Ghost Rider has been a Marvel Comics superhero since the seventies. The company brought out a lot of supernatural heroes in those days. Werewolf By Night, Dracula, The Monster of Frankenstein, Son of Satan, Man-Thing (although he wasn’t truly supernatural at first but the adventures tended toward that later), and others.

But there was something special about Johnny Blaze, the young motorcycle daredevil who sold his soul to save the life of another and was betrayed in that bargain. Ghost Rider became a supernatural force constantly at war, caught between the pull of good and evil inside himself. That was the part of the story that really caught my attention. A classic kind of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde character but one that wore biker leathers and rode a flaming Harley. My little adolescent mind seized on that, and still hasn’t let go of it all these years later.

Ghost Rider broke out of the pages of Marvel Spotlight and grabbed his own title magazine, which lasted for 10 years or so, with sporadic frequencies. Johnny Blaze's character and the nature of Ghost Rider went through a lot of retconning. He tended toward the supernatural for a while, hit the superhero phase, then crossed back into the supernatural theme again.

Later, during the second run of Ghost Rider (Volume 2), Danny Ketch took on the mantle of the Spirit of Vengeance. Soon, readers discovered that Ketch was Johnny Blaze’s brother. All in all, Ghost Rider has been through a lot of changes and reinvention.

Greg Cox's book Ghost Rider is a novelization of the movie coming out in February, and I was torn between waiting to be surprised with the film or reading the book. I passed the book by twice, then picked it up and read it in two sittings. Ghost Rider was one of my favorite characters because he looked so cool, and I rode a motorcycle for a while. The character has instant appeal for guys, and women seem to dig him too because Johnny Blaze is the quintessential bad boy.

The book/movie is basically a re-envisioning of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider's origin, and it sets the stage for a franchise of films, ala Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra and Fantastic Four. Ghost Rider follows some of the retconning done in comics, like Johnny’s relationship with his father, Barton Blaze, and progresses from that spin. Of course, there's a girl in the movie version: Roxanne Simpson, the daughter of the circus owner where the Blazes performed their death-defying motorcycle stunts. Johnny loved her and had plans to flee the circus with her.