Marvel’s Next Big Thing: GHOST RIDER #1 with Rob Williams

Today we took part in a press call with Marvel exclusive writer Rob Williams and artist Matt Clarke about the all new Ghost Rider series

It's all about giving up the ghost. 

Spinning out of Fear Itself, Johnny Blaze is offered a Faustian pact. He can shrug off the Ghost Rider monkey from his back, but in what Williams likens to a Twilight Zone twist, the catch is that the demon spirit will end up riding with another pour soul. 

While the Ghost Rider mantle was thrust upon Johnny Blaze after years of experience as a stunt rider (a nice coincidence, but certainly nothing he'd been planning for), this new character has trained for their entire life for this very role. 

Also worth noting? She's female. And she's a lot more dangerous. 

Williams considers the Spirit of Vengeance a sort of superhero weapon of mass destruction. This is shaping up to be a "screwed up Marvel version of Easy Rider." 

Matt Clarke explains that his realistic style makes it virtually impossible to fake his bike designs. Each of the Ghost Riders get their own heavily researched rides, whether it's a Honda, a Harley, or something else entirely. 

One of the female Ghost Rider's first encounters will involve Sin from Fear Itself (see preview below). Asked about Ghost Rider's fears as they pertain to this event, Williams says Blaze himself fears that he's at his lowest and will never achieve normalcy. As for the new Ghost Rider, she fears that which she also wants. Her entire life has led up to this point. Reaching this point has to be rife with mixed emotions. 

I asked whether we could expect more of the Ghost Rider history lessons that lent so much fun to Jason Aaron's celebrated run on the title. Williams agreed that seeing Tony Moore's depictions of a WWI flying ace imbued with the Spirit of Vengeance was an absolute joy, he's very focused on keep the learning curve nice and easy for new readers. 

Asked how the female Ghost Rider would be visually identified as female, Clarke replied. "Boobs." Though he did go on to explain that the flames would be a bit longer to represent a more feminine hairstyle. She has a rubber bodysuit too. 

I inquired about the scope of the book, given this image we all have of the character blazing trails across dusty southwestern American highways. How global a reach does the story have? Williams explained that he would be making full use of the character's ability to travel all over the place. The story opens in Nicaragua and eventually takes us to LA. He emphasizes the structure of the story as a big, globetrotting chase. Clarke agrees that the desert highways are to Ghost Rider as the Manhattan skyline is to Spider-Man. That said, he thrills to the juxtaposition of Ghost Rider in places like Japan, parked atop a whale. 

Regarding the new origin of Ghost Rider and its relation to previous iterations, Williams says, "It's the same Spirit of Vengeance, just with a new host." Where once the host was a stunt rider, it is now a dyed in the wool warrior. 

Oh, and the art? Enough to make a Hell's Angel go "Oooooh!"

                    

 

Look for Ghost Rider .1 in June and the all new #1 in July. 

Comments

  1. color me interested

  2. Wow that is some AWESOME art.

  3. Love Flame Head (now has that nickname since Johnny is gone). Can’t wait to have a dedicated book for him 😀

  4. Or her as the case may be

  5. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    I’m intrigued. Love the Faustian pact angle. It was described on the call as reminiscent of that class Box story, with Johnny given the choice of freeing himself with the caveat that another would suffer. The art looks absolutely tremendous. 

  6. Jason Aaron ended Ghost Rider for me.

  7. NICE artwork!! WOW – never really liked GR, but may give this a shot.

  8. Seems like ever since Hammer Lame the Rider’s mythos was screwed up. Then that horrible movie came out and suddenly his look and villians were all mixed up, the Blaze and Ketch villians were mixed up for no reason.
    While I was excited to see that we might be able to get away from all the garbage Way and Aaron forced on to Ghost Rider these last many years the one thing they apparenly haven’t fixed is the look.
    The Blaze Rider had it’s own distince look as did the Ketch Rider (the ONLY two Riders, all those other ones are stupid and don’t count) but it seems that now, especially in the wake of that lame movie, all Rider’s have to look like Ketch. Very stupid.
    It used to be each of the two different Rider’s had their own mythos and set of characters. Now it’s all a jumbled mess and makes no sense.

    I want to read a Ghost Rider comic again and love it. I’ve recently finished the Blaze series (for the 4th time) and now I’m working my way through the Ketch series again because I want to read good Ghost Rider stories. I will give this a chance but my excitement has weakened some after seeing this (although it was nice to see Blaze in HIS costume for a change)

  9. Oh Ghost Rider! You intense heavy metal character you! Great artwork up there. Is that the new Ghost Rider we’re seeing there in the drawings?

  10. I love Ghost Rider, but as an earlier poster said Jason Aaron effectively ended the Ghost Rider story for me.  I think this is where I walk away.

  11. “Easy Rider” must be the only ‘motorsickle’ story Williams ever heard of. I read nothing in that description even vaguely similar to Easy Rider.
    Unless Captain America is gonna be in this book?

  12. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    @DuncanIdunno  Hence the “screwed up” prefix. 

  13. @PaulMontgomery – 10-4! I’m just saying – put a vague qualifier like that in front of anything involving motorcycles.

    Screwed up version of…
    Wild Hogs
    Vanishing Point
    ChiPs
    Happy Days

    If that was your doing I apologize – it seems to me like Disney trying to cash in on the motorcycle outlaw craze of the day – even though Easy Rider was a total counterculture story!  

  14. @DuncanIdunno  How much money do you think “Disney” stands to reap from the potential winfall of possibly 40K copies of Ghost Rider on a good day?

    They make more money than that on Tow Mater lunch boxes. Your theory is a reach.

  15. Avatar photo Paul Montgomery (@fuzzytypewriter) says:

    @DuncanIdunno  I think you’re picking on a causal statement the man made about the book’s tone. I type as fast as I can, but I can’t transcribe the entire conference call with explicit descriptions of every intonation. He was talking about the long rides over the highway, the grand vistas. Life on the road. The invocation of Easy Rider seemed apt enough to me. If it was all he’d said, than sure, not the best tagline. But he said many other things about the book to describe the tone and scenario and I shared the most salient points here. 

  16. @josh  – I’m not thick enough to assume they’re keeping the lights on in Cinderella’s Castle through comic sales. But I guarantee you tying a product in with something already culturally established is planned for and designed to boost that 30K copies to the 40K you’re predicting.
    I have no problems with marketing ploys – I was commenting on the choice of material – why not use the obvious ‘Sons of Anarchy’?

  17. Well count me interested. I never was one for Ghost Rider before. Strange because I love motorcycles but for some reason I can’t get into the “desert trails and cross country touring American outlaw” feel of it. If they updated this new female Ghost Rider with a sweet new crotch rocket like a sick Gsxr Sixer I’d definitely check out a few issues.

    But how do you make a flaming head look sexy?

  18. Sounds kinda cool but please please do not put boobs on her while in the Ghost-Rider form. That would make no sense, she be the first women with bone tities,

  19. What I wanna know is why every superhero has a team or corps or cadre dedicated to them? Do we need multiple Riders?

  20. that art looks dope like a mix of ryan ottley and stuart immonen I may just have to pick up the first issue

  21. Liking the art and the “twilight zone twist” has piqued my interest. Might wait to see what people say. My eye is on the new Punisher with Rucka, I haven’t seen any art on that though, which may make or break it for me.

  22. So we’re going to have three Ghost Riders just like we have three Flashes?

  23. Matt Clarke’s art has officially sold me on this book & the storyline sounds very promising. In reply to one of the comments made earlier, I too very much loved Jason Aaron’s awesome & pretty much definitive run on Ghost Rider, but I really need some mor Ghost Rider, I just love the character too much. So for any Aaron fans who feel they don’t need to pick this up b/c the perfect Ghost Rider story has been told, let me just say that there are still possibilities for more awesome stories & that is well worth me picking up this series IMO.

  24. Rob williems is geting a lot of marvel work he seems to be a writer on the come just one ? Who is he and how has he gotten all this xscusive work he’s taken over one of my fav books daken so ill be wacthing him