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In case it isn’t clear yet, pretty much all my pre-written
work for this week is going to be based around the upcoming release of Ghostbusters. That’s just the nature of things when you prepare work this
far in advance, you end up needing to base it on big, telegraphed events rather
than reacting to the news of the day.
In any event: Ghosts.
Ghosts are all over comics, going all the way back to before superheroes
became a dominant genre of the medium in the 1940s. So, given that and the fact the Ghostbusters aren’t really
comic book characters and I didn’t want to cheat and do an article about them,
this is a look at the various ghostly characters in comics throughout the ages.
Just for the record there are going to be a lot of giggles
on this entry when it comes to why the Grim Ghost is so memory holed and
disliked now. Real name Keith
Everet, he was an Irish lord killed by brigands only to return from the grave
to fight injustice, more specifically he fights a group of Nazi saboteurs in
the 1940s who are trying to set-up shop in his ancestral castle.
For context, this story came out in 1942 in the pages of Sensation Comics, back before DC Comics
was even a thing that existed.
With a lot of characters of this era, Grim Ghost was a bizarre amalgam
of adventure fiction and genre elements fused together and forced under the
superhero umbrella more by the happenstance of creation than actually fitting
the style of the character.
The big reason this guy never came back in any other DC
era, even though a fencing Irish ghost seems like exactly the kind of thing
superhero comics would want, was because he was initially named the Gay Ghost,
which at the time just meant happy not homosexual as he was decidedly
straight. Even though he was later
renamed I don’t think that particular ignominy is something you can really live
down, especially when you’re already a Q-list character like Lord Everet was.
He did very briefly return in the pages of Grant Morrison’s
Animal Man and Final Crisis: Superman Beyond. In these books Morrison introduced the idea of Limbo
as a place for old comic characters that had been excised from comic continuity
and collective memory by disinterest.
Folks like the Inferior Five, Ace the Bat-Hound, Hardhat, and the Grim
Ghost himself populate the shores of oblivion in a dimension made of all the
stuff the world of comics decided to throw away, and for context comics have
kept folks like Crazy Quilt and Kite-Man around even today.
Another forgotten character who eventually ended up lumped
in with a bunch of other heroes excised from continuity, the only difference is
that this guy ended up awesome.
So, in the 1970s DC was cranking out all kinds of weird genre
experiments in an attempt to maintain their relevance after a decade of Marvel
chipping away at their market share.
This led to a bunch of horror books, western books, and
fantasy books. One such instance
of this came from a series of back-up published in Action Comics in 1973 starring a native of the Island Caribs
adopting a pirate identity as Captain Fear to fight the invading Spanish. Given that origin I’m actually
surprised Captain Fear hasn’t gotten more attention now but at the time he was
met with apathy and quietly faded away, then things got weird.
In 2006, DC put out a mini-series called Tales of the Unexpected. That comic had its own back-up feature
surrounding Dr. Terry Thirteen, a skeptic and ghost breaker of the DC universe,
making his way through a journey of self and encountering all manner of fellow
characters excised from continuity and among them was Captain Fear.
The difference was that this Captain Fear was a
swashbuckling ghost with a floating spectral pirate ship. It’s a dynamite concept I really wish
we could’ve seen more of and was a real highlight of the comic, and this is a
comic with a lot of great elements.
Given that several other characters from this series eventually made it
back to the main stream like I…Vampire, Anthro, and Traci Thirteen I’m still
shocked Captain Fear and his ghost pirate ship never got another chance.
Ugh, this guy.
Back in the ‘40s it wasn’t just the superhero that existed as a bizarre
and nebulous concept but also the super villain so a lot of early villains
ended up informed more by horror tropes than anything else. Solomon Grundy is an undead monster
like Frankenstein, Ragdoll and the Dummy were living toy monsters, the Joker
was an evil clown, and Gentleman Ghost was a Victorian specter. That’s a decent basic hook for a bad
guy but for some reason future writers could never just let this character be
and have forced so many different re-imaginings and new versions through it’s
just incredibly taxing at this point.
Originally, Gentleman Ghost was the ghost of a Victorian
highwayman named Gentleman Jim Craddock come back to continue his bad doings
upon the living. He had a pretty
good run in this form tormenting Hawkman and the Justice Society but somewhere
along the line authors started to wonder why a ghost needs possessions. It’s a fair point and they ended up
working through a ton of different explanations, from ancient Irish
reincarnation curse to making him into some kind of weird sex demo. It’s all painfully circuitous and none
of the various answers ever proved terribly interesting.
What’s more, Gentleman Ghost himself really lacks a lot in
the way of cool ghost powers. He
can turn intangible but, like a lot of Hawkman villains, his powers are more
about avoiding conflict than actually doing anything cool. Maybe someone will come along
eventually and make Gentleman Ghost a worthwhile figure but I wouldn’t hold my
breath on that.
Hey, look at that, a non-DC/Marvel character, that’s a
rarity in this column. Johann
Kraus hails from Dark Horse Comics, specifically coming from the vast
supernatural mythos surrounding Mike Mignola’s breakout character Hellboy. In the wake of Hellboy’s success
Mignola started filling up his universe with a ton of other supernatural beings
like the fish-man Abe Sapien, pyro-kinetic Liz Sherman, Roger the Homunculus,
and Johann.
Johann’s deal is that he was a spiritual medium, and
because this is comics that means he could actually project his spirit out of
his body in ectoplasmic form to commune with the dead. Unfortunately for him, his body was destroyed
during one of his séances and he was left trapped as a being of ectoplasm
without corporeal form. Unable to
pass on as he hadn’t actually died, he sought out the Bureau for Paranormal
Research and Defense and they made him a containment suit that he possessed
with his ectoplasmic spirit.
It’s a delightfully horror-punk concept for a character and
a really unique design for a supernatural government agent. Johann’s suit allows him to slowly vent
his ectoplasm so as to posses various objects and dead bodies, all of which
makes him one of the most powerful people in the entire Hellboy/BPRD
continuity. What’s more, the
writing always did a good job playing up how the inhumanity of his situation
served to dehumanize his identity.
As the books went on, Johann became more and more detached from the
world of the living as his immortal nature left him the sole survivor of battle
after battle where all his comrades were killed. It’s a great combination of high concept and human drama
that serves to create a character arc of tragedy and fading humanity that is
undoubtedly a ghost story.
Remember how I mentioned early super villains were heavily
informed by horror tropes? Well,
that didn’t end in the ‘40s as even today a lot of villains end up revamped
version of horror concepts and nowhere is that more true than in the rogues
gallery of Batman. This leads me
to one of my all-time favorite Batman foes: Samsara.
Samsara is such a creepy and hardcore character concept I’m
legitimately shocked he’s been so thoroughly forgotten by comics at large,
especially in the wake of Batman books getting harsher and more brutal. His set-up is that he was a little kid
who died in a car crash waiting for Batman to come save him. Enraged by hero’s failure he returned
as a vengeful ghost made of hatred with the power to possess the bodies of the
recently deceased.
That’s an incredibly cruel and uncompromising approach for
a Batman villain but it also dives into a ton of great Bat mythos elements that
are often overlooked. The basic
idea of Batman having fans among the youth is a pretty cool notion I’ve rarely
seen explored and coupling it with a focus on all the people Batman can’t or
doesn’t save is a really clever combination. What’s more, diving head first into the creepy,
horror/supernatural stuff is something I desperately wish more Batman authors
would do as those are some of his most rewarding genre elements.
I think part of the reason so few authors are willing to
come back to Samsara as a villain concept is that dead kids are a pretty
tasteless story point but it’s really not that removed from a lot of Batman’s
other foes. I mean, most folks
love The Killing Joke and that book
turned Joker into a rapist, I think we can look the other way on the ghost of a
child who died in a car accident.
Honestly, the tragic senselessness of Samsara’s death and his violent
defiance of the afterlife fit perfectly with a lot of other Bat foes origin
like Mr. Freeze or Clayface.
In 2004, the age of DC hegemony had come to a pretty
spectacular conclusion. After 6
years with DC ruling the roost Marvel had returned from bankruptcy with a whole
slate of new, mature comics and a triple threat of blockbuster films in Blade, X-Men, and Spider-Man. Desperate
to try and counter Marvel’s return, DC started work on their own mature
stories, the starting point of which was called Identity Crisis.
It
was a murder mystery comic where long time supporting character and wife of
Elongated Man Sue Dibny was murdered.
In one of the subsequent series that comic inspired, 52, Elongated Man Ralph Dibny ended up
dead himself only for both he and his wife to return to life as a pair of ghost
detectives.
From the outside this seems like a good idea. The Dibny’s were beloved characters but
the presence of Plastic Man as a more popular stretchy hero kept them from
really being unique successes of the modern era. Ditching Elongated Man’s stretch powers but keeping their
husband and wife relationship was a good idea and “ghost detectives” is a
pretty solid set-up for a comic.
The problem was that comic never materialized. For whatever reason, the Dibnys never got a series out of
the deal and only appeared in a handful of future comics, usually in brief
cameo roles. I honestly don’t know
why this happened given that ‘husband and wife solve mysteries as ghosts’ is a
great premise but for whatever reason I guess DC just really didn’t want these
characters around anymore.
In 1967, DC was already gearing up for the slew of new genre
book they’d go on to put out in the ‘70s.
This was still a time of free experimentation from the people at DC as
they tried to continue expanding their brand to tap new markets. While there were some war and comedy
comics put out by DC at the time their main source of experimentation in the
‘60s was new, weird superheroes like Metamorpho or the Metal Men. So, in the late ‘60s when they were
moving towards horror and fantasy books DC ended up working to fuse the various
genres together, which is how we get characters like Deadman.
Deadman is the quintessential ghost superhero, fitting
pretty much all of the elements you’d expect from him. Real name Boston Brand, he was an
acrobat who was shot dead by an assassin and came back to life with the power
to possess the living. His initial
task was to hunt down his own killer and bring him to justice but after
accomplishing that he stuck around the world of the living as a restless ghost
and crimefighter when it suited him.
Of all these ghost characters Deadman is the perennial
favorite of comic nerds everywhere, to the point that he’s even been
grandfathered into the Batman mythos, the gold standard of comic nerd
love. If you’re wondering how a
colorful ghost fits into Batman’s mythology it’s through Brand’s position as a
circus acrobat and the idea that he had been on friendly terms with the Flying Graysons
prior to his death. Later, this
connection led to the idea that Brand’s killer was tied to a group called “the
seven men of death,” an order of deadly assassin’s employed by Ras Al Ghul
through the Sensi, Ras’ dad (it’s complicated and unrewarding.)
As for why Deadman is so beloved a lot of that has to do
with his character. Rather than
being mopey about being dead he actually just seems genuinely psyched to be a
ghost, meeting the situation with a think Boston accent and a comical shrug at
his situation. It’s a real “oh
well, might as well crimefight” type attitude that’s thoroughly emblematic of a
lot of similar superheroes of the time backed up by an abrasive but amiable
nature in the vein of Marvel’s The Thing.
Bet you didn’t know Space Ghost was a comic book character
huh? This is because WB eventually
purchased Hanna-Barbera and went on to produce a number of comics adapted out
of their material while also licensing some of the material to other publishers
like Dynamite Comics and Archie Comics.
Space Ghost has enjoyed numerous comic adaptations across the two and,
most recently, appeared as a major character in DC’s new line of Hanna-Barbera
comics. His role is in the science
fantasy space opera adventure comic Future
Quest, which seeks to mash-up a whole ton of HB characters like Johnny
Quest, Birdman, the Herculoids, and Space Ghost himself.
If you’re not familiar with him, Space Ghost was one of
several superhero characters Hanna-Barbera put together in the mid ‘60s. This was right around the same time HB
was handling Marvel’s Fantastic Four
and Spider-Man animated shows and, in
the process, pretty much invented all the tropes and tricks of adapting
superheroes to animation.
Seriously, everything that came to dominate this genre in the decades to
come started with what Hanna-Barbera was doing in the mid ‘60s and Space Ghost
was their way of taking everything they learned on the Marvel shows and
implementing it with their own hero.
As for Space Ghost, he’s basically just a traveling space
hero with the ability to fly in space, turn invisible/intangible, and project
energy blasts. He’s from the ghost
planet where everyone can do this and would tool around the universe protecting
people and fighting monsters and villains. That’s the classic form of the character but in more recent
years he was revamped into Space Ghost:
Coast to Coast, an amazing series I’ll have to review in full one day. Coast
to Coast was a weird blend of surrealist comedy and spoof comedy that
featured Space Ghost hosting a bizarre and insane talk show with real
celebrities. You wouldn’t think it
but that version of Space Ghost also got a comic adaptation that I am now
desperate to obtain.
And one more indie comics character to finish off the
list. This is Ghost and she’s
actually one of the first comic characters I ever reviewed when I started doing
text review for Front Towards Gamer back in 2013. She’s another Dark Horse character who emerged in the ‘90s
on the heals of the urban fantasy craze kicked off by hits like The Crow,
Spawn, and Ghost Rider.
She’s a
Chicago native who was kidnapped by a group of demons masquerading as people
and using a weird science box to pull demons from hell up into the world of the
living. When the demons tried to
pull that process on her, exchanging her soul with the spirit of a demon,
something went wrong and she became physically trapped between the material
plane and the afterlife. Now
possessed of ghostly powers of flight and density control she defends Chicago
demonic forces.
Ghost is easily one of the most bad ass women superheroes
and honestly deserves way more notoriety than she gets. Her mythos is steeped in horror
iconography and great, creepy visuals with hints of super heroic tropes that
make for a thoroughly unique and dynamic palette. If you loved Ghost Rider or Spawn you should definitely
check her out. Her biggest break
into the mainstream was during Dark Horse’s now defunct attempt at a shared
universe under Project Black Sky where she was teamed up with fellow heroes X
and Captain Midnight.
What was always so cool about this and about Ghost as a
character is that she embodied the Batman role on her team. She’s a tough as nails superhero who
will always push herself for justice but rather than defend the innocent her
mandate is to punish the guilty. That’s
actually a shockingly rare thing for a woman superhero to be and combined with
her powers rivaling those of Supergirl her whole mythos fills a void in
superhero comics that no one was really addressing before. I highly recommend picking up her 3rd
and fourth volume collections if you ever get the chance.
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