Review: Agents of SHIELD Ghost Rider S4Pt1

Francisco Francavilla’s Ghost Rider promo art.

Season 4 Part 1 of Agents of SHIELD focuses on Ghost Rider, and it made me enjoy a take I wasn’t sure about.  Read my spoiler filled review of the first half of this season.  If you don’t want spoilers, then scroll to the bottom paragraph for my rating.

 

The Agents: We are getting more of the same here with slightly adjusted roles, but they are less of a focus this season, and seem more of a supporting cast to those with powers.

Robbie Reyes / Ghost Rider – let’s get this out of the way now.  I never thought I’d like the Robbie Reyes version.  I grew up on Dan Ketch and Johnny Blaze.  I was completely unfamiliar with him except I knew he had a cool car.  That being said, Robbie’s Ghost Rider is the best thing about this show so far.  His origin even brought in who we can only assume by his attire and motorcycle is Johnny Blaze’s Ghost Rider.  And he gets a face to face with the demon itself.  Mac gained the GR abilities briefly making us really see how desperate this demon is.  While we’ve seen his story end in SHIELD’s current season, I wouldn’t be shocked to see him come back soon or get the rumored spinoff.  Either way we know there’s more to come.

Gabe Reyes – Unlike his brother, Gabe’s role was only supporting to serve for an origin story.  At times it felt like the actor was merely present on set, but there wasn’t much more for him to do.  It was wise to work it the way that they did.

Yo-Yo / Slingshot – While she took a slight backseat role this season, they used her when it was necessary.  She even pulled a cool Quicksilver moment, and is now getting a 6 episode mini-series on the web.  What was initially to me an unknown character, I feel has become a staple in the show.

Dr. Radcliffe and AIDA – I was worried that they were going to pull another Ultron event, but the creators are handling this quite well.  AIDA has already replaced May with a Life Model Decoy (LMD), so it begs to question how she did it, and what’s her motive?  We still have yet to find out if she’s going to help or hinder everything, but this will be the focus of the second half of the season.

Jeffrey Mace – Known as the Patriot (and one time replacement Captain America for Steve Rogers) his timing couldn’t have been more appropriate.  Now that Steve is no longer Cap, it’ll be interesting to see where they take this Inhuman.  In the comics he didn’t have powers, but his enhanced strength and athletic abilities here make sense as an addition.  We could very well see him suit up as Cap or at the least, the Patriot.  What are his motives though?  He’s done good, but also shady things.

Quake / Daisy – While I enjoyed her being a vigilante I was getting sick of her arms constantly breaking.  Don’t get me wrong.  I think this was a good story element, but it made no sense that she had shattered arms, yet she was still fighting without any issue.  She should have been an invalid for the most part based on the description of what was happening to her with every use of her powers.  Now that she’s back as an agent of SHIELD, we don’t have to worry about it, but it still feels like a weak plot point.

Eli Morrow / Darkhold – For a very small villain, he played a very intimidating role.  This half of the season presented us with a threat that seemed to put everything on the line.  We haven’t truly had that before, so despite his lack of grandeur, Eli was a great antagonist (as well as the ghosts of Darkhold and their link to the afterlife).

Agents of SHIELD Ghost Rider started season 6 off with a bang, and ended it on a high note.  When it returns next year I hope to see it continue on this high note.  For this part I give it 4 out of 5 sCrypt logos as my rating.  What did you think?  As always it’s open for discussion.