Before I started this blog and took on the seemingly impossible task of reviewing every single 616-Universe comic book, I didn’t realize the Gary Friedrich was a creator on the Western Ghost Rider before coming up with the better-known, flaming-skull, bike-riding version of the character.
I’m not going to waste a lot of posts on this book, but it needs to be mentioned since the Ghost Rider character will reappear in the future–and he’ll try to rape Mockingbird. So he’s kind of important.
Issue #1 starts with a family being killed by some white bad guys pretending to be Indians.
The white man above is Carter Slade. He’s actually a friend to the Native Americans, and he saves the only survivor of the family, a young boy.
The tribe tells Carter he is the incarnation of a great warrior, who will avenge injustice.
And he can make parts of his body disappear.
The kid becomes his sidekick and they have a bunch of forgettable adventures in the wild West.
Like his successor, this version of Ghost Rider has a cool look but his stories are largely mediocre affairs.
The book was cancelled in the middle of a story. Issue #7 was the last one, and it ended with a cliffhanger. Here’s the final panels:
Good concept, decently executed, but ultimately the stories are forgettable–even if the character is memorable.
Considering how “down” the Red Man has always been on the White Man- and with good reason- it’s peculiar to me why “Flaming Star” would even choose a white man at all to be his people’s sacred champion. That’s a lot of power to be just forking over to guy whose entire race worked so hard to subjugate his own race. As for sidekick Jamie Jacobs- ( another oddly out-of-place white person ) for a kid who was created in 1966, to supposedly have lived in 1866, his hairstyle certainly looks very 1976! What’s up with that-?? As for the ‘Ghost Rider/Mockingbird’ uh, “affair”- my understanding of the situation is that Slade’s assault on Mockie was successful, not merely “attempted”, as the above review states, which is why Mrs. Barton felt the need to, literally, bump him off! ( that cliff! ) ” ‘Veangence’!!! Cried the Mockingbird!!”