Ghost Rider is exactly as good as he is bad. That is to say when he’s really good, there’s an amazing sweet spot between the absolute hokey nonsense of retro comics that has you laugh and ask “okay, sure. What’s next?” and surprisingly the most emotional Marvel superhero to exist. Johnny can be shockingly vulnerable at times, and it makes him fascinating to read.

And then there’s stuff that aged poorly or just plain sucks. There’s an entire saga about a Native American trying to reclaim the land of his ancestors, and it’s pretty rough—no real sympathy is given to his case, and he kidnaps a damsel just to make his point; and that’s the NON-racist part of that whole story. At one point Johnny strikes Roxanne, his love interest, and she just forgives him, and it doesn’t register as a genuine character moment, expressing his emotional volatility. If anything, it’s completely out of character and while never bringing it up again helps me ignore it ever happened, it weirdly made it that much more of just a casual thing.

The story is some of the best retro-comic stuff I’ve read, though, and boy I can’t wait for more.