Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch are perhaps the best-known hosts for the Spirit of Vengeance, Zarathos, but in the pages of yesterday's Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance #1, it found a new partner to race into action with.
Abandoning Blaze at the behest of Mephisto, Zarathos sets out to find a host that won't resist its sinister influence. Travelling the world, it possesses thousands of people in the hope of finding the right person to punish the guilty, and even takes control of Danger, the physical manifestation of the X-Men's Danger Room!
She embraces her newfound status quo by spreading malware into thousands of devices which, infected with Zarathos's demonic code, spreads a damnation gaze which causes widespread chaos and death.
That's still not enough for the demonic entity and it even travels into the cosmos to take control of a Brood hive it can unleash on humanity before changing its mind and considering hosts such as Fin Fang Foom and Kraven the Hunter.
"After so many strobe-like flashes of hellfire...so many punishing glimpses inside the hollows of other skulls....I know where to go," Zarathos declares. "A kindred soul who has no concerns about innocence, no sense of moral compass, no compunction about the slaughtering harvest to come. I have at last found my new host...in The Hood!"
We don't know what Parker Robbins will make of his status quo, but it appears the Marvel Universe will now get a villainous Ghost Rider who takes joy in inflicting punishment on the world.
"Some villains you know all too well. Doctor Doom. Thanos. Mephisto. But I find it especially fun to bring the lesser-known baddies out of the shadows and give them a shot at a starring role," writer Benjamin Percy recently said. "That's what I did with Omega Red during X Lives of Wolverine/X Deaths of Wolverine - and that's what I'm doing now with Ghost Rider."
"The Hood wants a taste of the big-time. And he's made a deal with the devil to help him on his way. This is what happens when the Spirit of Vengeance is stripped from Johnny Blaze and grafted on to a character who has no moral compass," he continues. "An epic crime saga - flavored with horror - awaits readers in Ghost Rider: Final Vengeance."
The Hood will make his MCU debut in Ironheart where he'll be played by Hamilton and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts star Anthony Ramos. It's too soon to say whether he too will become Ghost Rider, though we do expect Mephisto to appear in the Disney+ series.
Check out The Hood's transformation into Ghost Rider below.