Ghost-Maker (DC)

Revision as of 05:44, 1 December 2020

The Ghost-Maker in Batman v3 #102.

The Ghost-Maker is a comic supervillain who features in DC Comics.

Biography

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 Brue 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 ebtween 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)

During this time, he 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)

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)

Overview

Personality and attributes

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)

The Ghost-Maker wore an elaborate costume that included a mask that hid their features whilst having a white cape. (Batman v3 #100)

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)

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) 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 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)

Powers and abilities

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)

In combat, the Ghost-Maker was shown to wield a pair of katana-like swords. (Batman v3 #100)

He could fire small darts that could knock a person unconscious. (Batman v3 #103)

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)

Notes

The Ghost-Maker in Batman v3 #102.

• 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..."

Appearances

• Batman v3: (2020)

External Links

• DC Database Entry
• Comcivine Entry

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