You guys know what the word “bardo” means, right? You don’t? Oh gosh, I’m sorry. Last week I threw a Catholic factoid at you and this week I’m hitting you with something from Tibetan Buddhism which, for pity sake, isn’t even Christian! (What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just pass the test, toss the text, and cruise down to Steak’n’Shake like the rest of the kids?)

Never mind. Here is a definition of “bardo” provided by my favorite oracle, Wikipedia:

The Tibetan word Bardo means literally “intermediate state“ – also translated as “transitional state” or “in-between state” or “liminal state.” Used loosely, the term “bardo” refers to the state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth…The term bardo can also be used metaphorically to describe times when our usual way of life becomes suspended, as, for example, during a period of illness…

The jury is still out – way, way out – on the “two lives” business, but the bardo concept is a useful expression of something most of us experience, sometimes often. The in-between place. The “what-happens-next” region.

This time of year is bardo territory. Between the seasons. Between warmth and cold. Holidays are past and…now what?

My personal bardo? Well, last fall the Brigade of Evil Kidney Stones attacked and sent me to the hospital four times and resisted counterattack – we’d say “valiantly” if they were the good guys. State-of-the-art medical science has been only partially successful against them. I imagine the last one, who may or may not be still lurking in my innards – the X-Ray is yet to come – standing boldly and snarling, You throw sonic waves at me, puny mortal? I spit on your sonic waves!

Doctor Doom, eat your heart out.

I began teaching my NYU course last week, thus hauling myself from the between-semesters bardo.

The world of comic books is also emerging from a bardo, kind of. DC’s relaunch of its entire superhero pantheon is past. The new stuff is making its way apace, with, already, a few casualties and a few replacements. Both DC and Marvel seem to be doing some kind of reorganization. (Full disclosure: This is a guess – less than a guess: I couldn’t be further out of the loop if I lived on Pluto.) The effect of the new technology on our favorite narrative medium is still a big question mark. (By the way, I’m having difficulty learning about said technology. Wonder why.)

It’ll all be resolved, soon or late, and the bardos will come and go…

But look! Down there! The space between the end of this column and the beginning of the next! What the heck is that? Do you think it could possibly be…?

RECOMMENDED READING: I first encountered the word “bardo” as part of a title “The Bardo Thodal, often translated as “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.”  My sketchy understanding of it is that this is a set of instructions for the newly dead to help them negotiate the afterlife. It had a vogue among the counterculture in the fabled Sixties and then dropped off my radar. So maybe this is not a recommendation, but rather a mention; now you know the thing exists.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

The year is 1933. Pulitzer-winning reporter Molly Sloan, her intrepid assistant Timmy Mendez, and a mysterious librarian named Ben Wilcott face the most serious threat Earth has ever known: an impending invasion of sludge monsters from the planet Zygon…

Last night, Conan O’Brien welcomed the people behind The Intergalactic Nemesis, a graphic novel that has been touring the country as a live-action multimedia show, and inserted himself into the action.

Take a look for yourself…

Last week, the Internets were all aflutter with the story about how Disney/Marvel successfully defended itself against Gary Friedrich’s Ghost Rider lawsuit. This was hardly surprising. Just ask Marv Wolfman or the ghost of Steve Gerber.

Then Disney/Marvel turned around and demanded $17,000 from Gary for the Ghost Rider prints he sold at comic book conventions – you know, just like hundreds of other artists do at every artists’ alley at nearly every comic book convention held in the past decade. This was very surprising. And quite disgusting. Not to mention overwhelmingly petty.

Well, those of us who followed Disney’s Air Pirates lawsuit weren’t surprised at all, but that’s another story.

When Gary filed his appeal and the noise went into the can for a while, I whipped out Marvel Spotlight #5.  On that very first Ghost Rider story, the credits read “conceived and written by Gary Friedrich.” (Emphasis mine.) That was unique for comics at that time. The lawyers discouraged publishers for printing creator credits lest said creators pull what is affectionately known as a “Siegel/Shuster.” I remember being a bit surprised – perhaps impressed is the better word for it – back when I read that issue back in 1972. Nonetheless, Gary lost his case.

This wasn’t the only thing that surprised me. I was also surprised that Marvel plowed over the name of their western hero, first and last seen in his own seven-issue series back in 1967. It was a clever use of recycling intellectual property.

I remembered that Ghost Rider rather fondly. It was a good, solid macabre western character told in then-contemporary Marvel style featuring some of Dick Ayers’ best art in years. So I whipped out Ghost Rider #1, cover-dated February 1967. And then I took a look at the credits.

Please note that both Ghost Rider origins were edited by the same person, a guy named Stan Lee. And Roy Thomas was involved in both – as co-dialogist on the western, and as “aider and abettor” on the motorcyclist. And Gary Friedrich was a writer on both.

That didn’t give Gary any legal coverage, but it’s an interesting chain-of-evidence. Core to the issue of who owns what – in a moral sense but not legal – is the derivation of the original Ghost Rider. The first one. The one before the two published by Marvel Comics.

The one that was damn near exactly the same as Marvel’s western, right down to Dick Ayers’ artwork and design. The one that was published by Magazine Enterprises in various of their titles, including one called “Ghost Rider.” That one lasted twice as long as Marvel’s. The feature got its start in their Tim Holt title. This original version was, as noted, drawn by Dick Ayers and written – some say created – by editor Raymond Krank, who later replaced himself with Gardner Fox. Many of those Tim Holt covers were drawn by Frank Frazetta, who also illustrated a Ghost Rider text story.

This wasn’t the first time Marvel assumed the name of a character they did not create, as geriatric Daredevil fans know all too well. But that, too, is another story.

Ghost Rider has had an interesting history, one that isn’t over. It’s a good example of how the whole comics creation thing is a can of worms. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman and Clark Kent and Lois Lane, but they did not create Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, and Kryptonite, among a great, great many other vital Superman concepts. If their estates wind up owning Superman, what happens to Perry and Jimmy and the rest?

Good grief. Back in the day, nobody was supposed to take all this seriously. But I think I know how either version of the Ghost Rider would have handled it.

Screw the lawyers. We’ve got us our six-guns, and one mother of a bike.

THURSDAY: Dennis O’Neil