This will be a short week for MotD (just as next week will start late, probably on Wednesday) because of the do in Texas. So I might as well stick with where we’ve been lately.
I knew Ghost Rider started in the pages of Marvel Spotlight, one of several anthology books (Marvel Premiere, etc.) where the publisher would try out new and more obscure characters. I didn’t realize it was generally used to try out supernatural-themed ones. This is presumably in reaction to the then weakened Comic Codes dropping their old rule against most supernatural creatures. Hence the Tomb of Dracula and many other monster-themed characters.
in any case, issue 2-4 of Marvel Spotlight introduced Werewolf by NIght, who quickly was shunted over to his own book. Issue 5 gave us Ghost Rider, who also quickly got his own title. (Sadly, while the covers of GR’s Spotlight adventures are great, they lack monsters, so they won’t be appearing here). Then as GR left the title was taken over by Son of Satan, an occult good guy character kind of along the line’s of DC’s far superior the Demon. I don’t think SoS ever rated his own title back in day, but he did headline Spotlight for 12 issues. After that he showed up occasionally as one of Marvel’s more minor occult characters.
Issue #26 introduced the supernatural Scarecrow, who I rather liked (I think he had two adventures under that name, I don’t remember where the other one was, but I read those issues a lot) but who didn’t get much support from fans. After that various normal superheroes got an issue or two (including a fun adventure for Thor’s supporting team the Warriors Three) until book was shuttered after issue #33.
That’s a great cover. For all I know Kragg was just a guy with a robot arm, but the cover is monster-y enough to rate an appearance.
