Marvel Masterworks 5: Ghost Rider

Collects Ghost Rider (1973) #51-62. The Marvel Masterworks are on the highway to hell with the original demon biker, the Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze - and we wouldn't have it any other way! In our fifth installment of GHOST RIDER classics - restored and reprinted in color for the first time ever - the supernatural side of the Marvel Universe is coming out of the dark! The spirit of big-rig trucker Clem Barstow does not share the road. And the first appearance of Asmodeus might mean the last appearance for GR! Meanwhile, the Tatterdemalion mixes it up with Werewolf by Night, and Moondark casts a spell that brings in the cavalry with the Night Rider! And, no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you: The Orb is back!

Michael Fleisher notched an indelible place in comics history in 1974, writing a series of Spectre stories that were some of the most graphically violent tales ever published at the time. During that time, Fleisher also collaborated with Steve Ditko on Shade the Changing Man, an offbeat hero bearing a reality-altering M-Vest.

A creative stalwart that put his all into his work on long-running series like Ghost Rider and Defenders, Don Perlin plied his talents in virtually every discipline in the comic-book field — penciling, inking, creating new characters and sometimes editing and writing. A student of Burne Hogarth’s, Perlin launched his career in 1951, drawing horror comics for various publishers and also penciling Will Eisner’s The Spirit. After serving in the Army, Perlin returned to comics with Harvey in the late ’50s as well as Charlton in the ’60s. In 1973, he began his long association with Marvel, finishing John Buscema’s art on Thor and inking several titles. He took over Werewolf by Night from Mike Ploog, penciling and inking the book for much of the next two years. He also penciled and inked the supernatural adventures of Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider, his name becoming very closely identified with Marvel’s monster biker. In the ’80s, he drew Defenders for a long run before turning his attention to Marvel’s adaptation of Hasbro’s Transformers. His early ’90s work on Valiant’s Solar, Man of the Atom and Bloodshot was extremely popular, after which Perlin went into semiretirement.