Speeding down the highway, on a motorcycle he rides. Tormented always by the deal he made with the devil and driven by the spirit of vengeance. His countenance, a flaming skeletal face and a dark aura manifesting a sinister apparition: spawn of satanic powers. There’s only one Marvel character that fits the above description and it’s the Ghost Rider.

No, I'm not talking about Carter Slade, the 19th century version dressed in white who rides a horse called Banshee (Ghost Rider #1 cover date: February, 1967), I’m talking about Johnny Blaze: the modern Ghost Rider, whose first appearance can be found in, Marvel Spotlight #5 (August, 1972).

Penned by Gary Friedrich with art by Mike Ploog, if there’s one Bronze Age comic that might jump up in value one day and shoot to the top of the ‘Most Popular Bronze Age Comic Books’ list, I would not at all be surprised if it’s this book.

As mentioned, this comic contains the first appearance of the modern Ghost Rider. Although currently sitting at # 44 on the GoCollect.com list of most popular Bronze Age comics, that may change in the not too distance future.

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to expand and introduce more characters, we know that more and more of the ‘cosmic’ characters will soon be making appearances. Eventually, we can conjecture, Marvel will also decide to make more liberal use of its super-natural and demonic characters. If so, the Ghost Rider may soon come to bask in the cinematic spotlight. If that happens, there’s no telling how high the price on this comic can go.

While we can speculate that it might not immediately give Incredible Hulk #181 a run for its money, in terms of desirability and prices, the numbers for this book are currently very solid.

Taking a closer look at the data, we see that returns on Marvel Spotlight #5 are up in almost all grades. This holds for lowly 1.5's all the way to pristine 9.8 copies.

Looking at asking prices, a mint 9.8 copy fetched an astounding $36,000.00 (not bad at all) in auction back in 2013. Currently, tattered 1.0’s can fetch up to $100.00 on the market. However, it is prices in combination with returns that stand out for this book. Returns over the last five years on 9.8 are up at 136%, on 7.5 grade returns are up 93.7%, and on 1.5 copies, returns are up at 105.4%. These numbers are all strong talking points in favor of this book.

Finally, after a series of bad films, (and don’t get me wrong, I like Nicholas Cage, but his 'Ghost Rider' films are definitely not his best work), the character of Ghost Rider has not lost his popularity. For example, the Rider single handedly rebooted the flagging ‘Agents of Shield’ program, leading that Marvel series to have its strongest season in years (Season 4 running from 2016-2017) by featuring the Robbie Reyes version of the Rider.

A Marvel big screen appearance of Johnny Blaze or Danny Ketch or any other version of Ghost Rider will undoubtedly push up the value of the early Ghost Rider comics, augmenting both their prices and desirability. If you have these comics, hold on to them, if not, now would be a great time to seek them out, along with other key issues related to the Ghost Rider character, such as:

Ghost Rider #1 (September 1973) – First issue of Solo title

Through the years there have been many Ghost Riders. Daniel Ketch, Alejandra Jones, Robbie Reyes. But it all started with the original Johnny Blaze. Blaze appears in a solo self-titled Ghost Rider book for the first time in this comic. This comic also features an appearance of the Witch Woman and is the first cameo appearance of Daimon Hellstrom, aka the Son of Satan. Plenty of demonic characters abound in this issue. Returns are almost as strong as for Marvel Spotlight #5 with best returns over the last four years seen on 5.5 grades at 119.1%