gor[b] Paul Gorbould: Words and Pictures

My skull is burning

I'm scared of Ghost Rider.

Mainly, I'm scared he'll suck.

I was a reader of the original Marvel Ghost Rider comics back in the Johnny Blaze days (1973-83). By the time the spirit of vengeance took over Daniel Ketch (1990-1998) I was a collector. I'm sure there are plenty of purists who argue (as with anything) that the original was vastly superior, but I quite enjoyed the new incarnation and Javier Saltares' dark artwork.

Both comics were pretty cool. GR was a definite anti-hero, of the model that became so popular throughout the rise of the graphic novel (a kind friend has recently loaned me the original Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen graphic novels, and they're blowing my mind. By trying to answer how any sane person in this day and age could dress up in tights and beat up suspected fellons, they really drain the "hero" out of "superhero.")

And make no mistake, GR was scary. Aside from all the death and hell imagery, both swung chains and could project flame that burns the soul. The Ketch version added a a Penance Stare "which made the target experience all the pain and suffering they've caused others." Sounds corny, but it's an interesting metaphysical twist.

So, this week the Ghost Rider movie comes out, starring Nicolas Cage. And I'm terrified that it'll ruin everything for me.

Nothing against Cage - the man can certainly act. I'd love it if he brought a little bit of psychotic darkness to the film. But I'm afraid we're in for more Con Air than Wild at Heart.

Maybe it'll work out. I collected X-Men, and those movies weren't so bad. But the only other series I collected with as much fevour as Ghost Rider was... Judge Dredd.

I collected Dredd from the first time I spotted him in the pages of 2000AD when I was a young boy visiting English relatives. I had all the Eagle Comics issues, some of the brief D.C. Comics run,and plenty of the British newsprint weeklies from IPC.

The comic book Dredd too was a perfect anti-hero, a futuristic policeman who routinely goes much too far in the name of the law. Like the Dark Knight and The Watchmen's Rorshach and The Comedian, it's never clear if Dredd is a necessarily brutal response to rampant future crime, an uncomfortable slip into fascism, or a parody of fascism.

(I recently rediscovered a series I briefly collected in the late 1980s that took this parodic fascism to the extreme: a Marvel/Epic character named Marshall Law. A university friend made the mistake of dressing up as him for Halloween once; nobody knew the character and thought he looked like The Gimp from Pulp Fiction. He had an interesting night.)

Like Ghost Rider, Judge Dredd also had a big-ass motorcycle, chains and leather. Worked like gangbusters in the funny papers. Stank like manure on the silver screen.

The 1995 movie adaptation of Judge Dredd - with Sly Stallone cast solely because he had the proper chin - was a total, unadulterated flop, artistically, critically and financially. It was so awful that it not only ruined my comic book collection for me, but probably forever devalued them to the level of Weimar Republic marks, Bre-X shares and last year's TTC tokens.

Rotten Tomatoes gave the Dredd movie a mere 18 per cent rating. Said Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today:

Never has such a big, dumb movie seemed so small, as it shrinks from Blade Runner sharp to Jetsonian junky.

Filmcritic.com's Christopher Nell summed it up more succinctly:

In the future, the world sucks.

I sincerely hope Feb. 16th's GR debut doesn't suck that badly.

It may be mouldering in my parent's attic, but I'd prefer not to have the other half of my comic book collection self-destruct.