For those Stateside readers, we’re mere hours away from the premiere of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 4 on ABC and with it, the unveiling of Gabriel Luna as Marvel’s lean, mean Ghost Rider.
Getting behind the fiery wheel as Robbie Reyes – a brilliant mechanic who harbors a deep and abiding love for engines and electronic music, hence the Dodge Charger – Luna is arguably the marquee attraction going into the fourth and potentially final season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..
If this does indeed go down as the show’s swan song, we can surely look forward to plenty of fireworks, and today’s all-new promo – aptly titled “Watch Out” – teases the kind of piping hot drama that Marvel brass have been cooking up. But whereas previous incarnations of the character have viewed Ghost Rider as something of a burden, Luna told Collider about the ways in which his anti-hero considers the Spirit of Vengeance empowering.
“Previous incarnations of the character are men who usually have a pretty decent life, to start out. Johnny Blaze is a famous Hollywood stuntman. Danny Ketch is not doing too bad to start with. And then, the Ghost Rider becomes this really heavy curse on them. Robbie is in an inverted position there. He had some hardships early in his life, and the Ghost Rider actually becomes an empowering thing. While it’s still difficult to deal with and very much a curse, he had some f*cked up shit going on before Ghost Rider ever came about.”
Bouncing off that, the series newcomer then likened the addition of Ghost Rider to a “huge wild card” being tossed into the mix. Whether that’s for better or worse will be told in time, mind you, but here’s what Luna had to say:
“Yeah, he’s very powerful. That’s a huge wild card to throw into the mix. We’re starting to toe the line and inch towards some ground that hasn’t been covered, but that is a huge part of the books themselves and the entire Marvel universe and the canon of Marvel’s assortment of characters. What we haven’t touched on are things that can’t be explained perfectly by science. It’s a lot of really fun stuff that starts to lean into the world of Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider and Mephisto, and all of these other elements that also exist there, like ghouls and goblins and all sorts of cool things. We’re happy to be the ones to break the ice on that.”
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D season 4 will finally enjoy its season premiere tonight, September 20, on ABC. On board alongside Luna are Natalia Cordova-Buckley as Elena “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez, Mallory Jansen as Aida, Lorenzo James Henrie as Gabe and Briana Venskus as Agent Piper.
