How do you suppose Marvel oughta handle Ghost Rider going forward?
I got into Spirits of Violence pretty much at random browsing for comics, after I finished it I had a load of questions so I went through the last 30 issues of the 70s series, then burned through every Ghost Rider canon comic since Mackie's run with Ketch in the 90s, and then finally re-reading Spirits of Violence just now, it's so much worse than I remember
We've been yearning for another big screen Ghost Rider appearance for a while now, if the Gosling thing pans out then there'll be renewed interest in the character, which will spawn new releases, but personally I'm starting to wonder if it's better if they just shelve Ghost Riders indefinitely until a writer who actually REALLY likes the character and has read all the comics comes along and asks Marvel for a shot. At this point it seems like the entire Ghost Rider lore can be fixed only by someone who's as frustrated with Marvel's treatment of the character as the rest of us and has the passion and skill to actually fix it
Even if such a writer comes along, they need to be paired with an equally driven artist. I hate to come of as mean-spirited, but Paul Davidson's art on Spirits of Violence absolutely trashed it. Ghost Rider's got a great aesthetic, it can draw inspiration from Kustom Kulture, Occultism, Frontier trailblazing, Heavy Metal, Rock-n-Roll, even a bit of Noir, so good art can make a run with mediocre writing worth the read, but in the case of Spirits of Violence, Davidson's art just drove the nail in the coffin