The Marvel Universe Needs More Characters Like Ghost Rider

Earlier this year, Marvel introduced one of their most compelling characters to date with Jon Bernthal’s Punisher, Frank Castle — the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first true anti-hero. Aside from Bernthal’s simmering and intense performance, Castle offers fans and the show’s other characters something they haven’t yet seen in the MCU: A good guy doing bad things.

Before “Daredevil,” the megafranchise’s line between heroes and villains was very clearly defined: Wilson Fisk, no matter how interesting, was a bad guy who did very bad things, just like Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace in “Guardians of the Galaxy”), Whiplash (Mickey Rourke, “Iron Man 2”), Captain America’s 1940s nemesis The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and even Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. But when Frank Castle entered the picture, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox’s Daredevil) was presented with someone who, in many ways, he agreed with.

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Thanks to his historical popularity, the ethical complexity of the storyline, and his onscreen chemistry, The Punisher was the breakout character of “Daredevil’s” second season. Now, less than a year later, Marvel’s second best-known punishment dealer — Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes (Gabriel Luna) — made his debut in the Season 4 premiere (Sept. 20) of ABC’s “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Introduced with a fiery road chase that ended with The Rider taking vengeance on a group of very bad men, it was clear the show wanted to get straight to the goods introducing the new character — all the better for fans of the show and character, after several months of Ghost Rider-centric promotion.

In the best moment of the episode, Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennett) finally comes face-to-face with Reyes: Believing he’s a superhuman serial killer — like many of the foes she’s faced before — she’s shocked by his justification of every single incident. Bennett’s eyes flicker in surprise when Reyes reveals his schoolteacher victim was a pedophile, and a dead detective had “blood on his hands” as well.

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Reyes and Castle’s methods are, of course, comic-book violence — but the dilemma they create, for this universe’s often self-doubting heroes, is something the genre desperately needs more of right now. This isn’t The Joker and Batman having philosophical debates in dimly lit interrogation rooms: It’s Marvel’s superheroes confronted with darker versions of themselves.

The Inhumans/Terrigen overarching plot of the show, the post-Sokovia political climate — the entire purpose of S.H.I.E.L.D. as it now stands — are about one thing: Superhumans as weapons of mass destruction, bombs that can think, and cause unimaginable damage on a whim. The team, even acting independently as they are for the moment, has always struggled with the assumption that they know better than the metahumans they track and fight. To add to this mission the ambiguity of allies and frenemies who see no reason for restraint in their judgment is to call that position into question in a way it never has before.

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The Avengers have never really shown much compunction about killing their foes — the team includes Black Widow and Hawkeye, after all — but the Hell’s Kitchen heroes of the Netflix series, and even more-so the ABC cast, stand more in line with Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Quake: Killing, in revenge or even for national security, is a line they’ve all been shown incapable of crossing. In fact, Daisy’s moment of doubt in the premiere and guilt for the destruction she accomplished last season — when she accepts Reyes’s deadly judgment on her own sins — tells us how strongly she still feels about this conviction.

The only worthwhile conflict in drama isn’t about fists, or technology: Heroism is a story of ideals. “Captain America: Civil War” was such a success because it pitted its heroes against each other in philosophical and emotional ways, rather than just finding paper-thin ways to have heroes punch each other. By bringing heroes into contact with foes that more and more closely align with those values, the story can tease out finer and finer details and complexity, deepening and strengthening its — and our — understanding of what they mean.

A hero who knows they’re better than the villain is primed for a fall, sure; but when, say, a vigilante comes into the picture bringing self-doubt, questioning the effectiveness of the methods on which the story and hero are based, and so on, there’s a real chance to explore and deepen our connections to, and reading of, both.

Ghost Rider’s choice to let Daisy live, as well as her glimpse into his daytime life, will no doubt provide interesting conflict in weeks to come. Yoyo’s amped-up presence in the premiere, and LA, could provide more context to the way that will play out. But as long as Daisy is on her own, doing penance for her time in the Hive and protesting the new S.H.I.E.L.D.’s methods toward her people, she’s going to need all the help she can get. And if she learns a little bit about vengeance along the line, so be it.

Daisy loves to proclaim her humility, of course, and it’s her belief in compromise and dignity for everyone is exactly what makes her such a strong character. But for somebody who loves to shout, as much as she does, about how neither she nor S.H.I.E.L.D. can serve as “judge, jury and executioner”… We get the feeling she’s going to need to know exactly what it looks like if you start to think you can.

“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” airs Tuesdays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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