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Ghost (I). The Ghost (I) was created by “George Chance,” the pseudonym of George Thomas Roberts (Black Hood, Captain Zero, Diamondstone, Jeffrey Wren), and appeared in fifteen stories in The Ghost and Thrilling Mystery from 1940 to 1944, beginning with “Calling the Ghost” (The Ghost, Super-Detective #1, Jan. 1940); he also appeared in fifty comic book issues in 1944 and 1945.

The Ghost (I) is a Costumed Avenger. George Chance is a magician who is more skilled than Houdini at escapes. Chance also teaches magic, proficiency in disguise, criminology, lock-picking, knife-throwing, psychology, stage illusion, background construction, and other such things as a professional magician needs to know. He decided to put his skills to use fighting crime, and so he put on a fright mask and became "the Ghost" (sometimes "the Green Ghost"), aiding Police Commissioner Standish against the bad guys. Standish, for his part, knows that Chance is the Ghost and so gives him every cooperation possible.

Chance was raised in a circus and was wise in the tricks of the trade, but more often uses his skills as a magician to catch crooks and to save his girlfriend, Merry White, who often gets in trouble. Chance is assisted by Joe Harper, a freeloader and con man who provides information to the Ghost in exchange for money and a place to sleep, and Tiny Tim Terry, a circus midget with a foul attitude, and Glenn Saunders, a young man who is greatly attracted to magic and who idolizes the Ghost.

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