He began life in the late 1940s as
The Calico Kid, a masked hero whose secret identity was a lawman who felt justice was constrained by legal limitations. (There were a
lot of those heroes in comics and pulps of the 40s including our own
DareDevil and
Blue Beetle!)
But, with masked heroes in
every genre doing a slow fade-out after World War II, and both the western
and horror genres on the rise, the character was re-imagined in 1949 as comics' first horror / western character!
The Ghost Rider himself was
not a supernatural being.
He wore a phosphorescent suit and cape, making him glow in the dark, appearing as a spectral presence to the (mostly) superstitious cowboys and Indians he faced.
Since the inside of the cape was black, he'd reverse it, and appear in the dark as just a floating head, usually scaring a confession or needed information out of owlhoots.
Note: some covers, like the one here, show the inside of the cape to be
white! Chalk it up to artistic license (and face it, it looks damned cool).
BTW, the artistically-astute among you can tell that cover
was by the legendary
Frank Frazetta!
He did several of them,
three of which are included in our
collection!
In the series' early days the villains were standard owlhoots or, like
the Rider, people
pretending to be supernatural beings.
That changed around 1952, when he started facing
real mystic menaces including Indian spirits, vampires, and even the
Frankenstein Monster (though
not the
one from Prize Comics.)
Unfortunately, it was about this point in time that Dr. Wertham began his crusade against comics in general and horror comics in particular...
By 1954,
the Ghost Rider had lost his series. The next year he disappeared entirely.
But, over 50 years later,
Atomic Kommie Comics™ brought him back, digitally-restored and remastered on a host of kool kollectibles to go with our other
masked Western heroes including
The Lone Rider,
The Red Mask,
The Black Phantom, and
The Masked Ranger.
If you're a fan of horror, masked heroes, Westerns, or all three genres, take a long, lingering look at
The Ghost Rider!
You'll not see his like again!
Lynn Whitfield
