Ah, thank you for all of that. I didn't realize there were so many clues there. I love the attention to detail.
I haven't paid much attention to the season before this episode. With regards to the Darkforce, did the show mention S.H.I.E.L.D.'s encounter with Marcus Daniels (the MCU version of Blackout) in episode 1x19 or General Androvich in episode 3x13?
This is the $50,000 question right now. In the comics the Riders certainly coexist. But in the MCU? Obviously we're all hoping for YES!, but it's too early to tell. Robbie does say "passed it into me", which could be taken either way, really. Maybe Johnny made Robbie part of the club, or maybe it is more exclusive and went from Johnny into Robbie alone. Probably the only way we'll ever know is if they intend to work more with that element of the story. Seems like a major waste to introduce the concept and then never explore it. AoS has been really good about not doing that, for the most part. Anything we actually see in the show (and not just hear through exposition) seems to matter. So I feel like it's likely we'll come back to that other Ghost Rider at some point this year, in some capacity. Especially if, as this episode and the last appear to tease, the Ghost Rider legacy is entwined somehow with the Darkhold. Edit: As a personal aside, I'm now kind of hoping they find a way to include Carter Slade as well. Triple Rider Showdown. Horse, car, and motorcycle.
Not all of us. I for one have never much cared for Ghost Rider. I'm not that big a fan of supernatural characters, and I dislike "heroes" who kill or who mistake blood vengeance for justice. Neither do I get particularly excited over cars or motorcycles, which I suppose is probably a factor in the character's appeal to many. Plus, fire is hard to do well in CGI, and I find the Ghost Rider flame effects unconvincing. (I'm not sure if the Arrowverse shows do CGI flames better with Firestorm, or if I'm just more used to cartoony CGI in that context.)
It definitely seemed to be. That was a pleasant unexpected surprised. I really enjoyed this one. It was nice to get origin flashbacks for Robbie. The way the conflict played out with Coulson and Mace was kind of nice. there was an understandable reason for the conflict, and they managed to have Mace against Coulson without turning him into a bad guy. I'm familiar with the comics so I wasn't surprised that Eli turned out to be bad guy. I got a big kick out of seeing the other Ghost Rider, who definitely looked like Johnny Blaze. I wonder what's going on with Simmons?
Ghost Rider was never really a hero so much as a tragic anti-hero. A very pulpy anti-hero true, but an anti-hero nonetheless. A Jekyll and Hyde type character, always anguishing over being unable to control the Spirit of Vengeance. Or at least that was the original premise behind the character's conception. No doubt the character has gone back and forth over the last four decades. So with that in mind any complaints about him being "a hero that kills" seems to rather fundamentally miss the point. Almost akin to saying "why can't the Hulk be a happier character?" Also keep in mind that the flashback we saw isn't really Robbie's origin story, it's only part of it. The other part is taming the monster within and that's still ongoing.
To an extent, yes, I'll grant that -- but the Hulk generally isn't portrayed as a killer either. More violent comics characters in general aren't to my taste. And I just don't care for the idea that cosmic forces embrace the concept of vengeance, which I consider a primitive, stupid, destructive force that does more to perpetuate injustice than to restore justice. After all, it tends to be a feedback loop -- killing out of vengeance just prompts the other side to kill out of vengeance, and back and forth forever. I see vengeance as the infection vector by which the disease of violence perpetuates itself. It's not a solution, it's part of the problem. But the idea that there's an intrinsic supernatural force of vengeance implies that vengeance is somehow a natural law of the universe, which implies that it's somehow right, and I find that a very unpleasant idea. Although I guess it's not as bad with Ghost Rider, who's possessed by a demonic force, than it is with DC's Spectre, who's supposed to be an agent of God. But from what I've seen, the former is still portrayed as doing justice by punishing evildoers.
Idecided to give the show a chance, and I just finished binge watching the episodes (I watched episode 1 yesterday and had planned to just watch another today, but I got caught up in it). Its a lot better then I expected. I dislike Mace, and consider him a bad guy, but he's much better in the role of anti-Coulson SHIELD person then Gonzales was (and actually understandable, even if I think he's on the wrong side, as opposed to Gonzales just being a prejudiced jerk). Robbie Reyes has grown on me, mostly because he's written and acted well. He'll always be Ghost Driver to me, but I like him. Seeing Ghost Rider show up (and probably be Johnny Blaze) was awesome, and I'm glad Robbie is just the next Ghost in line instead of being used in place of Blaze or Ketch. Daisy is a bit gloomy, but I think the shgow has done a good job showing why she's that way. Fitz/Simmons is interesting. I think Simmons can be a bit of a jerk in her role (not as bad as when she went full anit-inhuman bigot, but still a jerk), but she is at least standing up to mace. Fitz is still a good character, and the Aida storyline is a lot more interesting then I thought it would be. Mack is Mack. I'll never like him since he was revealed as a traitor and one of Gonzales's minions, but he's a character I can tolerate. I like when Fitz messes with him, although I wish it was more antagonistic then friendly. Overall, its been a pretty strong season. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here.
My point wasn't about whether or not the Hulk kills (which in the MCU, he most certainly does), it was about anger being his defining trait. Just like with Ghost Rider the defining trait is seeking vengeance. It is after all a spirit of vengeance, not a "spirit of justice" or even a "spirit of due process". Also, vengeance being a primal instinct (just like Hulk's anger) is again, sort of the whole point. It's an exploration of humankind's struggle with it's baser nature. Hence the Jekyll & Hyde comparison. If you don't like anti-heroes as a rule, that's fine, but they're just as valid a character type as any other. A world populated only by paragons of virtue would be deathly dull. This is supposed to be drama and adventure, not a blueprint for a utopian future in which benevolent gods doll out wisdom and justice in a perfectly contrived circumstance.
Yeah, and one thing that bothers me about the MCU is that almost all its movie characters (except Ant-Man, and Spidey so far) are much more casual about killing than their comics counterparts. I just don't like stories where the protagonists kill. I want my superheroes to save lives, not take them. I find it ironic that the heroes of the supposedly "darker" Netflix shows have a clearer moral code against killing than the movie heroes. I'm not saying they aren't valid, just that I don't relish them. I'd never mistake a statement of my individual preference for a statement about what everyone else should be allowed to enjoy. Which was pretty much my point -- you said that "we're all hoping" for more Ghost Riders, and I was saying that my preference is not the same as yours. Not to say mine is better, just to say that it's my own. Total straw man. I have nothing against flawed characters, I just don't like it when murderous characters have their names on the books. There are plenty of ways to be flawed without being a demonic murder ghost. And there's no reason for this to be an argument. If you like Ghost Rider, fine. But I can take him or leave him. I don't actively hate stories about him (or them, or whatever), but I don't actively seek them out either, and I don't have a hunger for more.
Wow, we have to wait a full month after that ending? Where are Fitz and Coulson? Where is Simmons? (It'd be cool if Mace was somehow using her as bait, that'd put trust in him in serious doubt. Or maybe even he wants her to team up with Senator Evil to fight some even bigger bad threat that we haven't even seen yet. A real hold-your-nose-to-work-with-the-enemy situation.) Appropriate that the big bad guy for GR to face is his uncle. It has to be personal for him. And I'll agree with most other folks that angsty Daisy has been a bit meh the past few weeks. I was actually glad to see her acting like old hacker Daisy in this episode. A welcome respite.
Johnny Blaze never actually died, unless something changed after I bailed on Marvel (which is certainly possible). His step-father, the owner of the Quentin Carnival, was dying of cancer, so Johnny sold his soul to Satan to save him-- Satan betrayed him by curing step-dad's cancer, but having him die in a crash. Johnny became cursed to become Ghost Rider every night after that, although his circumstances changed a few times along the way. Actually, Johnny Blaze was a good guy. In fact, he eventually gained control of the curse and freed himself from Satan's harassment by resisting multiple temptations to do wrong. All that demon business was a Reagan-Era retcon, when all that dark, frowny stuff was just becoming popular.
Well let's go through the list shall we? Iron Man: a guy in a heavily weaponized armoured suit fighting mercenaries and terrorists. Yup, no reason why he would ever kill anyone. The Hulk: A 100 stone slab of muscle driven by pure thoughtless rage. Again, no chance anyone would ever get even slightly hurt by this guy, even accidentally. Much less crushed to death from falling debris, or drop kicked into the stratosphere. Thor: Warrior god who fights alien monsters with a blunt instrument. Injury or death from blunt force trauma?! Surly not! Captain America: A soldier fighting in a global war where half the people are shooting either at him, or the people standing next to him. A soldier that kills? Never! Black Widow & Hawkeye: A pair of secret agent master assassins. Nuff said really. After all, the definition of "assassin" is "person who knocks their target unconscious and leaves them for the police to find". And it's not like a secret agent would ever find themselves in a kill-or-be-killed situation. You're right, I entirely concede the point. Superheros should be naive moralisers with the ethical polarity of a Saturday morning cartoon. How wrong I was! You know there's a difference between an actual strawman argument and...hmm, what's that word? ^Thanks for that! It was on the tip on my tongue I swear. Ah. I knew *someone* died in a bike crash. Still, it seems like from a thematic and mythological POV that would be a better fit if he did die, just like Robbie. I mean summoning Satan for a cancer cure sounds more like something you'd expect to see on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (not that that's a bad thing of course!) Oh sure, eventually. I was just talking about how the character was initially presented, which is basically where we are with Robbie now. He's not a fully formed character yet as he's still in the midst of his origin story. People often forget that how a hero got their powers (or their equivalent) isn't the entirety of their origin story. For example, after Peter Parker got bit by that spider he tried to make money off of his new abilities. It wasn't until his inaction cost Uncle Ben his life that he really became Spider-Man. Frank Castle died with his family, but Punisher wasn't born until he put on that shirt just like Bruce Wayne died in that alley but didn't become Batman until he put on the cowl. Right now Robbie is in that in-between place. Still struggling with his predicament, just like Johnny was in his first appearance.
Ridicule is not a constructive response. Most of the characters you cite have been portrayed in the comics for decades as having codes against killing. Between the mid-'40s and the '70s, that was virtually obligatory for comic-book superheroes, so it was part of what defined these characters. For a while in the late '80s, Captain America's no-kill policy was taken to such an extreme that it was retroactively asserted that he'd never even killed in WWII, although that was taking it too far and was later retconned away. Similarly, Hawkeye's willingness to kill has been portrayed inconsistently; in more recent comics, it's been portrayed as something he was willing to do when there was no other way, but in many older comics, Hawkeye was quite strident about killing being completely off-limits for any Avenger. Sure, you can question the logic of those extreme cases, but they illustrate that the reluctance to kill has been a basic part of the fabric of superhero stories for decades, and the movies are breaking with that tradition by having their heroes kill casually. And your "Saturday morning cartoon" quip is uncalled for. As I already pointed out, the MCU characters with the most clear-cut codes against killing are Daredevil and Luke Cage, stars of two of the most mature and sophisticated installments of the entire MCU. You're getting it backward to say that casual killing is more mature than distaste for killing. Treating killing as something meaningless, sanitized, and inconsequential is superficial and juvenile. A mature story about death confronts the pain and horror of it and the moral questions that are raised by the decision of whether or not to kill. And, yes, I grant that that's exactly what AoS is doing here with the Ghost Rider story -- treating GR's lethal vengeance as a troubling thing that haunts Robbie and disturbs the characters around him. That's a good way of dealing with the question. Daredevil's treatment of the Punisher was similar -- Castle's use of deadly force wasn't casually accepted, but was questioned and objected to by the other characters, and Castle himself was portrayed as a very broken and wounded character. That's why it's so inconsistent and shallow for the movie Avengers to kill so frequently and casually and never blink an eye about it. If the movies raised a debate about the ethics of killing as the comics often have, or had some of the Avengers more willing to cross the line than others, or engaged with the question on the same level that the Netflix shows and AoS have done, that would be good. It's the superficiality of it, the taking of human life treated as a trivial action beat with no impact on the characters, that I don't care for. Not just in superhero movies, but in action movies in general. Every death is a tragedy to someone, and I think it's dishonest to pretend otherwise. If a hero has no choice but to kill, then the consequences of that choice should be addressed. It shouldn't just be a throwaway action beat followed by a witty quip. That is what is juvenile and cartoony.
What? Captain America has been killing since his first comic. Edit - Iron Man too. Another Edit - And the Hulk. I'm not searching for any others. You clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
Well two of them were born during a war. I guess as a culture we were more accepting of the implications of such power back then