Spider-Man & Ghost Rider Just Got The Weirdest New Connection

Warning: contains spoilers for Non-Stop Spider-Man #1

Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ghost Rider just got the weirdest new connection in the latest Spidey series Non-Stop Spider-Man, a title that truly lives up to its name. Throughout the first issue of this all-new adventure, Spider-Man is on an action-packed mission, racing against the clock to save someone he cares about while simultaneously attempting to uncover a larger mystery. It isn’t until the very end of the issue, completely off-panel, where Spider-Man and Ghost Rider become linked. 

In Non-Stop Spider-Man #1 by writer Joe Kelly with art by Chris Bachalo and Tim Townsend, Spider-Man bursts into the reader’s view through a fifteen-story window, not skipping a second on the action. As fans follow his treacherous trek through the streets of New York City, it is revealed that Spidey is searching for the criminals responsible for one of his classmate’s apparent overdose, a friend named Austin. Unfortunately for the wall-crawler, he finds exactly who he is looking for. The bad guys in question bombard Spider-Man with rockets and gunfire with Parker barely making it away from them with his life, but in an ironic turn of events, it is a call from a friend that is the most detrimental to the web-slinger that day. 

A college classmate and close friend of Peter Parker named Kel calls Peter while he’s dealing with the people he believes to be responsible for Austin’s death. Kel tells Peter that she took the same drug Austin took as research for a paper she was writing for class. Parker’s friend fears for her life, beginning to overdose just as Austin did. In true superhero fashion, Spider-Man comes to the rescue just in the nick of time while leaving the overall mystery as to who is pumping this deadly drug out on the streets ready to be picked up next issue. Once the “To Be Continued” panel flashes and the proverbial credits roll, Spider-Man’s weird connection to Ghost Rider is revealed. 

In a note from the Spidey-editor himself, Nick Lowe, at the very end of Non-Stop Spider-Man he describes some of the influences this newest adventure draws from. The two pieces of fiction that inspired Non-Stop Spider-Man, Lowe says, were the films Speed and Crank. For all of the film-buff Spidey fans out there, they know that the directors of one of the films credited, that being Crank, were the very same responsible for a Ghost Rider live-action movie. Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor directed both Crank and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. 

The creative minds behind a Ghost Rider film acted as the inspiration behind the style and tone of Non-Stop Spider-Man. It is unknown at this time if the writers of the newest Spidey saga wish to take it one step further and pay true homage to the Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance directors by including Ghost Rider into their new non-stop storyline, his inclusion would certainly fit in the narrative. Ghost Rider is all about vengeance and Spider-Man’s latest villains are allegedly killing people with laced drugs, so there could be room for the Rider to step in and lend a hand. Whether or not the two will actually partner-up in the near future, the already established link is by itself an unexpected treat for fans and an objectively weird connection between Ghost Rider and Spider-Man.

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