What A Punisher And Ghost Rider Crossover Could Look Like In The MCU
When the Punisher becomes possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and transformers into Ghost Rider, [...]
When the Punisher becomes possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and transformers into Ghost Rider, that's when there will be nowhere left for Marvel's criminals to hide.
That scenario hasn't happened in the Marvel Universe just yet (which is actually kind of surprising, come to think of it), but popular artist BossLogic imagined what that mashup could look like in live-action as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
BossLogic combined the looks of Jon Bernthal's Punisher from Marvel's Daredevil and Marvel's The Punisher on Netflix with the look of Gabriel Luna as Robbie Reyes, the Ghost Rider from Marvel's Agents of SHIELD on ABC. Take a look below:
Just trying something that I pictured in my head for The Punisher and a version where he is mixed with ghost rider 😂 goodnight folks ♥️ pic.twitter.com/B6QBABddq3
— BossLogic (@Bosslogic) April 9, 2017
While the Punisher has never become Ghost Rider, there was that brief period of time when he became a supernatural angel of vengeance, having been saved from killing himself his family's guardian angel, Gabriel. No, we're not kidding. The story revealed that Frank Castle's fight against crime on Earth was actually his version of Purgatory.
Wondering where that guardian angel was when Frank's whole family got murdered? Well, it turned out that the entire event was part of hell's plan to turn Frank to their side. The angels caught wind of it and tried to stop it and the end result was that Frank's family still died but Frank himself was not made a servant of hell.
The entire thing was kind of weird and once Garth Ennis came on board and basically gave the character a soft reboot the story was almost entirely forgotten, probably for the best.
Oh, and then there was that time that the Punisher became Frankenstein's monster.
Funnily enough, Jason Aaron would later give Ghost Rider a similarly angelic origin retcon, making him a key character in the war between heaven and hell.
Punisher and Ghost Rider were teammates for a time as well, serving as members of the General "Thunderbolt" Ross's Thunderbolts team when Ross was the Red Hulk. Punisher and Ghost Rider served alongside Elektra, Venom, and Deadpool. Now that's a live-action crossover we'd like to see.
The Punisher will premiere on Netflix in 2017.