Ghost-Maker (DC)
The Ghost-Maker is a male comic character who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Minhkhoa Khan was a male human born in the modern age as the son of wealthy Singaporean parents who owned the Khan Export Company. From a young age, he was shown to be very smart but his demeanour alienated him from other children his age as they began to fear him. (Batman 2021 Annual v3 #1) He was said to had been 8 years old when a psychologist came to diagnose him. It was then that he made a choice where he decided to challenge himself by trying to fix the world. (Batman v3 #109) Many years ago, his family came to be physically threatened by the very wealthy Midas crime family until they eventually sold their company to them. After seeing his father giving in, Khoa became determined to destroy the Midas and get revenge for making his family feel worthless. For this, he decided to embark on a series of training and creating a masked vigilante identity in order to get his vengeance. (Batman 2021 Annual v3 #1)
Travelling around the world, he looked to become the greatest crime-fighter in the world and trained under various masters to learn every skill and trade useful for such a role. It was during this time that he met a young Bruce Wayne who was undergoing similar training around the world. At first, he found the man to be arrogant beyond belief but saw a kinship as they both sought to be crime-fighters. Thus, the two became friends and Bruce decided to reveal his identity to the Ghost-Maker along with his motivations namely his oath to avenge his parents. However, this caused the Ghost-Maker to lash out at him and he attempted to kill Wayne where he called him weak for his motivations. The Ghost-Maker was angry because he thought he had found a friend that shared in the art and found the idea of simple vengeance to had been a childish motivation. Since that time, the two regularly encountered during their training where the Ghost-Maker looked to prove himself to be the better student and crime-fighter to Bruce. (Batman v3 #104) Many years ago, he was in Dublin, Ireland where he found Tommy Tivane who was a noted knife expert who was wanted in 16 countries and trained under the man. Bruce Wayne by this point was also seeking Tivane as a tutor but upon seeing the Ghost-Maker the two fought one another with the winner becoming the knife-expert's pupil. (Batman v3 #102) Years ago, he was in the Gobi desert where he trained under the Desert Kings to be aware of his surroundings and learnt three new martial arts. (Batman v3 #103) At the end of their respective training, Bruce Wayne told the Ghost-Maker that he was not welcome in Gotham City. This led to the Ghost-Maker stating that Bruce was not welcome in the city he decided to set up his own base of operations. Thus, a secret pact was made between the two rivals as they engaged in their own respective wars on crime. Afterwards, the Ghost-Maker came to operate primarily in South-East Asian countries as he embarked on his own crusade against criminals. (Batman v3 #104) Years ago, he was present when Bruce was ready to leave Argentina and return to Gotham with the Ghost-Maker believing that his rival was not ready for the duty ahead. Instead, he attempted to convince Bruce to abandon his goals and instead devote himself as a true crime-fighter where the two would work together as partners. However, Wayne refused and instead departed for Gotham to continue his mission with the two parting on bad terms as they agreed to never set foot in their respective territories. (Batman v3 #105)
During this time, the Ghost-Maker managed to operate in secret as he cleaned up crime and corruption in cities where most of the world's intelligence agencies knew him as an urban legend. Years ago, Batman and Robin were in pursuit of a low-ranking costumed super-criminal who was fleeing Gotham to a foreign country and was travelling through Singapore. Upon arriving at a private airport, they were confronted by Ghost-Maker who refused to have the Dark Knight operate in his area. Instead, he stated that he would capture the criminal and send them back to Gotham. This was the only time a young Dick Grayson had seen the mysterious Ghost-Maker and his past with Batman. Years later, Batman attempted to reach out to him when he started Batman Incorporated as he wanted the Ghost-Maker to help run the operation. However, their meeting did not go well and the two ended up in a fight against one another. Dick Grayson after he joined Spyral came to access their information on the Ghost-Maker and learnt that he operated within South-East Asian countries. At some point, he was noted to have had a run-in between him and the Great Ten in China after he pursued Triad leaders into the mainland without sanction. (Batman v3 #104) He came to develop a number of enemies which included Madame Midas, the Instigator, Razorline, Kid Kawaii and Brainstorm all of whom managed to survive encounters with him. (Batman v3 #107) Kid Kawaii was an android created by Akumaco who was built in the form of a young Japanese school girl whose mind was based on an actual young girl. One encounter between them saw the assassination android being dispatched by her corporate makers to assassinate the Japanese Prime Minister during a meeting in Tokyo with Ghost-Maker using an EMP to break apart Kid Kawaii's body. Akumaco spent many months in finding the parts of their android and restoring her. (Batman v3 #108)
Around the same time the second Robin was killed by the Joker, Ghost-Maker confronted and subsequently killed the married criminals Mr. and Mrs. Menace. The couple asked who’d look after their son and Ghost-Maker took up the responsibility. He let the boy live in a mansion, provided tutors, staff, and trainers, but never revealed his real name or face. Though his personal motivations were uncertain, the boy came to believe that Ghost-Maker saw an opportunity to make a better sidekick than Batman. He had the boy train 24/7 and turned him into the vigilante sidekick Phantom-One. The two worked well together, but Ghost-Maker's psychology was ill-suited to rearing a child. He kept his sidekick locked inside the mansion, unless they were going on a mission. Phantom-One grew to think that his mentor looked down on him and hated sharing the spotlight. After three years, the duo encountered the villain Palladium. During their fight Phantom-One rushed ahead, causing an explosion and trapping himself under rubble. Ghost-Maker was faced with a choice; attempt to save Phantom-One, or save the lives of the ten civilians who had been endangered because of Phantom-One's impatience. In his mind, it was simple math and he chose to save the civilians. By the time he'd completed the task, the building had collapsed on Phantom-One, leading Ghost-Maker to think his protégé was dead. Whether over guilt for the death of his sidekick or anger at losing to the villain, Ghost-Maker made sure that Palladium met his end, repaying him in kind for his crimes. (Batman Incorporated v3 #5)
In the aftermath of the Joker War, the Ghost-Maker witnessed the chaos caused to the city of Gotham and believed that Batman had failed in his mission. They commented that their instructors would have been ashamed of Bruce Wayne and that the truce between them was over with the Ghost-Maker looking to intervene in the city himself. (Batman v3 #100) Before departing, he used his Ghost-Net to hack computers in Gotham where he was responsible for leaking information on 14 corrupt district judges, revealed the existence of a serial killer and stopped the distribution of weapons from Santa Prisca. (Batman v3 #103) Arriving in the city, he hacked into the police computers and kidnapped a cop after learning that they allowed the Clownhunter to operate in Gotham with impunity. Around this time, he targeted the Smile Bar that was meeting ground for the Grinners who were psychotic criminals that worshipped the Joker. The Ghost-Maker later came to track down the Clownhunter on a rooftop in Little Santa Prisca where the young vigilante was preparing to use a home-made rocket launcher to kill Harley Quinn. However, the Ghost-Maker intended to eliminate the boy but Batman arrived on the scene to save the Clownhunter. This led to a fight between Batman and the Ghost-Maker who had decided that the winner of the duel would win Gotham. (Batman v3 #102) The two battled where Ghost-Maker commented on Bruce Wayne's failure in protecting the city where their fight led to a wounded Batman in the apartment of Harley Quinn. She had managed to thwart the Clownhunter in killing her with Ghost-Maker using a tranquilizer to render her unconscious as he intended to take Batman off the field in order to show him how a real crime-fighter operated to bring justice. (Batman v3 #103)
He then took the three captive and had them placed in an abandoned wing of Arkham Asylum where he set up an elaborate plan to prove his point to Bruce. This involved tying Batman and Harley Quinn to hospital beds whilst Clownhunter was untied. This was to allow the young man to try and murder the helpless Harley to show Batman that criminals had to be eliminated. (Batman v3 #104) Despite arranging for events, Batman managed to free himself and also freed Harley before she could be killed by Clownhunter. It was then that Harley Quinn spoke to the boy called Clownhunter where she had a heart to heart with him as she apologised for what she had done in the past. Hearing her words, the Clownhunter ended his plans to kill Quinn and left the scene thus thwarting the Ghost-Maker's plan. He then decided to confront Batman himself where the two battled one another where they once again debated their views in fighting crime. However, Batman highlighted that the reason he was 'lenient' was because he wanted to save them and that he needed to see such people on their worst days to find a way to save them. His words made the Ghost-Maker re-consider their fight where he was ready to resume their former arrangement of not interfering in each other's respective territory. However, Batman instead offered his hand in friendship to Ghost-Maker and asked him to help in policing Gotham City on the condition that he did not kill anyone. Ghost-Maker decided to give it a try and the two became allies with them working on stopping a theft by the Circus of Strange in the city. (Batman v3 #105)
Afterwards, Ghost-Maker continued to help Batman in the city where they operated from a garage in Fort Graye. During this time, he helped the Dark Knight in responding to various incidents in the city. Among them included a series of thefts operated by the Unsanity Collective on behalf of their leader Mister Wyze. Upon returning to their hidden garage, the two had a sparring session where Batman came to believe that someone was using the various criminal acts in the city in order to increase the level of fear experienced by its denizens. (Batman v3 #106) Afterwards, he helped save Harley Quinn when she was confronted by the police who wanted to arrest her for resisting them with Ghost-Maker doing so as he had become intrigued by her. (Batman v3 #107)
After saving Batman from the Magistrate agent Peacekeeper-01, Ghost-Maker learned that The Scarecrow had been manipulating the Unsanity Collective the whole time. (Batman v3 #110) Alongside Batman and Harley, Ghost-Maker is able to save several members of the Unsanity Collective, including a young child. He protected them again when they were pursued, by the Magistrate, to the underground jungle of Eden. (Batman v3 #116) With the Unsanity Collective saved, the Magistrate defend, and Scarecrow back in prison, Ghost-Maker came to take Clownhunter under his wing and who he decided to train with the two leaving Gotham. (Batman: Fear State: Omega v1 #1)
Later on, Batman went abroad to deal with an incident involving Lex Luthor who had purchased Batman Inc. In response, he came to contact Ghost-Maker in order to request his aid on the matter. (Batman v3 #121) He was later introduced to the rest of the team after it was revealed to them that Bruce Wayne had lost his fortune and thus could no longer fund their operations. Taking over, the group went about shutting down LexCorp's secret vigilante program that looked to train vigilantes in trouble spots around the world. One such location was in Kazbek, Chechnya where the team encountered Gray Wolf and initially mistook him for a villain who had gone rogue. They later discovered that he was attempting to save inhabitants in the region from a virus that would cause them to act violently. Batman, Inc. came to uncover the truth behind the virus and cure the people with Gray Wolf being invited to join the team. (Batman 2022 Annual v3 #1)
During their hunt for Luthor's labs, Batman Inc. came a mysterious person already striking these facilities and takin them offline. At the same time, the individual was hunting down and murdering the various mentors that had trained both Ghost-Maker and Batman. (Batman Incorporated v3 #1)
Overview
Personality and attributes
It was shown that underneath his costume that he had many scars over his body. (Batman v3 #109) He was shown to had adopted the name of the Ghost-Maker to hide their true identity. (Batman v3 #100) Though he chose the name, a number of people including Bruce Wayne would make fun of the identity. (Batman v3 #103) He kept few friends where he said that there were fewer than five people who had seen his entire face and only three knew his birth name. (Batman v3 #109) Only those that were close to him referred to him by his nickname of Khoa. (Batman 2021 Annual v3 #1) The Ghost-Maker wore an elaborate costume that included a mask that hid their features whilst having a white cape. (Batman v3 #100)
He was 8 years old when a psychologist came to diagnose him and he came to be labelled a psychopath. According to him, he did not feel either empathy or fear. (Batman v3 #109) From a young age, he was frighteningly smart but tended t be somewhat disturbing to people. As a child, it was said that he had hurt other children in class and other kids his age used to be afraid of him. Khoa would say that he was crazy as he showed no fear when a gun was pointed to his head, He claimed that he did not care about anything. (Batman 2021 Annual v3 #1)
He had said that he was proud of his great feats and liked to boast about his achievements. However, he spent years focused on a single crime lord with this dedication not being about glory or efficacy. There was a reason that the victory mattered to him which he kept secret namely that the crime lord in question had ruined his family. (Batman 2021 Annual v3 #1)
According to him, the world was broken and often came up with ideas on how to fix it. This was done no out of some notion of glory or personal gain but for the task itself that was deemed like a work of art. He believed that they should make the world better because they were the only ones smart enough to gather the skills to do so and to meet these challenges eagerly with them learning what was necessary to overcome them. (Batman v3 #105) He considered himself to be a crime fighter and not an assassin. Ghost-Maker was happy to believe himself a psychopath as he thought it made him better than Batman. (Batman v3 #103) The Ghost-Maker believed that not everyone could be saved and that even most people could not be saved. To him, he believed that one should not allow every death affected him otherwise his soul would whittle down to nothing. (Batman v3 #105)
Ghost-Maker typically operated in South-East Asian countries where his common pattern was spending a year in a city to clean up crime and weeding out corruption. This often led to a trail of bodies being left behind but little evidence of his activities. (Batman v3 #104) His strategy involved operating in a small city where he would systematically dismantle its criminal network. Once complete, he would move to the next city where they would use the coffers taken from criminal gangs to fund their operations as he moved through a mobile base. (Batman v3 #105) He believed that there was no hope in saving Gotham and if it was up to him he would move its population out whereupon he would have burnt the city down. Ultimately, him and Batman had an agreement that Ghost-Maker would not operate in Gotham so long as the Dark Knight maintained justice in the city. (Batman v3 #102)
Bruce Wayne and him were noted to have had a hostile relationship to one another with the former warning to make him pay for what he did to their master in Morocco. (Batman v3 #102) He believed ultimately as he believed that it was because he let his emotions make him vulnerable. In fact, he believed that emotions such as caring for others made one weak. (Batman v3 #103) Batman had said that he found the Ghost-Maker to be the most arrogant man he had ever met with a large ego that made him almost unbearable. (Batman v3 #104) The Ghost-Maker meanwhile believed that the two of them were crazy but that Bruce was not prepared for the role they had to save the world from crime. This was because he felt Wayne was attempting to fulfil the dreams of his 8-year-old self and to stop a crime that had already been committed. As such, the Ghost-Maker believed this to be a foolish venture and that he could never save that young boy. Meanwhile, Bruce believed that the Ghost-Maker was sick and that there was something broken in him with his anger at Wayne being because he wanted to know why he was not broken in a similar way. (Batman v3 #105) It was shown that he was competitive with Batman where he sought to be better in him in everyway. (Batman v3 #109)
The Ghost-Maker considered himself better than Batman and did not operate under his code. In fact, he was not above hurting and killing others with him believing that criminals deserved no mercy. (Batman v3 #102) His enmity with Batman stemmed from the fact that he felt that the Dark Knight's war on crime was based on a childish notion of vengeance whereas his motivation was that it was an art he intended to excel in. (Batman v3 #104)
He was shown to be bisexual where he was attracted to both men and women with him sometimes having a group sex with them. Despite that, he did not maintain relationships which were instead brief affairs for them. (Batman v3 #107) Ghost-Maker came to be fascinate by Harley Quinn with his ranging from attraction to a desire to kill her for her past crimes. (Batman v3 #109)
It was shown that he once took in the son of noted criminals Mr. and Mrs. Menace after killing the parents. The boy he decided to train as a sidekick to help him fight crime where he gave him the code name Phantom-One. (Batman Incorporated v3 #3)
Powers and abilities
It was shown that he was an equal match to Batman in terms of martial arts skill. (Batman v3 #103)
They were shown to had worn an elaborate costume that hid their features and protected them in combat. (Batman v3 #100) The systems on his suit made him invisible to digital means whilst his name was not present on any international database whilst his voice was distorted. (Batman v3 #103) It had grapple launchers located above the wrist allowing him to swiftly climb up buildings. (Batman v3 #107) A hologram could be projected over his suit allowing Ghost-Maker to hide his true identity when out in the public. (Batman v3 #108)
In combat, the Ghost-Maker was shown to wield a pair of katana-like swords. (Batman v3 #100) He could get Icon reroute his suit's power to his blades to electrify them and increase their strength allowing them to cut through powerful targets. However, such a move would drain his suits power reserves and only could be active for 7 seconds. (Batman v3 #108)
He could fire small darts that could knock a person unconscious. (Batman v3 #103)
Ghost-Maker was known to had programmed an A.I. to aid him out in the field with this being known as Icon. The A.I. was programmed to worry for Ghost-Maker as he himself did not experience fear. (Batman v3 #107) The Ghost-Maker utilised the Ghostnet to hack into computer systems for useful information. It was connected to his suit allowing him to read information from other digital devices. (Batman v3 #102) The Ghostnet was known to eliminate any intrusions into its systems. (Batman v3 #103)
For the roads, he made use of a four-wheeled vehicle that he called the Ghost Racer though he note that it was not as fast as the Batmobile. (Batman v3 #109) For transportation, he made use of a white jet called the Ghost-Stream that was invisible to detection and was capable of dropping him onto the field from great heights. (Batman v3 #107)
He claimed to had acquired a fortune that made him richer than Bruce Wayne at one point. (Batman v3 #105)
Ghost-Maker came to establish a cave-like structure within a skyscraper to be his headquarters which he referred to as the Haunt. (Batman v3 #109)
Later on, he was asked to take over Batman Incorporated where he used his own fortune to help fund their operations. (Batman 2022 Annual v3 #1)
Notes
- The Ghost-Maker was created by James Tynion IV, Carlo Pagulayan and Danny Miki where they made their first appearance in Batman v3 #100 (October 6, 2020).
- On his newsletter Empire of the Tiny Onion, "I remember, a few years back, right when I had first gotten wind of the creation of the Middle Grade and YA lines that DC Comics was developing… I approached the editor in charge of the program with an idea. I wanted to do a book with the energy of a Shonen Manga, that told the story of Bruce Wayne travelling the world and training to be the world's greatest crime-fighter… I don't think I ever wrote up a pitch document, but I do remember laying out the core cast in a notebook. There was a cowardly thief style character, a young woman who may or may not have escaped from Themyscira, but the character that had really instigated the whole idea was Bruce's Rival. The key to that idea was to create a Zuko to Bruce's Aang. The Gary Oak to his Ash Ketchum. The Draco Malfoy to his Harry Potter."
- In an interview on SyFy.com, Tynion wrote, ""Ghost-Maker is a character who we'll see a little bit of right at the end of Batman #100, but will come in in a big way in November and beyond. This is a character who I've been excited about for a really long time. He's definitely going to show up as an adversary to Bruce, but he is not necessarily a villain per se. He is someone that Bruce has known since he was a young man traveling around the world training to become Batman. And now, basically Bruce's rival from when he was 15 years old has come back to Gotham City because he doesn't think Bruce is doing a very good job. That's the sort of core conceit, is creating this rival from youth that we're going to see come in in a big way in the present."
- Tynion wrote, "The idea of giving Bruce a rival in his childhood goes back to when I was writing the backup stories to 'Zero Year,' thinking a lot about that era in Bruce's life. From time to time, I would think about where I might be able to introduce a character like that. Then I realized that I needed to bring in another character into the last story of 2020. Ghost-Maker needed to be a fascinating inverted mirror of Batman... And he needed some flair. And a name. And then Jorge Jimenez took all of that and worked some magic, putting together what I think is one of the absolute coolest new superhero designs I've seen in the last few years. We might even already have something we're building in secret with the character..."
- Artist Jorge Jiménez in an interview commented on the characters design, "The whole process of designing this character was great, James had a very clear idea that he wanted, and my hand just moved by itself. The first thing that was clear to me is that he must feel like the opposite of Batman, and what is the opposite of Batman? The color white. From there, I thought of a very functional suit and what it would look like in today's modern high-tech context. Images of video game-style armor rained on my mind. However, everyone knows that I am a fan of manga and that aesthetic. So I took a series of elements that I like from manga such as the oversized and wide fabric, and I combined them with elements of military engineering. Obviously, I simplified everything to a comic language, to be able to move it comfortably around the stage without overloading the pages."
Appearances
- Batman v3: (2020)
- Infinite Frontier v1: (2021)
- Batman: Fear State: Omega v1:
- Batman 2021 Annual v3:
- Batman: The Knight v1:
- Batman Incorporated v3: (2022)
External Links
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