movie news : Ghost Rider - Biker's Beloved or Philosopher's Pet?

I see today that they're making a Ghost Rider movie. I discovered Ghost Rider when I was about thirteen years old, at my regular haunt, Collector's Comics of Wantagh, New York. I was a late bloomer to comic books, having been introduced to them by my D&D buddy, Marc Koenig. Like most things new in my life, I quickly became hooked and soon after, obsessed. I started small, with X-Men, Daredevil, and Thor. Oh, and I was lucky enough to be there for the Wolverine miniseries. The X-Men were about to embark on their second fight with the Brood, Daredevil was looking for direction after his lover had died, and I can't remember what was happening to poor Thor. What I do remember, though, was that crossovers got me to buy more books, and if I bought an issue I bought into the series. I was a Marvel man all the way, and they played me like a fiddle. At sixty cents an ish, I was soon spending twenty bucks a week and was a member of the discount club, adding to the savings I got by preordering my subscriptions. One of those that I ordered was Ghost Rider, the continuing story of the much-cursed Johnny Blaze, host to a demon motorcyclist.

Now a tale about a demonic motorcycle rider might seem like it's only appealing to tattoo artists and Harley salesmen, and perhaps tasteless teenagers, and that probably isn't that far off. Ghost Rider created solid objects out of Hellfire™ and spouted no small amount of preachy stuff about punishing the guilty, and all-in-all came off as a strange hybrid of Green Lantern and Captain America. However, after I went off to college and had no money for comics they retooled his character, making it less dependent on supernatural solids and moreso on his chain and "Penance Stare," whatever that is. I can't say I'm an expert on this character anymore, but I can say that the movie version looks really, really cool.

So why am I interested? Why don't I ever see issues of Ghost Rider laying in the waiting rooms of tattoo studios? Is Ghost Rider actually a multilayered allegory of truth and consequence, cause and effect, the dark nature within each of us? Is the carnival background of the oh-so-aptly-named Johnny Blaze a commentary of the estrangement that increases daily in our society, and the growing fear of the "other" that bears down on us? Given its original writing, would that "other" have once been Communist, and now have been transmogrified into the Islamist terrorists all over the news? And what of the motorcycle aspect? Man becoming his own worst nightmare by embracing technology? Pushing the limits of danger to finally push past the fear of death? Are these the deep, weighty issues that attract us to this much-misunderstood anti-hero?

Or is it that flames, motorcycles, and skulls go really well together?

Terence P Ward expresses much of his observations about the world through the written word, spoken word, visual media . . . well, any way he damned well pleases. Most of what he's responsible for can be found at, or through, http://otherlleft.com

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