This article contains spoilers for Ant-Man and The Wasp.
Ant-Man and The Wasp is here and that means that with a new Marvel movie comes a new Marvel villain and this time it’s in the form of Ghost. Let’s get to know Ghost a little better before we all see her in action on the big screen!
Image: Marvel
Created by writer David Michelinie and artist Bob Layton, the comic version of Ghost made his (yes, his) debut in Iron Man #219 (1987). Originally, Ghost was an industrial saboteur and man named John Morley. While the gender has changed for the film and later versions of the character, Ghost has always been up to no good. He would destroy political and economic institutions that he saw as oppressive – there’s nothing better than a bad guy who thinks he’s got a noble cause. Using his brilliant intellect he was able to create a battlesuit. With this Ghost-tech he can turn himself and any objects he touches invisible and also intangible, however, not both at the same time. He’s also a very skilled hacker, tactician, and marksman.
Image: Marvel
While Ghost will be a primary antagonist in Ant-Man and The Wasp, in comics he stood up against Iron Man, mostly. In fact, Ghost has been a large thorn in the armored side of Tony Stark for a very long time. He also had run-ins with Justin Hammer (another famed Tony Stark foe), and Norman Osborn. He’s been hired to work for big Marvel names like Kingpin, before working against him. Ghost was also recruited to the Thunderbolts which is basically Marvel’s Suicide Squad, a team of reformed supervillains fighting crime.
The biggest change from panel to screen is that Ghost isn’t a bad guy, she’s a woman just trying to survive. Her name in the movie is Ava and she is the surrogate daughter of the other antagonist of the film, Bill Foster. In the movie, Ghost is a product of experiments with the Quantum Realm. Ava’s exposure to the Quantum Realm has put her in a constant state of pain and also causes her to “ghost.” The suit that she wears helps to alleviate the pain and somewhat control her “ghosting” but in order to survive, she is looking to steal tech from our heroes to access the Quantum Realm. She is a former-S.H.I.E.L.D. operative and is highly-skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Hannah John-Kamen portrays the on-screen version, and and you can expect a pretty intense performance.
Where do you think Ghost will land amongst the list of MCU villains past? Are you excited to see her face off with The Wasp or Ant-Man? Will her ultimate “bad-guy plan” make sense and carry weight to the plot, as many MCU villains in the past have failed to pull off? Let us know in the comments!
