Rating:
- GREAT RELIVING OLD COMICS FROM CHILDHOOD!
I had been a fan of the original Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) years ago, and even owned the Marvel Spotlights, and a number of the early issues of the mag in the day. I was even a fan of Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, who appears in a few of these issues (now why doesn't Marvel re-release that series?) After re-reading a few of the issues (with Satan as the primary conflict with the protaganist) I noticed something about the artwork I didn't catch the first time I read these. Having studied both mainstream religions and new religious movements, I noticed that in all cases, what is supposed to be the Satanic pentagram (the Star of Baphomet, with the central point facing down) is actually the Wiccan pentacle, with the central point facing upward. I don't know if this is ignorance, fear of evil portents if they rendered the Satanic star correctly in their illustrations, or something the Comics Code Authority just wouldn't permit them to publish if they wanted their seal. (Of course, as I write this, the Spiderman issue with the Gil Kane cover illustration of Harry Osborne popping pills comes to mind. Marvel couldn't get CCA approval for that story, so they printed it WITHOUT the seal, since they felt so strongly that that story just HAD to be told as they had envisioned it.)
In any case, having recently seen the movie with Nicholas Cage, the stories are even more entertaining in retrospect. Again, all the scans are from the printed comics in two-page spreads, and the first few issues at least, didn't seem to be the best copies from the print run.
Nonetheless, it's very refreshing to be able to read these again, knowing that they won't be worn by handling, as a 30+ year old physical magazine on cheap paper would. When you print the comics, you get the two-page spread with a light "Marvel" watermark appearing on the center of each page - so there's no worry of recreating the original comic books by printing them. (Although the bios are single pages without watermarks, which is nice.) Overall, this is more than well worth the cost.
I have visited Marvel's new online comic site, and I must admit, although the quality is very good, I don't like the idea of having to rent access to comics on someone else's server. Acrobat PDFs have become enough of a standard that we should be able to continue to access them in the future, while I fear that what Marvel is using on their website is proprietary and experimental, which may change in a few years: potentially rendering access to old titles obsolete. Marvel should re-license to GIT, but as another reviewer has suggested, provide the original artwork to scan, instead of old printed copies. (Unless of course, all they still have in their archives are copies of the printed comics).
- no corrupt files
- Wow! A great way for fans of the Ghost Rider character to catch up!
- Files on disc are corrupt and will not open
- Simple PDF without paraniod DRM!!!
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