RetroCrate
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2024
- Messages
- 1
- Avengers
- Ghost Rider
New member here with a topic on my mind, and I wanted to share it somewhere: Spawn vs Ghost Rider. This is probably one of the most debated crossover duels I've seen online, and for obvious reasons to anyone who is even slightly familiar with both characters. My issue with it is that most people go with Ghost Rider, and it's pretty obviously because he's simply the more well-known character. Spawn hasn't been in the mainstream since the 90's, so there's few people who ACTUALLY read and are informed on his comics; most knowledge people gain about Spawn comes from comic recap channels like Comics Explained rather than actually reading the Spawn comics themselves. There's nothing wrong with that, not all of us have time to spend hours educating ourselves on DECADES of comic lore, after all. But when people use this and only this as the basis for their arguments with topics like this, it leaves a lot of errors, to say the least.
I came here because I assume there's a lot of comic heads, and I'd like everyone's take.
So, as for me, I'm an enormous fan of both Spawn AND Ghost Rider. And unlike most other people who engage in this topic, I am a reader of BOTH their comics, and am educated in BOTH their lore. And the thing is that I was a Ghost Rider fan LONG before I was a Spawn fan. I started reading Spawn comics about a half decade ago, but I've been into Ghost Rider for well over a decade. He's a childhood favorite. But guys... I gotta go with Spawn on this one. Ghost Rider's powers stem from being God's ultimate weapon of judgement within the Marvel universe. He is unkillable, his strength is immense, and his power is, as told by Strange himself, boundless. God makes the rules in Marvel, and God's rules say that the power of The Rider is absolute. The problem? SPAWN BREAKS GOD'S RULES FOR KICKS.
Before I dive into this, there's something I would like to elucidate upon from a more meta perspective. Keep in mind that, while Ghost Rider IS powerful, he is not the only iconic character in his universe. So writers need to constantly temper and nerf his power as to not overshadow their other stars. The Penance Stare, one of Ghost Rider's most deadly abilities if not THE most deadly, has had many absurd retcons over the years to accommodate other characters Ghost Rider's combatted. One example is when the Penance Stare failed on Venom due to the symbiote not actually having any eyes, which is a weirdly specific stipulation, but the most egregious retcon was when the Penance Stare failed against Punisher due to him "not regretting" the pain he's inflicted. This is ridiculous. Of all it's possible victims, aren't remorseless killers who feel no guilt for the pain they've caused at the TOP of the Penance State's intended list? That's like a silver bullet designed to avoid werewolves. Anyway, my point is that the power Ghost Rider SHOULD wield is very different from the power he actually DOES wield. So long as there are other heroes Marvel is scared of stealing the spotlight from, Ghost Rider will always be suppressed in this way.
On the other hand, Spawn is the one and only star of his own universe. He's spent decades accumulating power without any retcons or reboots holding him back. His powers are absurdly broken, he can basically do ANYTHING he wants with the power of Necroplasm. Spawn used to have the same weakness as Ghost Rider: The weapons of heaven. But in his early run, he literally NOPED that weakness away. He renounced his allegiance to Hell, and that ACTUALLY rendered heavenly weapons nonlethal against him. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? He told his kryptonite to screw off and it WORKED. And every other story, he gets some absurd new ability, and this has been going for like thirty years. At this point, Spawn's powers are borderline omnipotent and multiversal. He can literally bend reality to his will. His biographies on most encyclopedic sources list his power level as "nigh-omnipotent". This is Phoenix Force level crap, everyone.
Again, remember that I was knee deep in Ghost Rider lore long before I got into Spawn, but after only a month or so of reading Spawn comics, I was like "Oh, yep, this guy's stronger." That's how ridiculously powerful Spawn is.
Anyway, basically, Spawn essentially can do everything Ghost Rider can with some additional OP BS stacked on top. The one argument I hear for Spawn losing is the Penance Stare. See, but that's where the ludicrous retcons set up on The Penance Stare come back to bite Ghost Rider. For one thing, Spawn's suit is EXTREMELY similar to the Venom symbiote, if not even better. If The Penance Stare fails against the Venom Symbiote, I don't see it going differently against Spawn's Leetha suit. And even if you DO get passed the Leetha suit, Al Simon's character has developed to the point where he "has no regret" for his past sins.
So, Ghost Rider has nothing on Spawn. All it takes is Spawn whipping out a heavenly weapon, which he has easy access to, and shanking Ghost Rider, or even just straight up pulling his protag hacks out and deleting Ghost Rider from reality. This isn't even mentioning the fact that Ghost Rider can only tap into his full powerful when Zarathos is in control. Al Simmons, on the other hand, IS Spawn. He can pull out them reality hacks whenever he pleases.
Honestly man, if you really think Ghost Rider can take Spawn, I'm gonna assume you just don't know anything about non-mainstream comics. Because to anyone who has actually done the homework, it's pretty apparent why Spawn cleans house. Even Rob from Comics Explained, THE go-to guy for comic casuals, gave the win to Spawn in his analysis video of the matchup.
But hey, again, there are other comic heads here. Maybe there's another true Ghost Rider/Spawn fan who disagrees? Lmk. This is just fiction at the end of the day, so I won't bite your head off for disputing me, haha. Thanks for reading, folks.
I came here because I assume there's a lot of comic heads, and I'd like everyone's take.
So, as for me, I'm an enormous fan of both Spawn AND Ghost Rider. And unlike most other people who engage in this topic, I am a reader of BOTH their comics, and am educated in BOTH their lore. And the thing is that I was a Ghost Rider fan LONG before I was a Spawn fan. I started reading Spawn comics about a half decade ago, but I've been into Ghost Rider for well over a decade. He's a childhood favorite. But guys... I gotta go with Spawn on this one. Ghost Rider's powers stem from being God's ultimate weapon of judgement within the Marvel universe. He is unkillable, his strength is immense, and his power is, as told by Strange himself, boundless. God makes the rules in Marvel, and God's rules say that the power of The Rider is absolute. The problem? SPAWN BREAKS GOD'S RULES FOR KICKS.
Before I dive into this, there's something I would like to elucidate upon from a more meta perspective. Keep in mind that, while Ghost Rider IS powerful, he is not the only iconic character in his universe. So writers need to constantly temper and nerf his power as to not overshadow their other stars. The Penance Stare, one of Ghost Rider's most deadly abilities if not THE most deadly, has had many absurd retcons over the years to accommodate other characters Ghost Rider's combatted. One example is when the Penance Stare failed on Venom due to the symbiote not actually having any eyes, which is a weirdly specific stipulation, but the most egregious retcon was when the Penance Stare failed against Punisher due to him "not regretting" the pain he's inflicted. This is ridiculous. Of all it's possible victims, aren't remorseless killers who feel no guilt for the pain they've caused at the TOP of the Penance State's intended list? That's like a silver bullet designed to avoid werewolves. Anyway, my point is that the power Ghost Rider SHOULD wield is very different from the power he actually DOES wield. So long as there are other heroes Marvel is scared of stealing the spotlight from, Ghost Rider will always be suppressed in this way.
On the other hand, Spawn is the one and only star of his own universe. He's spent decades accumulating power without any retcons or reboots holding him back. His powers are absurdly broken, he can basically do ANYTHING he wants with the power of Necroplasm. Spawn used to have the same weakness as Ghost Rider: The weapons of heaven. But in his early run, he literally NOPED that weakness away. He renounced his allegiance to Hell, and that ACTUALLY rendered heavenly weapons nonlethal against him. Do you understand how ridiculous that is? He told his kryptonite to screw off and it WORKED. And every other story, he gets some absurd new ability, and this has been going for like thirty years. At this point, Spawn's powers are borderline omnipotent and multiversal. He can literally bend reality to his will. His biographies on most encyclopedic sources list his power level as "nigh-omnipotent". This is Phoenix Force level crap, everyone.
Again, remember that I was knee deep in Ghost Rider lore long before I got into Spawn, but after only a month or so of reading Spawn comics, I was like "Oh, yep, this guy's stronger." That's how ridiculously powerful Spawn is.
Anyway, basically, Spawn essentially can do everything Ghost Rider can with some additional OP BS stacked on top. The one argument I hear for Spawn losing is the Penance Stare. See, but that's where the ludicrous retcons set up on The Penance Stare come back to bite Ghost Rider. For one thing, Spawn's suit is EXTREMELY similar to the Venom symbiote, if not even better. If The Penance Stare fails against the Venom Symbiote, I don't see it going differently against Spawn's Leetha suit. And even if you DO get passed the Leetha suit, Al Simon's character has developed to the point where he "has no regret" for his past sins.
So, Ghost Rider has nothing on Spawn. All it takes is Spawn whipping out a heavenly weapon, which he has easy access to, and shanking Ghost Rider, or even just straight up pulling his protag hacks out and deleting Ghost Rider from reality. This isn't even mentioning the fact that Ghost Rider can only tap into his full powerful when Zarathos is in control. Al Simmons, on the other hand, IS Spawn. He can pull out them reality hacks whenever he pleases.
Honestly man, if you really think Ghost Rider can take Spawn, I'm gonna assume you just don't know anything about non-mainstream comics. Because to anyone who has actually done the homework, it's pretty apparent why Spawn cleans house. Even Rob from Comics Explained, THE go-to guy for comic casuals, gave the win to Spawn in his analysis video of the matchup.
But hey, again, there are other comic heads here. Maybe there's another true Ghost Rider/Spawn fan who disagrees? Lmk. This is just fiction at the end of the day, so I won't bite your head off for disputing me, haha. Thanks for reading, folks.
