, it’s what you’d expect from a 1950s Western comic. Nothing extraordinary, just the standard style of the era.

However, the introduction of the Ghost Rider did add a unique visual element, something that set it apart from the usual Western fare (and even though it's not following the modern Ghost Rider origin, it's not as bad, for the 50s that is). The covers were often fantastic, and the Ghost Rider himself brought a certain flair, but even that wasn’t enough to save this one.

In the end, not even a spectral avenger of the Old West could make this truly enjoyable. I’ll be generous and give it 2 stars—just for the heck of it—but the predictable storytelling and lack of engagement make it hard to recommend, unless you're into nostalgia and Westerns from the 1950s.

[Bill Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Owlhoots are a superstitious and cowardly lot. This slender volume collects the earliest tales of the Western comic book hero published by ME comics from 1949 to 1951. Four of the reprinted covers are by Frank Frazetta and the strip art is by Dick Ayers, who went on to be an integral contributor to Marvel Comics in the 1960s (where Ghost Rider was eventually revived). The stories here are primitive and most of them are variations on Western cliches, but a few are real stand-outs. The Rider's origin is a supernatural yarn wherein he is taught by spirits how to ride and shoot and other stories feature menaces that are apparently otherworldly but turn out to be the work of clever and unlikely outlaws. My favorite involves a ghost train full of dead miners working a closed mine; Ayers' art is particularly crazed here. My favorite element in these comics is that the Ghost Rider uses phosphorescent paint, black-out effects, and projectors to fight crime, the very essence of phantasmagoria and spook shows.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have dreamed of seeing this run collected for years, and it's finally a reality. While this has a macabre appearing hero and has occasional Horror-esque overtones this is by and large not a Horror comic at all. It instead plays like an amped up Western with a superhero in a cool costume taking center stage.

Gardner Fox writes all of the stories except for the character's first appearance in Tim Holt #11 and the two back-up strips in the first issue of the series proper. Dick Ayers does all of the interior art and some of the covers, arguably doing the best work of his career. He seriously cooks here!

This being sixty five years ago, there are some things that may offend the more politically correct modern day reader, such as Ghost Rider's partner (while in his civilian identity as Rex Fury) Sing-Song, an Asian stereotype, from the broken English, buck teeth, right on down to his vocation (doing laundry). People have to understand that things were different back when these comic books were originally published, and that while the portrayal of the character isn't the best he is treated respectfully and not as the comic relief that many stereotype sidekicks were during this era of comic books. Native Americans are also depicted in all of their “savage” glory, although it should be noted that it is nearly always the white man who is the villain in these stories.

While there is no real continuity from one story to the next and they are at times formulaic and predictable they are also all highly enjoyable. There are many times where I prefer escapist comic books like this to any “cerebral” comic books published today. If anything they seem more believable to me because they are not trying so hard to be smart.