Issue(s): Ghost Rider #57
Cover Date: Jun 81
Title: "Where walks... the Apparition!"
Credits:
Michael Fleisher - Writer
Jim Shooter - Layouts
Don Perlin - Finishes
Lance Tooks - Assistant Editor
David Anthony Kraft - Editor

Review/plot:
In the last Ghost Rider entry i made a big deal about the fact that the book was turning towards a more super-hero oriented direction, with guest stars and super-villains. So i now have to cop to the fact that this issue has none of that, and would not have been out of place as a story printed a year earlier in Ghost Rider's run. But we'll get back to the super-villains soon enough (next issue, in fact). However, i also mentioned in the last entry that Ghost Rider's rogues gallery is pretty limited, and this issue may have been an attempt to add to that. The plot is a standard ghost story, but the ghost in question is given a proper super-villain name, "The Apparition" (granted, not a very good one), and the story is designed to make sure that he has an appropriately supervillain-ish costume.

The fact that he never appears again probably has more to do with the fact that he's incredibly lame than him being intended as a one-off villain. I could see a ghost character as a regular villain for Ghost Rider (especially one that was a former stunt motorcyclist with the civilian name "Shocks Marley"!).

Johnny Blaze, meanwhile, has gotten a job with the people that the Apparition wants vengeance on...

...so he has to transform into Ghost Rider to protect them.

And for once that doesn't result in his new girlfriend, Nora, leaving him.

But the Apparition does wind up killing her.

Ghost Rider subsequently kills the Apparition.

But hey, he's a ghost, so it's not like he couldn't have come back.

Don't worry. With next issue we're back to lame super-villains that have managed to stick around.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Flagg Fargo is seen briefly on television but i don't know if it's a live broadcast so i haven't listed him as a Character Appearing.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Ghost Rider vol. 3

David Kraft stated in Comics Interview #78 that editing this book was his worst experience at Marvel.