Ghost (Marvel Comics)

Ghost
Ghost (left), and Crossbones (right) on the cover of Thunderbolts #146
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Iron Man #219 (Jun 1987)
Created by	David Michelinie Bob Layton
In-story information
Team affiliations	Thunderbolts Roxxon Oil
Abilities	Skilled marksman Brilliant inventor, tactician and skilled hacker Superb intellect Battle suit grants: Invisibility Intangibility Stealth technology

The Ghost is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He originated as one of Iron Man's foes, and appeared as a member of the Thunderbolts during the "Dark Reign" and "Heroic Age" eras.

The Ghost first appears in Iron Man #219 and was created by David Michelinie and Bob Layton. Originally portrayed as a supervillain, the character was later developed into an anti-hero figure.

He has appeared as a regular character in Thunderbolts since issue #144, and has remained with the team since the title transitioned into Dark Avengers beginning with issue #175.

Very little is known about the identity of the Ghost. He claims to have been an IT researcher at one time, and to have been made into what he is by corporate greed. The Ghost is an anticapitalist saboteur who seeks to destroy various political and economic institutions he views as oppressive, apparently being most interested in those dealing with advanced technology and surveillance. He has, at times, hired his services out to corporations and other organizations, such as Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts, that wish to destroy rival groups, but invariably plans to turn on his own employers and topple them as well.

As the Ghost himself told Moonstone, he once worked as both a programmer and an engineer at a rising IT company called Omnisapient. Impressing the board of directors with his technological prowess and genius intellect, he quickly rose up the ranks and assumed the company's flagstaff project for which he developed a revolutionary processor that could physically change in reaction to its environment, becoming intangible before overheating. Thanks to his Ghost Tech, the company's stock skyrocketed while the board, ever more dependent on the man who would become Ghost, collected the credit. Exhausted after months of work, the socially introverted programmer decided to leave on vacation, conflicting with the board of directors' expectations for an ahead-of-schedule launch that could increase their profit margins significantly. Approached by an attractive co-worker as he was about to leave, the young man cancelled his travel plans and began a relationship with her. Happier and more productive than ever, he now found every single aspect of his life tied to the company, all part of a well-oiled machine, until his lover died in an explosion at her apartment. Depressed over her death and unable to cope with its apparent randomness, he sought solace by immersing his consciousness into the data networks he created by wiring his own flesh with his flux-state processors. Within this network, no randomness existed and his unconscious mind, in a state of alpha, could solve any dilemma his conscious mind was unable or unwilling to. In this state, he pieced memories and hidden fragments of data together to realize his dead lover had been hired by the board to seduce him, keeping him happy and available to the company's every demand, and later murdered for blackmailing them for more money. Terrified, he attempted to flee, but his discoveries had been detected by the board of directors which dispatched a contract killer after him. The hitman detonated a bomb in his apartment before he could leave, destroying the entire building and killing dozens of tenants. However, he survived, made intangible by the flux-state processors fused with his body when a wall of fire hit him. The experience completed his psychological transformation and the once naive workaholic emerged as the Ghost, a paranoid vigilante bent on wiping out corporatocracy. He immediately took revenge upon the board of directors, butchering them all along with their contract killer, and then erased all records of his previous life.