Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the upcoming All-New Ghost Rider title.
 
I have to confess I ignored the announcement about the upcoming All-New Ghost Rider comic (see "All New Marvel NOW! Announcements Round-up"), partially because I've never cared for the character in any of his previous incarnations - including the cowboy that liked to dress up like a ghost.  But it was also because I consider his return as an omen of doom for the entire comic book industry.  For those who missed it, the last time he had a series Ghost Rider spawned an entire subgroup of unnecessary titles, the Midnight Sons line (Spirits of Vengeance, Mobius, Nightstalkers and Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins).  And while I cannot definitely say that these comics actually caused the great comic book bust of 1996, they certainly didn't help.
 
And there are other titles I instinctively associate with those dark days, which is what makes me more than a little nervous about the return of the Marvel UK characters (Warheads!,  Knights of Pendragon!, Death's Head!, Dark Angel!,  Super Soldiers!,  Motormouth!, and Killpower!) in the upcoming Revolutionary War mini-series.  As previously established, I'm a big fan of British comics and creators, but I can't say I remember the originals all that fondly, seeing as how they were mostly 2000AD-style SF with a thin coating of superheroics.  But as I've said before (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--A Teachable Moment") I've got to admit I’m a little curious to see if anything can be done with characters like Motormouth and Killpower.
 
But later I did find two points of interest in the All-New Ghost Rider, one being that the Ghost Rider's new host was going to be a Hispanic kid named Robbie Reyes.  I'm on the record as being in favor of new iterations of old heroes being anything other than just another boring old white guy (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--You Do The Math"), but seriously, does his first and last name have to begin with the same letter?  I thought we were beyond that sort of thing these days.  And two, Marvel is swapping his motorcycle for a Dodge Charger.
 
Initially I found nothing wrong with this, other than GR's head would be awfully tough on a car's interior.  As radical visual changes to a character go this wasn't nearly as severe as when Marvel put the pants on Howard the Duck.  I mean, as long as they were going to be on fire, did it really matter if there were going to be two or four wheels?  Not being a car guy, it had to be explained to me by someone on Facebook that if he was driving a car the comic should properly be called the All-New Ghost Driver.  With the new ride the only way he can remain Ghost Rider is if he sat on the passenger side, which would mean he would a need a chauffeur, but that would also mean you would have to call the comic All-New Ghost Riding Shotgun. 
 
But the real question, other than whether Marvel has a product placement deal with Dodge, is if this change has more to do with the publisher wanting to catch the coattails of the Fast & Furious movies or the settlement they reached with Ghost Rider writer Gary Friedrich (see "'Ghost Rider' Suit Settled").
 
Here's a confession:  though I have limited free time, there are times I consciously throw some of it away by watching a movie completely outside my wheelhouse (I originally typed "wheelchair;" I hope that isn't also some kind of omen).  Which is why I watched the 2012 movie Fun Size via Netflix Instant Streaming, a "night in the life" teen movie starring Victoria Justice of Nickelodeon tween-com fame.  It was also made by Nickelodeon, their first movie to be released in the States with a PG-13 rating, which it definitely earns with sexual and scatalogical material.  My least favorite moment: when a small child called another character a "bitch."
 
The only thing that kept me from giving it up somewhere around the fifteen minute mark was one of its major characters, Albert.  He's a chunky, mute, emotionally disturbed eight year old who dresses as zombie Spider-Man for Halloween and is obsessed with an imaginary manga called Galaxy Scout.  Well, no one in the movie ever uses that term but given the black and white comic various characters are shown reading I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's supposed to be manga.  Though clearly the producers weren't told that no one uses that format for manga anymore.  And if you do stick around you get to see the always wonderful Riki Lindhome (probably best known as one half of the comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates) in a microscopic role as Denise who goes to a party dressed as the Sailor Moon-ish Galaxy Scout.
 
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.