A motorcycle daredevil whose head turns into a flaming skull at night: How hard is that to make cool? Judging from ESSENTIAL GHOST RIDER: VOL. 1, much harder than one might think.

The character of Ghost Rider may be better in concept than execution, although his origin story is fairly nifty and more than a little nasty (especially for the 1970s): Adopted by celeb-cyclist Crash Sampson after he’s orphaned, Johnny Blaze rides in Crash’s traveling show and falls in love with his daughter, Roxanne. But his world threatens to collapse when Crash is diagnosed with a fatal disease, so Johnny does what any normal, fictional comic-book character would do: conjures up the devil and offers his soul in exchange for sparing Crash from the disease.

Ol’ Scratch replies “you got a deal, kid,” so Crash doesn’t die from the disease. Instead, he dies from a fiery cycle crash. D’oh! (This is ironic because his name was Crash, see!) His father figure pushing up daisies, Johnny still finds himself “a part-time pawn of Satan.” Mostly this means that when the sun goes down, Johnny’s pretty-boy head turns into a flammable cranium.

With that established, the adventures of Ghost Rider settle into an ongoing tale of tedium, forever saving Roxanne from an endless loop of witch-women and evil Injuns as Crash plays tricks from the netherworld. You can only go to hell (literally) so many times before it gets old (and that number is once); it opens up more than one opportunity for Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, to cameo. (Also making cameos, though unrelated to Satanic goings-on: Spider-Man, The Champions, Daredevil and Jesus Christ … wait, actually, J.C.’s appearances – yes, plural – are totally related.) It doesn’t help that each successive issue seems to want to recap events prior.

Only when GHOST RIDER breaks out of this, er, cycle and engages in a primarily issue-long story does the series give any gas, like battling a hooded Vegas villain named Roulette, participating in a cross-country desert race of death, going at it with Hulk, running from a phantom World World I pilot and fighting Jaws. I repeat: fighting Jaws. Or at least “in the tradition of JAWS,” as the cover reads.

But other than that, G.R.’s exploits are pretty boring, despite being drawn by expert artists like Mike Ploog and Herb Trimpe. This volume certainly doesn’t make me eager to pick up the new ESSENTIAL GHOST RIDER: VOL. 2 – giving your hero the catchphrase “Sweet jumping catfish!” will do that – but at least it sets the bar pretty low for the upcoming Nicolas Cage movie. Perhaps he can clear it? –Rod Lott

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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL GODZILLA: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL IRON FIST: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL KILLRAVEN: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MAN-THING: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MARVEL HORROR: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL MOON KNIGHT: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL NOVA: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL SAVAGE SHE-HULK: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL SUPER VILLAIN TEAM-UP: VOL. 1
• ESSENTIAL TALES OF THE ZOMBIE: VOL. 1