Friday, July 20, 2018

Why Marvel Villain "Ghost's" Sex is Irrelevant

The Ghost
In the movie "Ant-Man and the Wasp", the mysterious Ghost was played by Hannah John-Kamen. The character is a masked, sci-fi-suited fighter who can become intangible — meaning she can pass through walls, go invisible, and so on — and who makes life hell for our heroes.

However, in the comic book, Ghost is a man. Though the character is new to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Ghost has been around in the comics for more than 30 years, albeit in a very different form.

The change of sex was not met with protest and threats of boycott from avid Marvel comic followers because the character is a minor villain. Ghost has not played in any major cataclysmic episode in the Marvel universe.

Changing Ghost from man to woman created no major shift in the character background since there was really no worthy life story to begin with. This is totally different from making Johnny Storm a black dude or having a thin and wiry actor play Ben Grimm.

Speaking to TheWrap, "Ant-Man and The Wasp" director Peyton Reed echoed the same sentiments and explained how and why he changed the character to fit into his corner of the MCU.

"We found Ghost and we were free to reinvent that character however we wanted, and obviously we made him into a her, but also made a character that really sat within the tone of our movie and the theme of fathers and daughters. It fit with our movie," Reed told TheWrap.

"Ghost is a far lesser known antagonist in the comics world," he continued. "I really dug the look of that character and the power set, but in terms of backstory or character in the comics, I didn't find it very compelling, I thought it was kind of boring, so it really was sort of a chance to create a character from scratch for this movie that really had a personal connection to our heroes and particularly to Hank Pym and I liked that."

Besides, if Ghost was made into a male villain and he beat the crap out of the Wasp, PC culture would probably erupt in consternation.

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