‘Agents of SHIELD’ villains: Should Ghost Rider adversary Mephisto turn up?

Now that Marvel’s “Agents of SHIELD” has brought an extremely popular character from the Marvel comic library in Ghost Rider, is it time to take the next step? We of course wonder, since there are many great candidates for villains they could include.

With that being said, we want to focus here specifically on Mephisto, one of the most famous villains from the comics and someone with unlimited comic potential. They’ve got ties to a wide array of heroes including even Spider-Man from the comics, and while it would be a little strange to include someone who is basically one of Marvel’s versions of the devil on this show, at the same time we’ve delved now into magic and some other other matters that are unexplained. Why not go ahead and go even crazier with it? If nothing else, it could be fun.

Let’s analyze this a little further before rendering the final verdict.

Who is he? – Mephisto is more or less a large, super-evil demon who has his own hell-like dimension, which he uses to torment people in the way that he sees fit. A curse is in part one of the origins for the Ghost Rider character, and in certain comic series he is tied to that. He played a role via Henry Fonda in the Nicolas Cage movie, and he is one of the few characters in the Marvel universe almost everyone should fear in some way. He’s not your traditional villain, and he does not come with traditional powers.

How to use him – That’s really rather simple: If you want to give the show’s Robbie Reyes character further backstory, it is easy to include some sort of version of him and have it tied to the mythology. Meanwhile, you could feature some sort of storyline where SHIELD, if they come around to him, teams up with Robbie to try and extract the Spirit of Vengeance and defeat Mephisto in some form.

Odds of appearance – Moderately high. If the show is going to do something more than just a superficial treatment of this character, we’re not sure how you go on and don’t include him. He’s just such a significant part of the character’s story, and he’s superficially fearsome enough that you can introduce him without a heavy amount of backstory.