Comic Book Superhero Store - Essential Ghost Rider, Vol. 1 (Marvel Essentials)

	List Price: $16.99 Our Price: $11.55 Your Save: $ 5.44 ( 32% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Manufacturer: Marvel Comics
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973 EAN: 9780785118381 ISBN: 0785118381 Label: Marvel Comics Manufacturer: Marvel Comics Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 560 Publication Date: 2005-10-19 Publisher: Marvel Comics Reading Level: Young Adult Studio: Marvel Comics
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Editorial Reviews: When orphaned stunt-show star Johnny Blaze discovers his adoptive father Crash Simpson is dying of a rare blood disease, he barters his immortal soul for a miracle cure. The trade-off ultimately leaves him bound to the demon Zarathos, and their melding of spirits would manifest itself every night in the form of Ghost Rider, the most supernatural super-hero of all! Collects Marvel Spotlight #5-12, Ghost Rider #1-20 and Daredevil #138.
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Just Getting Warmed Up Comment: Ghost Rider battles Satan, the ultimate adversary, who unfortunately comes across as a stereotypical, almost comically inept supervillian. A necessary look at the character's origins, but it only got better from here. Customer Rating: Summary: Graphic SF Reader Comment: Demonic biker boys, and cheesy super bad guys. As much fun as I remembered, with some early looks at quite a few of Marvel's supernatural type characters. You meet Daimon Hellstromm, the Son of Satan, the Witch, and others. Flaming skull head guys are cool, comics artists have worked this out as now there are several of them. Customer Rating: Summary: Great Comic, Bad Reprint Comment: I purchased this item to relive some of my younger years after I saw they made a Ghost Rider movie. I remeber reading the comics that my older brother had bought when he was young and while I love the comic, the "Essentals" presentation is horrible! It's BLACK and WHITE! Now I have nothing against gray scale comics I own and enjoy several, but Ghost Rider was orignaly in COLOR! Transfering it to black and white make a lot of the artwork look just plain bad and you lose the original intestiy of the comic, is Ghost Rider's head on fire or is it emenating a gas? The paper they choose to print this on is also of poor quality, I've seen flyers stuck under my windshield wiper of better quality. If you haven't read any Ghost Rider and you want to find out the orignal storyline by all means pick it up it's only $12 and it does have all the comics including the spotlights where Ghost Rider orignaly appeared. I hope in the future Marvel will release Ghost Rider in it's original color and maybe on paper that is not better suited for the restroom than a book. Customer Rating: Summary: Early days of Ghost Rider, but not entirely essential Comment: Ghost Rider was one of many Marvel characters created in the 70's that has been much maligned in terms of his origin, status, and overall how he's been written. Essential Ghost Rider suffers from the same problems that are apparent in many of Marvel's Essential books: this contains early visions of the character, but the stories themselves are not entirely essential. Essential Ghost Rider begins with motorcycle stunt performer Johnny Blaze making a deal with the demon Mephisto to save the life of his stepfather Crash, and in return, Blaze offers up his soul. However, as these things tend to go, the deal turns sour, and Blaze ends up being bonded to the demon Zarathos; transforming him into the flaming skull-headed spirit of vengeance known as Ghost Rider. All this is told in the opening Marvel Spotlight issues, which are the best to be found in this collection and feature the excellent art by Mike Ploog, who helped give Ghost Rider his awesome, trademark look. However, after we get to Ghost Rider's own issues, the book becomes wildly inconsistent and convoluted as a revolving door of writers (including Mike Friedrich, Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench, Gerry Conway, and Jim Shooter among others) all attempt to do their own thing, while trying to insert cameos and guest spots from top tier Marvel characters like Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Daredevil. Not to mention that the book has a mix of heroic and horror moments as well that only works occasionally. That being said, Essential Ghost Rider is worth checking out for fans who want to see just where the character got his start, but don't expect anything prolific, or "essential" for that matter. Customer Rating: Summary: Old comics, poor quality Comment: All of the Marvel "Essential" books/TPBs collect 'old' (60's,70's) comics. Each collection reprints a lot of comics into one volume for a reasonable price; however, they are all in black and white, on cheap newsprint, and bound poorly. If you are into the older comics these collections might be for you; but personally I was very disappointed. More Reviews

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