Ghost Machine is an American cooperative media company founded in October 2023, which publishes creator-owned comics through Image Comics, and was founded to help the participating creators to benefit from the development of its intellectual properties. The company was announced on October 12, 2023 at the New York Comic Con. Its founding writers and artists, who are exclusive to the company, are Brad Meltzer, Jason Fabok, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, Geoff Johns, Francis Manapul, Peter J. Tomasi, Lamont Magee, and Maytal Zchut.
 At its launch, the creators stressed that unlike the work they had done in the past for publishers such as DC Comics, the books of the four shared universes established by the company's first official release in January 2024, Ghost Machine #1, would not be set in the superhero genre, but in other genres such as science fiction, historical fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction, and horror.
 Ghost Machine was founded in 2023 as a cooperative media company that would publish creator-owned comics through Image Comics. Its launch was announced on October 12, 2023 at the New York Comic Con at the Lunar retailer breakfast, with its first convention panel held on October 13. It also produced a Ghost Machine #1 ashcan comic, as a giveway to visitors to the company's booth.
 The company's founding writers and artists are: Brad Meltzer, Jason Fabok, Gary Frank, Bryan Hitch, Geoff Johns, Lamont Magee, Francis Manapul, Peter J. Tomasi, and Maytal Zchut. It was also indicated that other creators would be joining the company after they completed their prior commitments to other publishers. Ghost Machine was conceived with the idea that its founding creators would be exclusive to the company and will jointly own, operate and profit from their creations. Novelist/television writer Brad Meltzer explained the rationale for the company, pointing to how in the American comics history, historically, writers and artists were not able to control or earn consierable profit from creations that went on to become highly lucrative for publishers, like Superman, saying, "The entertainment industry is an ecosystem, and it is ever changing...When you tell the stories of comics themselves, the creator doesn't always come first."
 Pointing to the 2023 Writer's Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes (the latter of which was still ongoing at the time of Ghost Machine's launch), the company further explained in a press release: 
 "As the recent Hollywood strikes have shown, creatives are disenfranchised with the traditional industry model – creators seek increased empowerment as a natural progression to an ever-changing entertainment landscape. Ghost Machine's enterprising business model is at the forefront of this evolution with the characters and full company ownership shared by its creators in every way." "Our ambition for Ghost Machine is to push beyond superheroes, introducing new genres, characters and shared universes, completely co-owned by all the creators involved. We see this as the future of how creatives will work and retain creative control and meaningfully participate in success like never before. Our passion is for the magic of graphic storytelling and the emotional resonance of compelling characters. But we are not just a comic book company – we are the first wholly creator-owned and operated media company of its kind, born out of a desire to create and succeed together." This was interpreted by Russ Burlingame of ComicBook.com to mean that Ghost Machine would not be restricting to publishing screen-friendly intellectual properties, but a media company that would facilitate development of those properties into media adaptations, and Burligame noted that several of the company's founding creators had experience producing work for film and television. It was not clear, however, whether all of the founders would have an equal stake in all of the properties, or if each individual creator owned their individual properties, which had been the standard arrangement at Image Comics since its founding.
 The company's founders stressed that they would be creating stories set in genres outside the superhero genre in which many of them had already done work, with Johns saying, "We want to create beyond superheroes." Echoing this, Hitch said of the stories, "Heroes yes. Capes no." The company's launch schedule was to commence with Geiger: Ground Zero, a two-issue series by Johns and Frank released in November 2023 that serves as a prequel to their 2021 miniseries of the same name. This would be followed in January 2024 with the company's first "official" release, Ghost Machine #1, a 64-page special, and then that April with a series of books that would comprise "four shared universes of character-centered titles." The Unnamed, whose first ongoing titles would be Geiger and Redcoat; Rook: Exodus, a sprawling science fiction epic set in the future; Family Odysseys, which centers upon a family of time travelers. 
 At its launch the company also stated that its slate of books would include an as-yet untitled horror-based universe co-created by what the company indicated at its launch was a prominent artist still under contract with another publisher, and whose identity would be announced at a later date. Bleeding Cool reported that the name of that series was The Soulless, but on December 1, the company announced that the unnamed creator was Brazilian artist Ivan Reis, and that the universe was Hyde Street, which would also be the eponymous title of that universe's central series, which Reis would illustrate with Johns as writer.
 On December 6, media sources reported that Danish artist Peter Snejbjerg would be joining Ghost Machine in an exclusive capacity, as its eleventh creator. Snejbjerg's first work is the book Hornsby and Halo, in collaboration with writer Tomasi as writer, with whom Snejbjerg previously collaborated on the supernatural DC Comics series The Light Brigade. Hornsby and Halo centers upon a pair of teenagers, one a demon, and the other an angel, who endeavor to maintan the cosmic peace between Heaven and Hell. An installment of the series appears in Ghost Machine #1.
 The Unnamed universe centers upon "a mysterious group of heroes across history", including the continuing adventures of Geoff Johns and Gary Frank's previous creations, Geiger and Junkyard Joe. Its titles include:
 Rook: Exodus — This series by Johns and Jason Fabok is described by Ghost Machine as a "sprawling sci-fi epic which takes place in the far future, on a world where every aspect of nature is controlled by humanity". The story centers upon a struggling farmer who must deal with problems that include winged scavengers who plague his crops. The farmer is given a second chance when he becomes one of the "Wardens", for which he takes on the name Rook, and must decide whether to flee the planet before its destruction or fight to save it. A conceit of the book's premise is the helmet donned by the farmer whose face resembles that of a bird, and gives him the ability to "connect" with birds, which he can employ as his spies and as a weapon.
 Hyde Street — This horror-based universe universe was co-created by what Ghost Machine indicated at the 2023 New York Comic Con launch was a prominent artist who was under contract with another publisher, and whose identity would be announced at a later date. The artist was later revealed in December 2023 to be Ivan Reis, who would be paired with writer Johns, with whom he had previously collaborated on a number Green Lantern storylines for DC Comics' books, most notably among them the 2009–10 crossover storyline "Blackest Night". The Hyde Street universe's main book will be the eponymous Hyde Street, which Image Comics described as combining "Blackest Night's fantastic scope with Twilight Zone's thought-provoking drama." Reis illustrated variant covers for Ghost Machine #1, in which Hyde Street would make its debut, before appearing in its own series later in 2024.