So what was the deal with "The Jesus-guy"?

[Clint Barton]

I'm an old Marvel Zombie, ok?

I've been in and out of the comics world for the past 15 years though and am trying to catch up on some of my favorite story arcs from the 70's at this moment...

Anyone remember a "Jesus-like" character from the Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider series? I recall he appeared when GR was being tormented by Satan, said some really seriour and prophetic stuff, did some good things for GR and then disappeared. This lasted for a few issues and then the character was completely dropped.

What was the deal with "the Jesus-guy"?

Wasn't he a Wolfman creation?

Is he in continuity now??

Any help would be appreciated, as it is really bugging me....also, where could I catch up on his story, assuming it was picked up after the first few issues of GR???

[The Lucky One]

Any help would be appreciated, as it is really bugging me....also, where could I catch up on his story, assuming it was picked up after the first few issues of GR???

I've only read the stuff that's in the Essential GR, but they semi-addressed it in a later issue of GR: Johnny travelled to Hell to confront "Satan" (secretly Mephisto in disguise, thanks to retconning) and Satan revealed that he had been the "friend" who helped Johnny, that it had all been a cruel trick to further discourage him by giving him hope and faith, then taking it away.

Now, personally, that struck me as one of the most asinine retcons of all time, since Johnny's "friend" saved him at least once when Satan would otherwise have irrevocably won, but that's what was said. The "friend" didn't appear again in the Essential, so I couldn't tell you if he ever appeared after that. At a guess, I'd say Marvel was either uncomfortable with Jesus officially appearing in one of their books, or a later writer didn't like the idea, so it was retconned into being a trick of Satan's. I hope they later de-retconned it, but I couldn't say for sure.

-D

[RabidWolfe]

mephisto is a liar, so any future writer who wanted to revisit that could easily claim it was all a lie.

In interviews, it turns out the "friend" was suppossed to be Jesus or at least an angel, but that Jim Shooter wanted GR to be a more traditional super hero and so forced the writers to get rid of the whole "friend" subplot.

[fireball87o]

mephisto is a liar, so any future writer who wanted to revisit that could easily claim it was all a lie.

In interviews, it turns out the "friend" was suppossed to be Jesus or at least an angel, but that Jim Shooter wanted GR to be a more traditional super hero and so forced the writers to get rid of the whole "friend" subplot.

Editorial overhauls really screw things up! And Mephisto is a big liar, so we can just write that off...guess we'll just have to settle for spirit or guardian angel