Marvel Legends 2-in-1 Ghost
Rider & Variant Review (Terrax)

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I know we’d need a Thing Review to be a proper Two-In-One, but let’s overlook that and have some fun, alright? Terrax is complete, but I’ve still got two Marvel Legends reviews before him (not to mention MOTUCS, Joes, DCUCs…). Here’s Ghost Rider and you’ll find Constrictor conveniently to the right!

If you remember my Thor review from a couple weeks back, I was hesitant to buy some figures in this wave for a variety of reasons. When it came to Ghost Rider, it was because I’ve already bought a lot of Ghost Rider figures! I had most of the 5″ line and two of the three Marvel Legends (both of which I would’ve loved to have come across in the toy cellar before this review). It’s not that I was Ghost-Rider’d-out, it was just that those two MLs were awesome. The scrawny Wave VII figure was a great Johnny Blaze version and the earlier Wave III figure was a great Danny Ketch version. And going into this wave, I didn’t even know which version of Ghost Rider this figure even represented…

If you’re not terribly familiar with Ghost Rider, I’m not really the person to come talk to. I know the gist, Johnny Blaze sells his soul, becomes the Ghost Rider and has to act as Mephisto’s muscle here on Earth. Blaze’s soul would eventually be freed from the deal and a second Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch, appeared on the scene after coming into contact with a mysterious talisman. Later Danny’s not Ghost Rider anymore, but Blaze becomes the Rider again. So on and so forth. It gets a little more complicated than that, but I haven’t really kept up. I did a little digging for this review and discovered that the figure reviewed here represents Danny Ketch as he appeared in a handful of issues of the Ghost Rider book back in late 2008.*

I haven’t read the particular issues, but it would seem that Marvel chose to have both of their Ghost Riders running around at the same time (and at odds with each other). Rather than having them simply wear different costumes, someone thought it’d be cooler (and I suppose it is) to have the Riders feature different flames. Blaze stuck with his current, traditionally-flamed look, and Ketch switched to a more efficient burn and went blue.

* – If any Ghost Rider fans want to chime in in the comments section and get us a little more in the loop, I wouldn’t mind one bit! I’m kinda curious…

The irony here being that Ghost Rider ended up as one of the variants in the wave. The variant features the traditional yellow/orange flame color scheme instead of the blue, but, to my knowledge, it’s more of a ‘fun’ variant rather than how anything appeared in the comics. While Ketch did wear the costume presented here, it looks like Blaze stayed in his regular duds during the few issues.

It does look cool, so I don’t mind one bit, but I haven’t decided if I need/want the orange one (thus the Orange Ghost Rider is unopened in the pics). I picked up the orange version when I wanted to complete Terrax and couldn’t find the blue one. It turns out I had more patience than I thought and was able to wait on the blue version for my Terrax arms, but do I need both? Part of me thinks it’d be cool to have the pair running around like Superman Red & Blue, but I don’t know…

Other than the paint, the two versions are identical. The figure borrows the Mattel model where a generic buck is the base, in this case the Hand Ninja/Ronin body, with new forearms, lower legs, and the head to differentiate the figure. In addition to those body pieces, two soft plastic pieces (the coat & belt) have been added to finish off Ghost Rider’s look.

The pieces all work great in concert. If you didn’t already know the Ronin body was under there, you might not even notice. The armor on the forearms and the lower legs looks fantastic, like they’ve really taken a beating. The spikes on the armor are naturally rounded off for safety, but not so much that they look like nubs.

The two soft plastic pieces also work in concert with the armor and help complete the look. The jacket is both cool and my enemy. I think it looks great on the figure, but it does get in the way of the arms more than I’d like. Still, the shoulder pads match the rest of the figure and the flames shooting out from the shoulders turned out great. The jacket has two pegs under the arms that can unhook and let the whole piece slide off (with a little work), but the belt isn’t as easily removable. Continue to Page 2…

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25 thoughts on “Marvel Legends 2-in-1 Ghost
Rider & Variant Review (Terrax)”

  1. I know about as much Ghost Rider history as you do, so these guys don’t really do much for me being so modern. Aside from the original 70’s Johnny Blaze GH, I’m cool figure wise but wouldn’t mind seeing Hasbro redo him in the future. I do like having different flame colors for both Riders. That’s one clever touch nobody had thought of since Danny arrived on the scene back in 1990.

  3. Glad you finally found one. I still haven’t seen any restocks or first stocks in my area since my original sighting at TRU.

    1. It was actually Vault who should get credit for the legwork. He found this in a picked over Walmart, someone had left him, Thor, & Klaw behind (I will never understand buying habits). I was grateful because I’m batting a thousand on the variants, even at TGT & WM. :/

    1. I knew about the variant, but I honestly never thought about the headswap. LOL

      I’d keep that in mind, but is the blue version still rare? That’s one of only a half-dozen MLs that I never saw in person.

      If Hasbro readdresses GR though, I wouldn’t mind getting a bigger version of the MU figure!

    2. I know you’re really off of Mattel, dayraven. So I thought you would be happy to know that I’m finally getting sick of some of their shenanigans. When I found the DCUC wave 20 Green Arrow (the only figure from this wave I want) yesterday at Target, I took him and stood in line for a minute, then decided to put him down and walk out.

      The reason: I decided I would rather have the $16 in case I found this Ghost Rider (I’ve only found the orange one, but want blue), or another ML figure, because I would rather Hasbro get my money for giving me better figures for less money than Mattel.

      How do I get repaid for making this decision? I happened to stumble across ML wave 2 Captain America today (still need to find a blue GR though). It completely took me by surprise because I didn’t expect to see any wave 2 figures yet, and I had the money in my pocket to buy him. He is a completely awesome figure by the way.

      I’ve never been a ML collector. Actually, I only started collecting when I found DCSH figures in 2006. I bought a couple of Hasbro’s early ML offerings, but thought they were pretty lame in sculpt and construction. These new figures are fantastic though, so I see myself becoming a Marvel fan.

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  8. “relief tube”? Is that a ‘The Boys’ reference?

    While i like the design, this figure doesn’t really feel like Ghost Rider to me. Wasn’t the pure demon form of GR called Zarathos? I think I saw a panel of him once in passing and this figure reminded me of that. So, I’m treating him as Zarathos in my collection.

    Dvl, I wish I’d had the restraint you’ve shown. All I kept finding were the variant waves down here in Texas. I grabbed orange for the terrax pieces and, after a week, gave in and opened him. I found blue a couple of weeks after that and he looks infinitely better. Orange GR just looks nasty, like someone licked his Cheetos dust off and put him back in the bag. The skull really needs to be white, but I’m not sure if acetone will do the trick. I ended up having to trim away at the jacket/vest under the right arm on both GRs because it kept pushing the arm up. Both work great now.

    The lack of a chain is a glaring omission. Anyone have any suggestions for a good one?

    1. More of a general astronaut reference, but perhaps a Boys reference would also work?

      I could see this as a Zarathos, a Demo-Man version of sorts.

      I don’t know how commendable my restraint is! I had to basically forget I had it and hide Terrax too! 😀 I think you’ve sold me on returning/selling my orange Ghost Rider though – I can’t unsee the Cheetos dust!! LOL

      For the chain, I’m thinking of going down to one of the hardware stores and seeing how small a chain they sell and getting some for him.

    2. Zarathos was Johnny Blaze’s Ghost Rider demon. It turned out that Danny Ketch was bonded to a completely different demon (with, apparently, similar tastes) called Noble Kale.

  9. So anyway, several years after Danny Ketch was separated from the ’90s GR (who was not Zarathos), he found himself craving its power, and the evil angel Zadkiel hooked him up with some and tricked him into killing all of the other GRs on Earth (it turns out the GRs have always been a Green Lantern Corps-style thing, and we’re introduced to a ton of awesome GRs past and present) to steal their power. When he gets to Blaze, who was Zarathos’ host again at the time, they fight a lot. Once Ketch defected back to the side of the angels – er, the side of the non-angels – the guys fighting against Zadkiel, his flames went back to orange, but he was wearing a totally different costume. Less metal album cover, more leather biker guy.

    The first half of that story was a limited series collected in the Addict trade, but the showdown-then-team-up with Blaze was in the main GR book.

  10. WAY Too much blue paint on the skull. Too bad you missed the opportunity to have DCUC w2 Harley comment on it! the packaged orange doesn’t look too bad. definitely better/cleaner than the blue.

    You didn’t get any of the figures from the first movie? He’s a bit better than the ML7 versions, imo. (I also picked up one of the 6″ scale bikes on clearance, as it looks near enough to the one on the Meat Loaf album covers. No, I’m not joking.)

    also, the Roman numeral for 7 is VII, not XII. 😉

    1. You and your picture suggestions! Grar!

      I don’t think I did buy any movie GR figures now that you mention it. Hmm…

      And at 4am, Roman numerals are whatever I say they are! That’s less embarassing than “Secret Warts Doom” anyway. LOL

  11. so here’s my question… vengeance aside, does anyone think we’ll see any other GR villains in the mix? cuz man, i like his roster, but you talk about a cast that will be hard to part re-use… i would love to see a blackout, zarathos, deathwatch, lilith, scarecrow, zodiac, tatterdemalion, zadkeil, null the living darkness… the only one i wouldn’t want is mephisto, and only then because for me, DS already knocked that ball out of the park. marvel legends just isn’t going to do better than that. but that said, a few of my must haves are 100% tools, so way “less than likely.”

    it’s also worth note that morbius crosses over into a couple of marvel mainstay rosters, and the one we’ve been given thusfar kinda blows… can we amend that?

  13. I finally found one of the two GR’s and it was this one, it was about 16 bucks at target but worth the buy even though it has no weapons or otherwise. I suppose its rare because the cheapest I saw on ebay for was $44! Also I haven’t seen this variant anywhere else, now hopefully trying to find the orange one won’t be as difficult. On a random side note the blue one looks like it ate some blue candy 😛

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