From Hulk and Thing’s frequent throwdowns to Wolverine and Cyclops’ rivalry, plenty of Marvel heroes have grudges against each other, but few fans would expect Daredevil and Ghost Rider to have anything to disagree about. Sadly, they’d be wrong, and original Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze actually hates the Man Without Fear with a passion, all because of his choice of codename.
In Thunderbolts 20.NOW – from Charles Soule and Carlo Barberi – Ghost Rider finds himself allied with the titular team and notices that they’re all wearing red costumes. Flash Thompson’s Agent Venom jokes they should recruit Daredevil, however Ghost Rider responds badly. The Spirit of Vengeance immediately responds “I hate that guy,” then explains that, “I’m the damn motorcycle stunt jumper. I should be Daredevil. He’s probably an accountant or something in real life.”
The joke is especially funny for fans because Johnny Blaze is right – Matt Murdock is a New York lawyer for his day job – a profession that can’t match Johnny’s own stunt driver past for pure ‘daredevil’ spirit. It likely didn’t help that Johnny had just publicly failed an ambitious jump, only surviving because of his Ghost Rider powers.
Ghost Rider’s anger is a fun gag for fans, but it does echo real-world debates about Daredevil’s name. Most famously, a viral Tweet from X user @Pale_0ntologist points out that DC’s Batman and Marvel’s Daredevil should logically have each other’s names, since Matt Murdock is a blind hero who uses his echo-location-esque radar sense to fight crime, while Bruce Wayne is a playboy famous for his fast cars and gadgets. The message has resurfaced on social media several times, becoming a running joke for fans.
One person who’d agree with Ghost Rider’s assessment is the Daredevil villain Stunt-Master – a skilled motorcycle performer who drugged and killed innocent people in order to create the illusion of ‘death-defying stunts.’ There have been two versions of Stunt-Master, with the latest most recently calling out Daredevil and attempting to prove himself as the one true ‘Man Without Fear.’ Johnny Blaze can take some solace in the fact that another member of the stunt riding fraternity has taken Daredevil’s name as a personal challenge.
Both Stunt-Master and Ghost Rider might give Matt Murdock more of a break if they knew that he took his codename from his childhood bullies, who called Matt out as a coward because his father forced him to study rather than allowing him to play outside. As an adult vigilante, the name appealed to Matt’s conflicted feelings about his vigilante activities, and he combined it with a devilish costume to become the feared guardian of Hell’s Kitchen known as Daredevil. Given the fact that Daredevil is a street-level hero and Ghost Rider is a near infinitely powerful embodiment of vengeance, hopefully Matt Murdock won’t run into Johnny Blaze anytime soon and have to defend his costumed alter ego.
Source: @Pale_0ntologist