I've read a few issues of Ghost Rider from different eras

>>88851449
The Rider is always SCRATCHING AT THE DOOR

No he is not like Bruce Banner. He is like Brad Pitt in Fight Club

>>88851449
Retcons, retcons everywhere.
At this point the Spirit of Vengeance is a cosmic force somewhere below Eternity or lord chaos and master order. So a complete and separate entity.

>>88851449
Think demonic possession.

The Hulk is part of Bruce, the Ghost Rider is sort of an uninvited guest.

>>88851449
>>88851544

Well the thing with split personalities is they still retain visages of each other. They're never truly different entities since they're using the same exact brain and body, with access to the same thoughts and memories.

So the Rider is Blaze, but like a different part of him taking over where the more conscious, self-aware part is on the back burner.

>>88851449
Isnt it somewhat symbiotic unless the host gets carried away, either through anger or power hungry? Like the difference between a controlled fire and a inferno, the more you feed it, the less control you have over it

>>88851449
Johnny is usually in full control but there are times when the Rider overrides him. Full Rider override is dangerous shit.

>>88852038
The Rider is Specter levels of scary isnt he?

>>88851610

> Like the difference between a controlled fire and a inferno, the more you feed it, the less control you have over it

I really like that metaphor you have right there Anon and it should be something used in Ghost Rider itself when explaining how it works.

>>88852095
That's the idea.

has the Punisher ever been host to a/the Spirit of Vengeance?

That seems like it'd be you know

Pretty vengeful

>>88851482
This

>>88852567

And all he's gotta do is paint some flames on his normal logo. He's already set himself up for that.

>>88852567
I think Frank lacks the discipline to control the spirit. He'd probably end up destoying everything and himself. Besides, I think Lady Death already blessed him

>>88851449
Johnny is in control

Danny isn't, 90s Ghost Rider was his own character.

>>88852832

I think the real problem isn't so much that Frank couldn't handle it, but that it wouldn't really be interesting.

>"Hey, we should go kill a fucking ton of bad guys."
>Sound of gunfire in the background
>"Hey, thanks, already on it."

>>88853548

That's when you throw him a bad guy who can't be killed by gunfire!

>>88851482
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdRfC9b1rlM
Scraping at the door!

>>88852567
This makes me wonder what would happen if GR gave Frank the ol' Penance Stare.

>>88856151
Nothing. Frank then proceeds to beat his ass. Canon btw.

>>88856151
Frank has holdover immunity from when we was an angel

>>88856151
He tried

Frank is immune, either because he was an angel, because he sold his soul to the devil or because he's insane.

Frank himself said it was because he had no regrets but that isn't how Penance Stare works

>>88856151

It turned out kicking ass isn't a crime.

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>>88851449
M8, Ghost Rider is Marvel canon's biggest fucking crapshoot this side of Kang.
There are even major, MAJOR pieces of character history that they skipped right plain over. No explanation. Not even a flashback.

Just take Aaron's explanation of "God did it" at face value and enjoy the action. Spend those brain cells on something else.

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>>88856200
>>88856224
>>88856289
>Frank himself said it was because he had no regrets but that isn't how Penance Stare works
Actually...

>>88858250
It doesn't work on everyone

The soulless (or multiple souls), people with symbiotes, people who would be considered insane

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>>88858250
Also...

>>88858269
The soul-based stuff's something separate.

>>88851449
Depends.
At first it was simply a curse. He'd be in control. It'd be like Johnny Storm flaming on. There was however an arc where he got amneisa, would change in his sleep and ride off punching mooks 'til daybreak, whereupon he'd have no recollection.
About halfway into his series he got magically separated from "the curse" for an issue thus revealing that it was an independent entity (the demon Zarathos) that had been bonded to him, and the Rider became his own character. After that going Ghost entailed giving Zarathos control of the body. Can't remember if Blaze would stay aware though, it might've varied between arcs.
When a new Ghost Rider (Danny Ketch) came along, things shifted into reverse. They picked up from where Johnny left off and said the Rider was a self-aware being bonded to the human host, who would take over whenever the plot demanded and leave said host in the dark for the duration. I distinctly remember at least one time when Ghostie powers down and Danny's left standing there all "*sigh* alright, what's he done this time?".
About halfway into HIS series, Danny & the Rider (not Zarathos, someone else) get sick of the constant tsundere turmoil and agree to work together as a unit when firing up. I don't think it could be said that Danny had complete control, but maybe joint control. At the very least he'd retain awareness when the other one had the wheel.

Then bankruptcy hit, Gruenwald died and Marvel stopped giving a shit about continuity. For the most part Johnny/Danny retain their faculties when changing, like at the start.

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>>88856675
2sweet

>>88859204

Why is Punisher fighting Spirit of DOTA?

>>88858250
>>88858269
>>88858282
Basically, it's one of those things you canthrow out to show just how hardcore your badguy is.

>he doesn't feel anything?
>oh man BADASS

Really the only way it shouldn't affect you is if you are aware of all the suffering you've caused, which is something Frank knows he causes. He just thinks the ends justify the means.

You should use this kinda thing to kind of validate the villain in some way and make him, you know, multi dimensional? Maybe set it up to work later? But no, no one knows how anything fucking works with ghost rider.

Used to be the og spirit would take over when innocents were being hurt, then I think he dropped a clown off a rollercoaster?

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>>88859252
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7oMBq1vkCM

>>88851449
It shifted according to how the current writers wanted to portray it and what explanations they provided for it.
Basically is the curse of Zarathos real, what the Ghost Rider is and was Ketch cursed or not. I thought that Aaron/Spurrier did a whole other take on the GR concept so now it's mostly used as "GR vessel agrees to let the supernatural source of his powers take over a bit over their personality thus granting more power"

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>>88859344

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>>88859344
It's actually a fair bit more specific than that. Aaron/Spurrier said it was all asshole angels playing dress-up.

>>88859427
Too bad Zadkiel is shit. I know everyone's hot for Aaron's GR, but it always felt like a big fucking mess to me.

>>88859282

they also had X-23 get it and nothing happen, and there was some weird "do clones have souls" thing they wanted to do with that, but nothing ever really happened.

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>>88859541
Re-reading it after reading the 70s/80s/90s stuff gave me a newfound appreciation for it.
Motherfucker KNEW his fucking canon, man. What happened to that Jason Aaron? :(

>>88859427
Ok, so, Zarathos is an angelic being sent from heaven, I get that, but what was Noble Kale, the spirit inside Danny? Was he an angel too?

>>88859636
Nothing happened to him. He's always been a dickless dollar store Garth Ennis.

>>88859716
Presumably all Spirits of Vegenance were angelic beings sent from Heaven. Each one mind-wiped and grafted with fake memories.
Don't know where I saved it but Howard Mackie (the guy who created Danny & his Ghost Rider) wrote one last GR story after the series ended, in a Spidey Team-Up comic. In which he has a delirious "Noble Kale" blither about how all that shit was one fat lie before riding off into the sunset without an explanation. Of course at the time this was just petty politics; the Noble Kale origin was the brainchild of the writer that came after him and the whole idea really pissed Mackie off for whatever reason. But in retrospect, after Aaron, it makes perfect sense.

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>>88859727
Does Garth give a shit about canon? All I see from him are OCs, alt-Us and self-contained minis.
I ain't talking about tone or prose, nigga. I'm just a salty Strangefag who wishes Aaron could have afforded his history the same respect he showed Ghostie. He didn't have to put in ANY of the throwbacks to old GR lore, since he was out to reboot it anyway. But he did. The absolute madman.

Robbie Reyes GR is surprisingly good. And they teasered that his power is growing in his new book(I can't keep up with those reboots). Will he get the penance stare?

>>88860228
The current threat is a monster that can't be stopped by Laura and Cho, so I'd think so.

>>88860914
Why would a penance stare work on a monster? And Cho is so much of an asshole that he won't take responcibility for creating this thing anyway. I just want Robbie to roast Chulk.

>>88861043
>Why would a penance stare work on a monster?
Why would it not?

>>88861091
Haven't we just established the necessity of regret for it to work? In the posts above.

>>88861127
I always thought it worked on guilty people that killed innocents. So Punisher can't be affected by it because he kills guilty people, not innocents. It'd be an extremely shitty power if it required regret, since most villains don't regret taking lives in order to achieve their goals.

>>88858198
Is that supposed to be Blaze speaking?

>>88861476
Looks like Danny.