Ghost Rider: Trails of Tears is a 2007 miniseries by Marvel Comics, written by Garth Ennis with art by Clayton Crain.
The series follows Travis Parham, a former Confederate soldier left for dead by his fellow soldiers, only to be saved by freed slave Caleb and his family. Nursed back to health over two years, Travis left to travel the frontier, only to return and find Caleb and his family killed by a gang of outlaws. Vowing revenge, Travis decides to kill the gang, only to encounter a hooded figure on a undead horse doing the same.
Ghost Rider: Trails of Tears provides examples of:
- The American Civil War: Travis Parham was a Lieutenant in the Confederate Army.
- Antebellum America: Caleb was a self-freed black man living in the Antebellum South during The American Civil War. After the war, his family is hounded by a lynch gang who are styled after the proto KKK of the time.
- Anti-Hero: Borderline Villain Protagonist at points; Caleb doesn't care how many innocents die, as long as he gets the men he's after.
- Blood Knight: Caleb is a particularly notable case, even amongst the other Ghost Riders. The only thing making him a hero is that the men he's hunting are even worse.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: If Caleb has the luxury, he prefers to make his enemies suffer before they die.
- Deal with the Devil: Caleb, like all Ghost Riders, though his was made with spirits from his ancestors' homeland in order to protect his family. Unfortunately for him, this Spirit of Vengeance doesn't protect, it can only take revenge. As such, Caleb is given the power only after he is dead, so that he can hunt down his family's killers.
- Forced to Watch: Caleb's forced to watch as his sons are nailed to a tree and shot to death, all the while taunted as to how he couldn't save them. While this is going on he can hear his wife being raped just a few feet away from him, before she too is killed with a knife. Only then do his captors kill him.
- Hellish Horse: Caleb has one of these as his ride. As befits the Ghost Rider, this horse is usually on fire.
- Left for Dead: Travis was presumed dead by his fellow soldiers so they left him behind.
- Nominal Hero: Caleb is only concerned with his own personal vengeance. If innocents get in the way, so be it.
- Outlaw: Reagan and his gang are a bunch of evil outlaws.
- Revenant Zombie: After dying, Reagan and his gang come back as undead revenants.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: George Reagan was a former slaver, and after slavery was abolished, went about raiding former slaves, natives, and their settlements to take back what he believed had been taken from him.
- Walking the Earth: Travis does this in the frontier after he is healed.
