Tag: Demon rider

Posted on in Features

Marvel Studios Needs To Make A Western Series On Disney+ With ‘The Rangers’

Marvel Studios has been doing an excellent job of jumping between varied genres from war, espionage, action, supernatural, comedy, horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and space operas.

There seems to be one particular notch in their belt missing, that is a western. 

Many have compared superhero films to the western genre being the most dominant/popular genre before making way to other trends. What would happen if Marvel Studios tackled a group of western superheroes? It’s something that doesn’t come that often when folks are talking up future projects or their wish lists. 

We’re now this deep into the MCU and Marvel has not started adapting their western characters. Those include a large string of heroes from their old Wild West/Mighty Marvel Western comics and the rarely mentioned superhero team The Rangers. 

I think you could do a Rangers series where you essentially get a mash-up of Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy, The Magnificent Seven, Young Guns, Tombstone, True Grit, and many more. Marvel could end up combining their various western heroes and placing them in the 1800s. 

Here is a rundown of characters that jump out to me as solid contenders for a hypothetical Rangers roster set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Phantom Rider is the original incarnation of Ghost Rider, who was later renamed when the blazing skulled biker version was thrust into pop culture a decade later with Johnny Blaze and obviously is still the better known of the two. 

There have been many people that took on the superhero persona such as Carter Slade, Jamie Jacobs, Lincoln Slade, Reno Jones, Hamilton Slade, J.T. Slade, and Jamie Slade (Hamilton’s daughter).

Reno Jones was a black incarnation of the hero and going that route in the MCU could be a huge nod to Bass Reeves, the real-life black lawman that inspired The Lone Ranger and in The Watchmen series on HBO had a huge impact on Hooded Justice.

Phantom Rider appeared in the original Ghost Rider film played by Sam Elliot.

Like with their major Asian superhero Shang-Chi, Marvel Studios could do some modernization and image repair of their lesser known Native American characters as seen with a new character like Demon Rider.

Native American heroes like Red Wolf and Apache Kid (Alan Krandal) don’t deserve to be completely erased because their comics were made by culturally/racially insensitive people, the former has been given a modern update and I think Red Wolf most certainly could be a mantle passed down generation to generation we’ve seen with Baron Zemo and Union Jack.

You could also add a character like Spirit Rider/Demon Rider, aka, Kushala. She was around in the 1800s and could add a supernatural/horror element. 

How you change things is bringing Native American writers and creators into the writers’ room/creative process. A recent example is the Taika Waititi-produced FX series Reservation Dogs, which hopefully will lead to more mainstream projects featuring indigenous actors/creatives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHewFAkrWU

The Kid Trio are likely Marvel’s best known gunslingers with Two-Gun Kid (Clay Harder/Matt Hawk), Kid Colt (Blaine Colt), and Rawhide Kid (Johnny Bart/Johnny Clay). They also did multiple team-ups in the comics and could easily get their own spinoff series.

Rawhide Kid is an openly gay character and could make for some major inclusion.

There are only of a couple of female characters with Avenger member Firebird (Bonita Juarez), Arizona Annie, Shooting Star (Victoria Star), Swift Cloud (Jackie Cassidy), and Spotted Doe. However, Marvel could easily create new characters like Demon Rider or gender swap the excessive amount of male characters since not all of them would likely get starring roles.

Similar to Marvel’s expansive horror character lineup, the studio has just as many of these outlaw, gunslinger, and bounty hunter characters from the old west to pull from for years to come.

The many other characters in their back pocket include Black Rider/Black Mask (Matthew Masters), Kid Slade (Matt Slade), Outlaw Kid (Lance Temple), Gunhawk (William Downing), Kid Cassidy (Richard Cassidy), Ringo Kid (Rand), Western Kid (Tex Dawson), Boom Boom Brown, Tarantula (Clay Riley), The Raven (Thorn Trask), Wolf Waco, Hurricane (Harold Kane), Richard Trask, Tall Bear, Caleb Hammer, Wyatt Earp, Iron Mask (Don Hertz), and super-powered Rangers team member Texas Twister (Drew Daniels).

Marvel Studios could take advantage of Alberta’s growing film and television production industry (alongside the Canadian dollar and tax incentives) as the Canadian city could double for many western American terrain. Alberta was used for Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, The Revenant, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Little Big Man, Shanghai Noon, Brokeback Mountain, Legends of The Fall, Let Him Go, and Predator 5.

Posted on in Features

Marvel Studios’ Collection Of Horror Characters Could Rival The Universal Monsters

Universal Pictures once attempted to copy the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their horror franchise Dark Universe, that was expected to give the studio a PG-13 cinematic universe centered around their legacy horror characters, The Universal Monsters. When Tom Cruise’s Mummy reboot flopped they pivoted away from a connective group of films and seem to be instead focusing on movie by movie after The Invisible Man.

Marvel Studios is actually in a perfect position to do what Universal struggled to do, making their own horror universe within the MCU with both films and Disney+ series. We’re apparently going to see a huge push on the live-action side with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse, Mahershala Ali’s Blade reboot, Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight series, and plenty more things that have yet to officially announced.

There are plenty of characters that are assumed to be part of Marvel’s horror universe such as Doctor Strange (Stephen Strange), Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), Blade (Eric Brooks), Moon Knight (Marc Spector), Brother Voodoo (Jericho Drumm), Werewolf By Night (Jack Russell), Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), Elsa Bloodstone, Abraham Whistler, Hannibal King, Frank Drake, Quincy Harker, Rachel van Helsing, Vlad Dracula, Baron Blood (John Falsworth), Deacon Frost, Lilith Drake, Lenore DeCade, Mephisto, Son of Satan (Daimon Hellstrom), The Devil’s Daughter (Satana Hellstrom), Mother of Demons (Lilith), Glyph (Nadeen Hassan), Vampire By Night (Nina Prince), Warwolf (Martin Renya), The Living Mummy (N’Kantu), Frankenstien’s Monster, Manphibian, and Man-Thing (Theodore Sallis).

But there could be even more characters mined for Marvel’s horror corner of the MCU.

The animated series What If…? is bringing Marvel Zombies to the MCU and there is a character that could easily make the jump to live-action to represent the zombie faction.

That is Simon William Garth aka Zombie, who had his own run of comic books with Tales of The Zombie. The character that was brought back from the dead using voodoo magic has a direct connection to Doctor Strange pal Brother Voodoo and could easily partner up with the occult hero.

Zombie is also a member of the Legion of Monsters alongside folks such as The Living Zombie, Frankenstein’s Monster, and others. Given the popularity of the zombie sub-genre with The Walking Dead (alongside spinoffs) and Zack Snyder recently returning to the genre with Army of The Dead (will also direct a sequel), it’s a no-brainier for Marvel to give audiences/fans a zombie character.

There seem to be strong indications that we’ll see Marvel move forward with a new Ghost Rider project, however, we don’t know if they’ll simply focus on a single character like Johnny Blaze or cover the multiple incarnations of the character.

There is a new Native American version, Kushala, an Apache woman from the 1800s that is possessed by the Spirit of Vengeance and became the Sorcerer Supreme of her era in attempt to cure herself. She goes by the name Demon Rider.

Adding Kushala could allow Marvel Studios to bring in a more diverse Ghost Rider to the live-action side of things and give us a solid Native American character that could get her own solo projects alongside someone like western hero William Talltrees aka Red Wolf. We’ve also seen Marvel use plenty of new characters lately as they slowly assemble the Young Avengers roster.

Speaking of Native American characters, there is someone that has a connection to Canadian indigenous lore that could make for a threat in the future and that is Wendigo.

The Wendigo is a stark white beast that is the manifestation of a curse for anyone who commits an act of cannibalism in the Canadian North Woods. A darker origin than normal for Marvel and anyone can be given the curse.

First appearing as a Hulk villain, the character has also clashed with Wolverine, X-Men, and Alpha Flight in the comics. Wendigo is sort of a mirror image of Walter Langkowski aka Sasquatch, a mutant member of Canadian superhero team Alpha Flight.

Taj Nital was an Indian (Muslim but designed as Sikh) vampire hunter part of Quincy Harker’s team Dracula Hunters from The Tomb of Dracula comics, who dedicated his life to hunting vampires after his son Adri was turned and he had to kill him.

A friend of Blade, Taj is turned into a vampire by the monstrous Varnae aka Lord of Vampires that tragically had to be slain by Blade.

The Blade reboot will hopefully bring back The Vampire Nation and having vampires/hunters from Asian countries would help establish that their tentacles are international, something teased with the original Blade movie from 1998 showcasing diverse members of The House of Erebus.