Slightly Misplaced Comics Hero Case Files #14: 90s Ghost Rider

Real Firestone tires!

 

Legacy heroes are nothing new.  DC has practically built their whole universe around it when they revived a few of their Golden Age heroes as new Silver Age versions with new names, looks, and in some case, powers.  Marvel hasn’t done it quite so often, but there have been a couple cases.  The big problem with a legacy hero, where the superhero name can be passed along to a successor, is that sooner or later the original–or at least best known version of that character–returns and takes the mantle back.  This can occur no matter how popular the new guy is, though the new guy may stick around for other reasons.

Dan Ketch, the Ghost Rider of the 90s, was not one of those new guys who got to stick around.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Hero Case Files #13: Ravage 2099

Yes, this looks like a respectable businessman.

 

Comic book universes often look to the future for more superhero adventures.  Some timelines are rather popular and some last a good long time, like the Legion of Superheroes for DC and the original Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel.  Marvel tried another future in 1992 with its 2099 series.  This series of titles was actually somewhat successful with four initial titles, three of which showed revamped, futuristic versions of Marvel characters:  Spider-Man, Doom, and the Punisher.  The X-Men were added later, but among the original four was a single original hero without an existing Marvel hero to base himself off.

That hero was Ravage, a character who morphed multiple times into something new only to be shot off into space and never heard from again.