Thread:The Many-Angled One/@comment-32317643-20170630214049/@comment-26066818-20170706114043

Hey, Jack, I'm going to try to step in here with some help. I don't have a scanner, but I'll quote for full accuracy. For reference, Ghost Rider Vol 6 #18 came out in February 2008, A-Z #4 (Ghost Rider / John Blaze) in September 2008 and #14 (Zarathos) not until June 2010.

Coming out just a few months after the Zadkiel revelation, A-Z #4 basically sticks to previously established continuity. It described Zarathos as a demon and detailed his history with the Blood, the Medallion of Power, and so on before being bonded to Johnny. No mention of Angels is worked into the origin text. Only at the very end does it acknowledge Zadkiel, saying... "While fighting the penultimate avatar, Johnny was told Roxanne had made a deal with the rogue angel Zadkiel to save Johnny from an eternity in Hell; in exchange, the entity he was melded with wasn't demonic in nature, but rather an angel of vengeance."

The Zarathos entry, published two years after the revelation, had a little more information. The majority of the article stuck with the 90's Zarathos revelations about the Blood and the Medallion. However, a note was added to the end of the article, saying..."Recent accounts claim the angel Zadkiel transformed Blaze into Ghost Rider by merging him with an angel; whether this means Zarathos was a fallen angel, that Blaze was simultaneously merged with both Zarathos and an angel, or that one or more of these seemingly conflicting accounts is untrue, remains to be seen."

So, Zarathos's true nature is specifically acknowledged as ambiguous after the Zadkiel revelation. He could just be the name of Johnny's Spirit. He could have been bonded to the Spirit, like we know Noble Kale was bonded to Dan's Spirit. And please remember that most in-continuity information we have about Zarathos comes from the Caretaker (whose entire purpose in life is to lie to the Spirits and their hosts about their origins), Mephisto (Lord of Lies), or Zarathos himself (prone to amnesia and memory issues).