Ghost has become a reasonably popular supporting characters in superhero comics over the past few years. Unfortunately for this Ghost, I’m talking about Marvel’s Ghost, the Iron Man villain and Thunderbolt. DC’s Ghost, on the other hand, languishes in relative obscurity.
Which is a pity because in a lot of ways they’re the same character: scientist/engineer invents phasing thingy, uses it to steal stuff, attracts ire of Forces of Status Quo (Iron Man/Captain Atom), feud ensues. Of course, Marvel Ghost arrived later and with a more inspired creative team (the classic Michelinie/Layton run on Iron Man, versus later Steve Ditko during his Charlton run – and not everything could be Blue Beetle or the Question, frankly, which is one of the reasons Captain Atom has always been the Michael Biehn of superheroes), which made a lot of difference; his gradual shift of emphasis from thief to anticorporate terrorist has helped rejuvenate the character and make him more relevant.
DC Ghost, in comparison, has languished as part of DC’s back catalog. You can almost see the ticket he’s holding in his hand that says “due to be killed off by another supervillain who needs to look badass, 2014.” Because these days that is just how DC rolls; there won’t be any attempt to use the character because someone like Ghost is just a costume to passed from nameless baddy to nameless baddy, like Black Spider or Hyena. It’s a stylistic choice, and not an indefensible one (after all, if you want your story to focus on a hero and his life, the villain can literally be just an empty mask), but I’m not going to pretend I’m fond of the approach.
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Hey, why the cheap shot on Michael Biehn? Michael Biehn is now, always has been, and always will be awesome!
And, he possesses one of the rarest superpowers ever, the ability to make a James Cameron movie not suck.
So, wait, is the Ghost get a 71% rating because of his entry, or is this a 71% POTENTIAL rating?
I think the sleaze factor of ‘worshiped as a god by females of a primative civilization’ works as a counter to Marvel’s ‘inhuman freak’ from T-bolts and Iron Man.
I agree he seems to be a missed opportunity. A master-thief-pimp who lives in DC? Why isn’t he a ‘special consultant’ to K Street? Imagine the dirt this guy could dig up on members of Congress.
Oh, and is that a Dr-Strangesque collar or a BSG-egyptian cowl around his head?
I believe it’s just an artistic flourish.
While his orgins may not have been the greatest, the 1980s Captain Atom series used Ghost to good effect. He, Plastique and Major Force are the only superhuman villains I still remember from that run.
You’re so getting soft. These last two schmucks have gotten high ratings just because maybe they’ll get off their asses and do a thing someday. No-one wants to read a Thursday Who’s Who about people with great personalities! You may as well change it to Thursday Kittens I Have Known.
Cookie McCool: To be fair, kittens are awesome, and MGK probably knows several. I would read that.
I’ve given it some thought, and the fact that he looks like Dean Stockwell in DUNE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stockwell_as_yueh.jpg)
does help Ghost’s awesome factor.
…If I was worshipped as a living god-king by a hidden Amazon civilization, I would not waste time on the pursuit of a supervillain career.
Was Peacemaker *trying* to copy Ghost’s collar and failed?
Wait, what’s going on here MGK? Like three typos?
Maybe he’s not used in remembrance of the canceled Blizzard project.
I notice that the Ghost, as his alter ego, also used to play right field for the Toronto Blue Jays. Keen! (They mangled the spelling a bit, though. I should send them a letter.)
I get a Lando Calrision/Billy Dee Williams vibe from him, though Stockwell fits pretty well too.
One problem with the Ghost is that he has a very similar shtick to the Gentleman Ghost, who has the advantage that (a) with that floating hat and monocle, he looks much cooler and (b) he has more canonical history in the current DCU. If I was a writer, I’d probably kill him off too.
You’re really describing Charlton’s Ghost, not DC’s Ghost, who was a very different character. Also, the reason DC’s Ghost hasn’t done much lately is that he’s dead. As in dead for real. Captain Atom and Heinrich Megala killed him for good back in Captain Atom #50 (that’s the DC series by Bates and Weisman, not the Charlton series by Ditko, obviously). I know villains come back from the dead all the time in comics, but unless Captain Atom gets a new solo series, it’s not going to happen.