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The television side of the MCU hasn’t crossed over to the film side yet for many reasons. However, I think Robbie Reyes would be the perfect bridge to officially connect these sides of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and also for Marvel Studios to have the first R-rated film on their roster. If you’ve watched season four of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or at least have a good idea of what happened in the season, you’ll know that Robbie Reyes a.k.a Ghost Rider appeared; and he was freaking awesome! Robbie Reyes needs a solo project, and he should be one of  the characters that should get an R-rated film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably know that I’m passionate about the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Whether I’m tweeting about characters I’d love to see join the MCU, praising a film or an episode, or even sometimes being disappointed by something, and gushing about an actor in the MCU; you’ll know that I do not stray away from discussing Marvel despite how much I love Marvel. One thing that Marvel Studios/Marvel Television has done right however is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. AOS is one of the more diverse projects the MCU has done, which is one of the reasons I love that show. Also, they just tell really damn good stories. And one of the best stories and characters, they have brought to life is Robbie Reyes played by Gabriel Luna.

Robbie Reyes is a legacy character of the mantle Ghost Rider; though he is not the first Ghost Rider, he should be the only active Ghost Rider in all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gabriel Luna and the writers of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. have done a wonderful job bringing Robbie to life. Gabriel is so compelling as Robbie, and I want more than just a recurring role on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, has recently said that at some point they’ll make an R-rated film. So, why not a Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider R-rated film?

Not only would this be Marvel Studios first R-rated film, it would be Marvel’s first film led by a Latino actor playing a Latino character. Representation of POC in mainstream media is very important, especially in comic book properties where often times non-white people don’t get to see themselves as heroes or the leading protagonist. Latinx people have some of the lowest representation in film and T.V. already that isn’t a comic book property, so you can imagine where the representation is at for Latinx people in comic book properties. This would be a perfect opportunity for the film side of the MCU to explore Latinx community while giving us a complex and compelling protagonist.

I got to chat with Desiree Rodriguez about the importance of Robbie Reyes being on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and also the idea of him having his own solo film in the MCU:

Let me first say, I’m not a big Ghost Rider fan. The first Ghost Rider anything I watched was the original movie with Nicholas Cage. That being said, when I read Felipe Smith’s Robbie Reyes: Ghost Rider I was instantly pulled in. A persistent aspect of Latinx representation in comics is the lack of authenticity of our community. Robbie felt authentic probably due in part that Smith himself is Afro-Latino. Latinx fans are hungry for better representation in our media; Robbie is a great opportunity to explore that hunger further. He was very popular during his story on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and rightfully so, Luna did a great job portraying the character. Latinx audiences make up a huge portion of movie goers, why not bank on that untapped pool?

I couldn’t agree more with Desiree! Why not bank on that untapped pool? And Marvel Studios has become such a staple in mainstream media, that I’m sure people of all races would show up. However, a Robbie Reyes solo film with Gabriel Luna headlining the film, Marvel would bring an even bigger Latinx audience to their films going forward and possibly introduce new readers to the comics as well. If people are shown that people similar to them existence in this world and are heroes, anti-heroes, and love interests, they’re more likely to show up to see said project. This is an opportunity that shouldn’t be passed up whatsoever.

A Ghost Rider/Robbie Reyes solo film is a perfect film for Antoine Fuqua to direct. Robbie Reyes is a Los Angeles resident who works as a car mechanic trying to make a better life for his disabled younger brother. Just imagine a Ghost Rider film in the same vein as Training Day. Robbie working in the car shop in the day,  picking up his brother from school, and then at night being the flaming skull vigilante protecting Los Angeles from worse threats than him.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. already gave us some of his background story and how the mantle of Ghost Rider was passed down to him. I think a film would be nice to give a bit more in depth detail on his background and the passing of the mantle. Though it would be a short lived role, it would be pretty cool to actually see Johnny Blaze for a brief second in the MCU. Maybe Norman Reedus is the right contender to be the man who passes the torch to Gabriel Luna. AOS definitely proved that Robbie Reyes is the Ghost Rider we need right now in this world; however, I’d love if this R-rated film actually leads up to the events of when he first meets Daisy Johnson (Chloe Bennett) on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Aside from Blade, there is no other character that I’m passionate about getting an R-rated film from Marvel Studios other than Robbie Reyes/Ghost Rider. Gabriel Luna does a wonderful job at playing a multi-layered character who’s trying to protect his brother, make a living, and also take out some scum. He is compelling, charming, sensitive, and a badass all in one as Robbie Reyes.

How do you connect Robbie Reyes to the film side? 

Simple. And here comes a spoiler warning!!  SPOILER Robbie Reyes can travel through different dimensions and space! which would be the perfect way to connect him to the worlds of Guardians of The Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and even Ant-Man because of the quantum realm. His ability to do this was introduced on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. this past season, and hopefully will get to be explored more while he’s a part of the MCU. Since Robbie already met Agent Coulson, who started on the film side of the MCU, that would obviously be another reason for him to crossover. Maybe Nick Fury gets involved?

Even if Robbie Reyes doesn’t get a solo film, he definitely should at least have a spin-off series — whether it be on Netflix, another streaming site, or on ABC’s network. I haven’t had enough of Robbie Reyes and Gabriel Luna in the MCU, and oh boy, do I want more. Do you?

Your move, Marvel.

Just in time for tonight’s hotly anticipated season 7 premiere of Game Of Thrones comes a musical romp that takes our favorite characters into a much more light hearted spin. Coming off a successful run in Los Angeles earlier this year in February, the musical is now heading to San Diego Comic Con from July 20 to 23.

The parody show based on HBO’s hit fantasy series will have eight performances total at the nearby Tenth Avenue Arts Center, which offers a mix of first-season storylines. So if you haven’t watched past the first season, you won’t be too spoiled on the five seasons that has transpired after.

For those attending, you can look forward to a Dothraki love song, a full-body direwolf suit and more than one reference to a certain politician who wants to build a wall. There are also nerd culture nods, a morphing angsty teen and multiple HBO barbs.

Performances are split between two groups of actors, several of whom play multiple roles in the show, with House Lannister performing on Thu 6pm / Fri Midnight / Sat 6pm + 9pm and House Targaryen performing on Thu 9pm / Fri 6pm + 9pm / Sun 1pm.

Fellow NOC writer Josephine Chang and I will be watching the July 21 Friday midnight show (which I hear is the rated-R version) so if you’re also in the area, do join us! (We’ll also be there for all of the Comic-Con days doing cosplay so we’ll also be tweeting from the NOC Twitter account of all the amazing cosplays we’ll be seeing).

*Awkward note: Yes, a saavy NOC reader may observe that the two casts are entirely white but then again the HBO show itself wasn’t exactly brimming with diversity. Special mention does need to be given to Will Choi, who was in the original musical cast but is busy being awesome with his UCB Asian AF shows.

So this weekend Doctor Who regenerated for the 13th time and is now a woman. Jodie Whittaker is replacing Peter Capaldi as the iconic Timelord.

As with all things speculative fiction and social justice, social media has been lit, to put it mildly with everyone expressing opinions for and against the new Doktah.

I have a thoughts on the new casting as well. Hence me writing this piece and you reading.

Allons y!!!!!!!!

1. #BlackGirlMagic

Them: We Finally Have A Female Doctor

Me: Yes and her name DOCTOR Martha Jones

2. #ICapeForBlackWomen

I have serious concerns. Pearl Mackie got the boot from the series.

Can’t help but wonder if this was because of the new white female Doctor Who.

Because screwing over black women for blond beckies is textbook white fauxminism. I’m going to reserve judgment for now until the new companion is announced and we find out what ultimately lies ahead for Bill Potts. But yeah, concerns I have them.

3. A Brand New Day

When you learn that showrunner and raging bigot Steve Moffat has left Doctor Who and you can finally watch the show again.

4. Gratitude

5. CONGRATULATIONS, You Played Yourself

White social justice in a nutshell.

Fauxgressives are patting themselves on the back because they have a white female #DoctorWho thinking they’ve stuck it to the oppressors.

However they conveniently forget that for the last four years, they’ve supported and financed Steve Moffat one of the biggest misogynists/racists/homophobes/douchebags in the industry.

6. Final Question

I am a history nerd of the highest order. That puts visiting historical sites high on my list of vacation options. Recently, I toured the Gettysburg National Military Park that commemorates the Battle of Gettysburg, 154 years ago. The national battlefield where the South’s invasion of the North ended and the spiral to the end began — — is large — about 10 square miles — and covered with monuments to every Federal state, army, corp, division, and regiment that fought there. There are also monuments to the Confederate soldiers. The view across the valley looks like a graveyard writ large — which it is. 50,000 Men died there, for their own reasons.

Those reasons. Yeah, the Civil War remains its own battlefield for Black folks, let alone the rest of the population. The whole “Slavery was the Cause of the Civil War” conversation, a pendulum continually swinging, has always seemed too easy, too self-congratulatory on the part of white liberals. I’ve been Black my whole life, so it is hard for me to believe that any collection of white men willingly risked their lives to liberate my ancestors from anything. Whites then, as now, had their own, let’s call them in the language of modern political excuses, “economic anxieties” wrapped up with a racial animus so strong and bizarre as to be used to justify colonial systems that are still churning today. Slavery didn’t cause the Civil War, no one thing could have caused and sustained something so devastating. Standing on Cemetery Hill, looking across the mile wide valley that was for those 3 days a killing field, the complexities of the Civil War became clear to me, clear in the utter absence of Black people in the middle of it. It wasn’t about individual slaves, but about some abstraction of freedom that they represented…the freedom to own, the freedom to compete in the labor market…there were no Black people in that conversation, only the reference to us, only the spots where our shadows fell.

I trekked all over that field, saw the spot where Lincoln delivered his famous address — a speech that is truly moving in its rhetoric even while being unrealized in its truth. We visited each of the State monuments, including the ones erected by the Southern states. When the park was established in the 1890s, the South didn’t want much to do with decorating the site of their defeat. Later, coincidentally in the 1960s when the Civil War was 100 years old at the same time that the Civil Rights Movement was claiming victories, they put up huge statues to state rights and freedom of conscience. This is, by the way, completely uncoincidental. The Civil War continues to be a proxy, even now, for those “economic anxieties”.

The National Park Service Visitor Center, in the middle of the park, is excellent. The museum there has a comprehensive walkthrough of the battle and the war, complete with a 15-minute documentary film narrated by Morgan Freeman — even for white people, he is the voice of God. In addition to the museum, there are talks and activities going on all day: demonstrations of weapons, lectures on the who/what/why, hands-on activities for the kids to try hardtack (think a stale saltine cracker…and not a good Premium Saltine, a generic Saltine you get in a restaurant to go with your soup). Really, it brought to life so much of what you may have slept through in High School or watched mindlessly on PBS.

The National Park Service has an informative and easy to follow Auto Audio tour that you can drive. Throughout the park there are 20 or so stops, each clearly marked, where you pull over and hit play on an audio clip. The clips walk you through the course of the battle, add personality to the generals who participated and provide insights into the lives of the average white men who were out there fighting. There are also certified guides available to answer questions and provide direction. It was one such guide who changed my perspective entirely.

The guide was sitting on a three-legged stool next to a small, neat white reconstructed farm house. He looked sad, a bit lonely, as did the house set apart from other structures in the middle of the battlefield, with an orchard of peach and apple trees to one side. We stopped, asked him what he was up to. This is what he told us:

This was the Brian Farm, and it stood at the northern end of the famous Pickett’s Charge. Abraham Brian, the owner, was a Black Freeman and farmer. (The spelling of his name changes between Brian and Bryan.) He lived in that farmhouse with his wife and kids. When the Confederates approached, he and the other local free Blacks, numbering about 300, fled further north to avoid being captured.

Let’s pause here:
There were free Blacks living and farming in Gettysburg in 1863. Gettysburg had an approximate population of 2,400 at the time, of which 300 were Black. That’s more than 10% of the population. That’s more Black people that live there *now*.
Back to the story.

Mr. Brian, along with his friends and relations, left town to hide while the battle raged through town. Federal Northern soldiers used his house for cover, his attic as a sniper nest. On the last day, Confederate soldiers captured and hid in his barn while the Northerners controlled his orchard. The space between, the literal life and livelihood of a Black family, was an unclaimed land in the midst of the deadliest battle over “freedom”, dangerous and empty. The metaphor writes itself.

Once it was all over and the Confederates retreated back over the Potomac in a rainstorm, the Brian family returned. The house & the barn were both destroyed, the animals slaughtered, the wheat field full of dead bodies. Abraham Brian submitted a bill for $1,024 to the Federal government for the damages, as did his white neighbors. He received $15 in recompense — more than his white neighbors did. Then as now, the Feds don’t pay if they don’t want to pay. Their neighbors moved on, but the Brian family stayed, rebuilt the barn. Abraham probably earned extra money helping to bury the dead in the new Soldier’s Cemetery on Cemetery Hill. The family was probably there, standing on their porch, when Lincoln climbed that hill to give that speech about a freedom that implied them, but didn’t include them. Again the metaphor…

It all stays with me. I was wrong — we were there, even in a battle in which no Black men (that are documented) fought. We were then the middle, our lives the dirt, our fruit the peaches growing beside the house. And here we are now, in that same position 154 years later, in the ongoing fight for our freedom that some want to erase us from. Obviously, we fight that erasure, and that’s what makes this a half-way happy story. At the end of it all, The Brian family was still there.

In the ongoing struggle for our freedom and value, we fight our erasure every day — with debates of history having as much importance as those of the present. Years later, the National Park Service rebuilt the Brian family house. Organizations like the Female RE-Enactors of Distinction (FREED), an Auxiliary Organization of the African American Civil War Museum, bring the stories of the free Black women to schools and museums. (Don’t worry, the African American Civil War Museum is on next year’s vacation list.) The 54TH Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment of re-enactors continues to represent Black men who “served, lost their lives and health in the Civil War, particularly those members of our namesake, the 54th Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.” Many of us research our genealogies and retell family stories.

The metaphor of Gettysburg, of the Civil War, continues to change, because of work being done right now. Professional historians and weekend re-enactors both continue to research the Civil War and help us all remember the Black people who lived and died for their own freedom. I thank them for that work and can’t wait to find out more.

Photo Credits:
Cover photo, Brian Farm: National Park Service
Field, Gettysburg Address Monument: TripAdvisor.com
FREED photo: Female RE-Enactors of Distinction (FREED)

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