Given that Ghost Rider is a character forced by a demonic pact to act as a spirt of vengeance it’s not a huge surprise to see that everything it touches is cursed. And yet it appears that Marvel are determined to bring it into the MCU, despite the ill fortune this will clearly bring upon them.
So: Ghost Rider (the character) had turned up in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D played by Gabriel Luna. However, the confidence in which Marvel held the character’s ability to hold an entire series was indicated in that it was not kept for Disney+ where all the prestige Marvel series’ are going.
No, it was handballed instead to Hulu – not even to Netflix as a sop for cancelling Daredevil/Jessica Jones/Luke Cage/Iron Fist on them.
Hulu has Marvel’s Runaways, which is a series you hadn’t heard of until this sentence and gives you some idea of the prestige of the place. But now the plans to set Ghost Rider off there has fallen over too, with the series being deep sixed.
Now, it’s not entirely clear as to whether the series might find a new home, but there’s also whispers that a lady Ghost Rider will be introduced into the MCU in the form of Bella Thorne, who will be introduced in the upcoming Doctor Strange and the Multiverse Of Madness, which will have a whole bunch of alternate versions of characters – including, presumably, the Alejandra Jones incarnation of the Rider.
So will Thorne be there in place of a Johnny Blaze/Danny Ketch/Robbie Reyes/whoever else, or will he still turn up in his own right, or will all attempts to make something of Ghost Rider just fall apart because Nicolas Cage made the role his own?
Our money’s on the last one, frankly.