Viewers lucky enough to stay spoiler free were treated to a major surprise at the end of this week’s WandaVision, when Evan Peters showed up as Quicksilver. Not only did if further cement the idea that literally anything is possible in WestView, but it also made the actor the very first member of the X-Men to debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Not only that, but having a character from a franchise that originated at a different studio appear in the MCU is a groundbreaking development, although Marvel do hold the obvious benefit of having the entire Fox roster of superheroes at their disposal after parent company Disney purchased their former rivals.
Now that the cross-pollination inside the MCU has extended to properties that have never fallen under Kevin Feige’s purview before, though, the speculation is only going to increase as to who could swing by next. Of course, one fan favorite contender has always been Nicolas Cage’s Ghost Rider, and there’ve been plenty of rumors that it could end up happening.
At this point, there’s technically nothing stopping Marvel from making it a reality if that’s the direction they want to head in. After all, the rights to the supernatural antihero reverted back from Sony in 2013, but so far we’ve only seen the Robbie Reyes version play a recurring role in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., before his planned Hulu spinoff was canceled.
All that being said, Cage’s Ghost Rider duology is owned by Sony, which would make it a lot trickier to incorporate his particular take on Johnny Blaze into official MCU canon. As ComicBook.com explains:
Admittedly, the Cage Ghost Rider movies are Sony releases, so there’s likely some rights issues involved in making something like those movies Canon and bringing that exact version of the character back. But we’ve seen them make deals with Spider-Man, so why wouldn’t they be able to do something elsewhere? Story-wise, who knows why they’d decide to bring Cage back? One idea that stands out is that they could bring him back for an initial Ghost Rider feature as a mentor to Robbie Reyes, who could then take over the franchise after that. Or maybe Cage would be in the long haul for a Johnny Blaze trilogy at the House of Ideas.
Of course, there’s every chance that Peters might not be Fox’s Quicksilver at all, but part of the fun surrounding the multiverse is trying to predict what’s coming next.
