Ghost Rider is one of the most beloved Marvel characters, and his place in the universe of Marvel’s vast TV shows and movies has been pretty slim. His last real significant appearance was through Robbie Reyes in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, which has largely been considered non-canonical.
Ryan Gosling apparently wants to play Ghost Rider in the MCU, which that’s not a bad casting idea at all. However, my issue isn’t with Ryan Gosling being Ghost Rider, it’s just with the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large.
The MCU is currently led by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, and it has released some not-so-fantastic features over the past few years. It feels like since Avenger’s Infinity War that the MCU has fallen down dramatically in quality and especially in story-telling.
Nowadays, pretty much all of the MCU’s projects in phase 4 are comedy films with barely any substance. The latest example of that is She-Hulk. Taking any character and turning them into a joke isn’t really the way to go with your source material.
I’m not against comedy, but Marvel’s comedy has rendered many characters useless and unfunny in general. It’s not like it’s good comedy either; the MCU has just bad comedy and bad writing.
Ghost Rider is a character that is brutal, with the Devil quite literally possessing him and reaping the souls of the wicked and evil. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD handled his character quite well, giving him the aura of a dark and disturbing individual who doesn’t have any mercy for bad guys. It was a stark contrast to the other members of SHIELD, who believed in mercy.
In the Ghost Rider movies with Nicholas Cage, Ghost Rider was still a terrifying and formidable foe that doesn’t really believe in mercy. That’s the character you’d expect, because nothing else makes sense.
However, I can’t imagine the MCU getting a hold of Ghost Rider would be a good idea. It would probably destroy his character and render him a comedy sketch. Even when the MCU got a hold of Gorr the God Butcher, who was arguably very terrifying, the only thing that saved his character was Christian Bale’s phenomenal acting. Other than that, waste of a perfectly interesting character.
And in general, Thor: Love and Thunder sucked.
I think Ghost Rider should just stay in the background, where his character was interestingly safe. If he’s brought into the MCU, I can’t see anything positive for him.
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Zainah Yousef
Zainah Yousef is the author of The Fallen Age Saga and specializes in gaming, social media advice, and reviews. She's been writing all her life and she probably won't stop anytime soon.
