Well after covering the cosmic universe over 3 articles. I decided it’s time to get back close to home with the vigilantes that make up the general Marvel Knights.
Daredevil
The Man without fear. Matt Murdock as a child fell into a radioactive substance from an oncoming vehicle. He lost the ability to see, however all of his other senses were greatly increased. So much so that he essentially had a radar that he could “see” anything around him in great detail. His great hearing allows him to hear heartbeats from four blocks away, also his touch sensitivity is so great that he reads by touching the words on a book. He is a fantastic martial artist and gymnast (much of the reason is his great sense of balance). He made a club as his signature weapon that is disguised as a cane. The weapon has 30 feet of cable connected to a steel grapnel. There are many uses of the club such as throwing, using as a hook, and beating the living tar out of someone. His favorite targets to do this to are bull’s-eye (the expert marksmen) and Kingpin. He guards the streets of Hell’s Kitchen, a neighborhood in New York. Here he acts as a batman or spider-man character taking out crooks and villains in the area. He also spends time with his love interest Electra. Electra like Daredevil has had her own film actually (and a terrible one), Electra is a great acrobat and hand to hand fighter. She loves her little win Sai that she uses for many things. She also has low level of telepathic communication. Together they make up a great duo that we hope to see again. Now the real question is how would Daredevil work in the MCU, and Electra for the matter. I would love to see daredevil in a solo film against bull’s-eye or kingpin (or both) but NOT in the avengers. He is a part of the new avengers and the defenders but daredevil is a great character to take on the street level crime, not worldwide war. My personal favorite idea for a daredevil film is to have him fight bull’s-eye with Electra, then join in another film I will talk about in a second.
Moon Knight
Getting a tad into the mystical side of Marvel. Marc Spector was a marine and mercenary, he went to Egypt for some mercenary work with a man named Raoul Bushman. They find a dig sight and find a temple with a statue of the Moon god Khonshu. When they find this one of the men kills Bushman and beats Marc until he’s nearly dead. In a vision the moon god appears to him giving another chance at life if he becomes his avatar on earth. He wakes up and goes to beat the man who left him for death. After this he returns to the US, invests his money to get rich, and decides to become Moon Knight the crime fighter. From here it’s a lot like Batman’s line of work. Taking on villains on the streets in different cities and even joins the Avengers. Now another mystical part of Moon Knight is that his (in my opinion) greatest villain is a Werewolf. Thanks to the moon god he now has superhuman strength, great hand to hand fighting, great resistance and great with weapons. His costume also contains Adamantium in it. Being rich he has access to lots of tools and even a helicopter. Now out of all the guys listed I think he is the least needing of a solo film. He could work with and without a solo film in my opinion. But we will get into that later.
Blade
Now Moon Knight has a tad of the mystical universe. But Blade is almost full on supernatural. His mother was fed on by a vampire when she gave birth to Eric Brooks. Brooks in turn got some of the abilities of the vampires. Brooks in turn became a Vampire Slayer, essentially he goes out and kills vampires and other supernatural creatures like Werewolves. I’m not going to go into his story too much, there was already a trilogy about him back in the late 90s early 2000s so you can get the drift there. Blade is immune to the bites of a typical vampire, helpful when hunting vampires. Before he was bitten by a certain artificial vampire he had no powers. After he was however he got superhuman strength, speed and other abilities. He has a healing factor, and ages slowly. For being part vampire he doesn’t have most of their weaknesses like the light, he is also a master martial artist, and skilled with swords and guns. Now if you can’t tell already this isn’t the perfect MCU seeming movie. However I’m going to give one way it can be in my opinion. Since we’ve seen him kill off tons of vampires already in the trilogy, I think we would do well so see something a little different. A Blade film in my opinion in the MCU should be more of a MI-13 film. MI-13 is a British agency ran by Captain Britain, there are a few superhero’s in it and they have spent most of their time killing the skrull or Dracula. This is about as far as I want to go into fan fic, but to me I would want to see blade give a flashback essentially saying Dracula is the last vampire threat in the world since he’s killed the rest of with the nighstalkers. Then have MI-13 be a team that’s asked him to help in finishing off Dracula. Since Captain Britain probably isn’t going to get much MCU love (Just the name would be a knock off of Captain America and hurt his chances) I would like seeing him lead MI-13. They face Dracula, Captain Britain dies, Blade Kills Dracula. Everyone goes their separate ways. Feel free to disagree with that story, but I think it would be a great way to introduce a lot of different heroes along with blade.
Ghost Rider
Johnny Blaze is a motorcycle stunt man at circuses and other things. One of his friends gets cancer and Blaze searches for ways to find him. He finds a spell to summon “Satan”
but in turn just summons Mephisto posing as Satan. He sells his soul to Mephisto in order to save his friend, in turn his friend dies on a stunt a few days after. Blaze is now bound to serve Mephisto by essentially sending evil back to hell. He kill demons normally, but spends some time helping the common man as well. He ends up helping the Champions, Defenders, Heroes for Hire and others. His has lots of abilities, superhuman strength, speed, he has chains that he can control with his mind. His Motorcycle can go pretty darn fast, ride up walls, and other crazy stuff. Now does Ghost Rider deserve a reboot? Well I don’t know, if it’s a good script I think any character can work. But Ghost Rider is a very hard character to do in my opinion. I do think he should be added to the MCU in one way or another, but maybe not solo film.
Punisher
Frank Castle might be the easiest character to do out of all of these. Because he’s a normal human. The Punisher is a lot like any Hollywood hero only he wears a costume. Frank Castle was in the military for a long time and gained lots of skills that make him a peak hand to hand fighter along with marksmanship. Frank Castle has no superhuman abilities however he does have control over his mind which allows him to block out any psychic or telepathic powers. He wears a skull on his shirt to intimidate his opponents and also draw attention to the thickest part of his armor. He also has safe houses with vehicles around New York which have at times held items like the Goblin Glider, or Doctor Octopus tentacles. Now the real question is how could he fit into the MCU? Well I think the movie has to be Rated R if they make a solo with him, which already makes it hard coming from Disney. But I do believe if they show a background story, then allow him some vigilante work in New York, it can be done in a way that will work in the MCU. Out of all of these guys I think the Punisher is the most needed in the MCU. It adds the darkness and differentially to the MCU that we don’t see with many other characters.
Back into a little Fan Fic to close. I think these 5 characters should make up the Marvel Knights for a film. You can make 4-6 Darker films with this group and then have them take on someone like Kingpin (My favorite choice) for a small team up. Doesn’t have to be a grand scale world saving plan. But it can be as simple as punisher goes walking through hell’s kitchen and fights Kingpin, key Daredevil. This side of the vigilantes are a darker version of marvel that I feel should be shown in the MCU. After a Marvel Knights film, let them go back to their street level fighting. They can stay away from SHIELD and the Avengers and we don’t really need to see much more from them. That’s all I got, its a little shorter than the last few I’ve done. What do you guys think? Which Characters deserve solo films? Should any of these guys join the Avengers?
Next up getting close to the finish of the Marvel Universe with other earthly teams.