Agents of SHIELD Season 4 brought Ghost Rider to the small screen, but it for some classic Marvel fans it was a different Ghost Rider than they were hoping for.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Those fans remember Johnny Blaze, the original Ghost Rider who debuted in 1972, and who was played by Nicholas Cage in the movies Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
While Blaze still hasn’t appeared on Agents of SHIELD, the most recent episode, “Lockdown,” did drop an Easter egg related to the original Ghost Rider.
The episode opened with a flashback of Lucy and Joseph searching for the Darkhold in the abandoned home of its previous, and now deceased, owner. They dig through the basement for a while before finally uncovering the darkly powerful tome.
Hanging on the wall of that same basement is a poster for the Quentin Carnival. The Quentin Carnival is the very same carnival that Johnny Blaze worked for a stuntman prior to becoming the Ghost Rider. Blaze continued to work on and off with the Quentin Carnival even after his transformation.
The Quentin Carnival was home to other “freak show” style characters, including the Monster Man and Wolf. It also attracted a fair share of villains. The Quentin Carnival was targeted by the Circus of Crime and the Freakmaster, who transformed stuntwoman Ruriko Tsumura into the cyborg Steel Wind. Steel Wind became a rival of Ghost Rider’s, first as a fellow stunt biker and then as a more direct threat, but allied herself with Ghost Rider after the villain Centurius killed her sister, Steel Vengeance.
For Ghost Rider fans, this may give hope yet of Johnny Blaze appearing at some point in the series. After all, SHIELD is bound to dig deeper into the history of the Darkhold, and its last owner was either a big fan of the Quentin Carnival or a member.
Johnny Blaze does play a significant role in Robbie Reyes’ story in the comics. The two meet just in time fro Blaze to help Reyes manage his rage and get control of the murderous, vengeful spirit inside of him. Perhaps a Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Blaze could do the same for Ghost Rider on Agents of SHIELD, before possibly riding off into his own Netflix series.
On the other hand, maybe the Quentin Carnival reference will remain just that, but at the very least it could amount to a classic Ghost Rider villain appearing as a monster-of-the-week in Agents of SHIELD Season 4, perhaps even Freakmaster, Centurius, or Steel Wind.
Agents of SHIELD airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.
