Issue(s): Ghost Rider #53
Cover Date: Feb 81
Title: "The she-witch of doom!"
Credits:
Michael Fleisher - Writer
Don Perlin - Penciler
Don Perlin - Inker
Mark Gruenwald - Assistant Editor
Denny O'Neil - Editor

Review/plot:
We've seen in the past couple of years of this series that Johnny Blaze has an uncanny knack of hitting it off with the ladies, and that turns out to be the thing that saves him this issue. A demon named Azmodeus decides he wants to control Johnny's Ghost Rider demon, so he sends a witch in his employ named Tabicantra to go to Earth to subdue him.

She has until the souls in his "netherglass" reach the bottom to do it.

The "nomad" that Azmodeus refers to is of course Johnny Blaze. Azmodeus knows that he can't just kill Johnny because the demon will lose power if they are separated.

You'll notice Tabicantra is already starting to be intrigued by Johnny's looks. Johnny, on the other hand, is just as likely to find a motor vehicle sexy as he is a person.

But he does notice Tabicantra too.

Without Johnny realizing it, Tabicantra causes a series of accidents or attacks that force Johnny to change into Ghost Rider form, and each time he has a harder and harder time of changing back.

Tabicantra, meanwhile, continues to succumb to Johnny's magnetism.

And eventually she warns and then prevents him from turning into Ghost Rider in what would have been the final time.

She expends her final life energy fighting off Azmodeus' demons until the netherglass runs out.

Johnny wakes up and shows basically the minimum required amount of sadness about Tabicantra's disappearance before half-shrugging the whole experience off as a dream.

Ah, to be young and handsome and have random women sacrificing their lives for you just because you're hawt.

It's unclear if Tabicantra is a human witch or something else. She's called a "witch" here, and Azmodeus will refer to her as a "she-witch" in his next appearance. She doesn't appear again.

The demon's name in this story is spelled "Azmodeus" in both this and his next appearance, but it will be spelled "Asmodeus" in his third and final appearance. In the Characters Appearing section, i'm keeping the spelling with the Z to distinguish him from the Sons of Satannish cultist and any other demons with the seemingly common name (such as the one in Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2, although i suppose it could be the same demon).

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations:

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Ghost Rider vol. 3

"Ah, to be young and handsome and have random women sacrificing their lives for you just because you're hawt."

Trust me, it's difficult.

The visual look of the netherglass is awesome! I love these types of embellishments that you can only provide in stories with a visual component. Words just don't do it justice.

It's too bad they didn't make the netherglass the focal point of the cover. As it is, it's so obscured by the foreground characters that the impact is lost. But then again, maybe a prominently displayed netherglass would have been too much for the Comics Code of 1980.