Space Ghost is returning to comics, but his time he’s leaving his talk show desk behind in favor of cruising the spaceways for justice. Releasing this May from Dynamite Entertainment, Hanna-Barbara’s original superhero is taking no prisoners in this all-new series, as a preview for the first issue shows him living up to his name.
Released via AIPT, the preview for Space Ghost #1 comes from the creative team of David Pepose, Jonathan Lau and Taylor Esposito. Dynamite’s series starts off with the origin of Jan and Jace, whose father is killed after their space colony is attacked by space pirates.
As readers can tell from the preview, this Space Ghost doesn’t look to be chatting up B-list celebrities any time soon. He also feels like a far cry from the simple intergalactic avenger of the original ’60’s cartoon. The persona he takes on is not unlike Batman’s, as he dispatches the pirates overrunning Jan and Jace’s colony.
First debuting in 1966, Space Ghost was designed by legendary comic book artist Alex Toth. The Space Ghost cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbara portrayed him as an interstellar hero who travelled the galaxy, righting wrongs with his teenage companions Jan and Jace and their pet monkey Blip. Little was known about him outside of the fact that he hailed from Ghost Planet, as the original cartoon generally focused on standalone, adventure-of-the-week type stories. The character got a second lease on life in the 1990s, when he was rebooted into a late night talk show host in Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.
Space Ghost wasn’t fully explored as a character until the 2005 miniseries by Joe Casey and Ariel Olivetti from DC Comics. There, it was revealed that Space Ghost was actually a former space cop named Thaddeus Bach. After learning of his superior’s corruption, Thaddeus’ wife is murdered and he is left for dead. He survives the experience and is nursed back to health thanks to the alien weapons designer Salomon. Making use of Salomon’s powerful weaponry, Bach dons a mask and cape and heads out on a mission of revenge against the lawmen who betrayed him.
The 2016 series Future Quest by Jeff Parker and Evan “Doc” Shaner revised Space Ghost’s story, making him the last survivor of the Space Rangers. The Dynamite series looks to be another reinvention of the classic character, one that goes darker than ever – so much so that Jan and Jace are running away from Space Ghost as much as they are the attacking pirates. With the preview for the new series showing the character taking on a darker persona, Space Ghost may finally live up to the promise of his name as a grim spectre of the spaceways.
Source: AIPT