Featuring: Ghost Rider
Release: October 14, 1949
10 cents
Dick Ayers
6 pages
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When the Calico Kid went to his doom in the swirling, surging waters of the Devil’s Sink, Badman Bart Lasher laughed an evil laugh… then out of the realm of death came– the Ghost Rider!
Last week I thought it would be a funny April Fool’s joke to read a Marvel comic from 1975 at random when we are still in 1967. Now I think we should read a non-Marvel comic from 1949 and call it part of our Marvel reading. But this time I’m serious.
Magazine Enterprises was a comic publisher from the 1940s and ’50s. This series features Tim Holt, “Cowboy star of the movies”. Tim Holt was a popular actor of the era, who starred in a number of cowboy films: Robbers of the Range, The Bandit Trail, Riding the Wind, etc. And had some roles in acclaimed films like Treasure of the Sierra Madre or My Darling Clementine.
Several movies costarred Richard Martin as Chito Rafferty, in the role of the sidekick to Holt’s character.
The comic features Tim Holt as himself, but not as himself the 1940s actor, but as Tim Holt the 19th century western hero. Chito is his sidekick.
As noted above, this comic was not published by Marvel and Tim Holt has nothing to do with Marvel. Yet here it is in our Marvel reading.
The second story in this particular issue will have some connection to Marvel. The artist is Dick Ayers, who has been drawing Sgt. Fury as well as several of Marvel’s western comics, so there’s already a connection.
And some readers may recognise the name Ghost Rider. We’ll talk more about the connections to Marvel soon. For the moment let’s read this story.
I don’t see a date on the cover. Dick Ayers has signed the issue. The GCD credits the script to Ray Krank based on an interview with Ayers from 2001.
The Calico Kid and his partner Sing-Song and horse Ebony had been introduced in Tim Holt #6.
We won’t dwell on to what extent Sing-Song is a racist caricature of a Chinese person.
The Calico Kid seems to be a coward. But when danger threatens he changes his outfit and takes the hat off his horse and proves himself to be quite the gunslinger.
In this issue, we will learn that Calico Kid was always an alias, and he’s really federal marshal Rex Fury.
The Kid’s stagecoach is raided by Indians. We again won’t reflect on to what extent these are racist caricatures of Native Americans.
Unfortunately, the horse Ebony is killed in the raid.
Their leader is a white man dressed like an Indian, Badman Bart Lasher. He recognizes the Calico Kid as Rex Fury.
Fury and Sing-Song are thrown into a whirlpool and killed.
Or are they?
Raiding a widow’s land, Lasher is beset by what appears to be the ghost of Rex Fury.
Rex Fury and Sing-Song live, but Fury now dresses in white and goes by Ghost Rider.
In his second appearance, Ghost Rider will adopt a face mask.
Which will become a fuller face mask that will mostly stick in the following issue.
I’m somewhat concerned that a figure dressed in white and wearing a hood actually evokes some very non-heroic figures from American history.
Over the next half-decade, Ghost Rider will appear in several issues of Tim Holt as well as his own title, all illustrated by Ayers, well over a hundred stories in total.
In the interview mentioned above, Ayers offers that some notes from ME publisher Vin Sullivan went into creating Ghost Rider. Inspiration came from Disney’s Headless Horseman and the Vaughn Monroe song, Ghost Riders in the Sky.
However, note that interview was conducted over 50 years later, and people’s memories are imperfect. Disney’s Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad got its first releases the same month this comic came out and wasn’t widely released in cinemas until the following year. So it’s unlikely an inspiration.
The song is plausible. Vaugn Monroe’s version charted in April of that year and this comic came out in October, six months later. So that is enough time to hear the song and go make this comic.
Ghost Rider was canceled because the Comics Code deemed the character inappropriate for some reason. Perhaps it was too close to being a horror comic.
Eventually Magazine Enterprises will fold, and Dick Ayers will find work with Marvel.
Rating: ★★½, 45/100
You can read this comic for free on Comicbook Plus.
Characters:
- Calico Kid/Rex Fury/Ghost Rider
- Sing-Song
- Ebony
- Badman Bart Lasher
- Ames
- Jim
Story notes:
- Calico Kid and sidekick Sing-Song riding a stagecoach attacked by Indians.
- Ebony the horse is killed.
- Calco Kid blames the “red devils” going crazy on the “firewater”.
- Lasher seems to be a white man who has gone native.
- The Calico Kid is revealed as Rex Fury, federal marshal.
- Devil’s Sink involves waterfall and whirlpool where Lasher throws the Kid and Sing-Song. They survive the fall and end up in a cave.
- Lasher plans to raid the widow Ames.
- Ames and her son Jim defend the land.
- Lasher’s raid interrupted by the apparent ghost of Rex Fury.
- Lasher falls off his horse and is impaled on a broken wheel spike.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Sgt. Fury #38 | Reading order | Ghost Rider #1 |
