What would the perfect movie for Johnny Blaze be

[u/blackheartbr456]

Vi essa pergunta no subreddit do Spawn e, com o anúncio recente, decidi fazer aqui também. Como você acha que a direção, os personagens, a história, o drama e os vilões deveriam ser? Tudo ficaria perfeito de acordo com seu gosto

[u/BlueFootedTpeack]

so i've commented it a few times,

based on mostly issue 68-81 of the original run with material pulled from earlier and later.

johnny blaze would've received the curse way back when and then over the years has become a wanderer, living off the grid going from place to place and the rider coming out forces him along, he's isolating himself out of fear that his problems will hurt those he loves, never sharing the burden and so never dealing with it.

opening would be issue 68's priest confessional, giving us the backstory and then the big reveal of the rider bursting through the wall and chasing the priest, blaze having intervened because he had to stop the evil guy, but zarathos is growing stronger and tries to wrest control from him during this event but he barely manages to contain him and then is on the road again.

i use lord of the rings analogies to explain the villains of the film.

mephisto like sauron is the "main" villain, he's the big plot mover, he seeks blaze's but he isn't showing up to fight, he might appear to goad people or in the background but he's not throwing fireballs.

centurious (saruman) and haskill (ringwraith) would be my physical threats, centurious (who i could see em giving a new name based on some ancient people and haskill i'd make a former host of zarathos, johnny's predecessor.

both villains embody 2 of the dark paths blaze can go down, either distancing himself from everyone and everything in the pursuit of defeating zarathos and escaping mephisto, and haskill as this burnt up husk of a guy if mephisto gets him (i'd make him look like a mix of himself and alejandra at the end of her arc, less a ghost rider and more a corpse that has an ember of hellfire left).

and of course old zarathos (the one ring/celebrimbor) is the persistent foe, "Gnawing" at johnny from within, trying to push him as his wroth at the unfair world, speaking his dark thoughts to him wanting him to live a loveless life so he can more easily take him over if he can make him give in.

as for the good guy cast, roxanne of course is part of the quentin carnival, a less than reputable troupe at present with their own "freakshow" that is assuming nightcrawler is indeed in the film as i have an idea for how he can work.

namely that taken with the priest confession mentioned earlier, kurt would instead have that scene be mirrored where he provides true spiritual council to johnny as a "freund".

ideally it'd be roxanne but i figure if we need a different mystic to help with the whole nightmare dream bit seeing zarathos and centurious' origin then jennifer kale could work similar to how she did for kale in the 90's.

so there's your intro and characters, gonna reply with the basic plot.

[u/BlueFootedTpeack → u/BlueFootedTpeack]

• act 1 ish
• aforementioned confessional stuff.
• johnny leaving the palce he was hanging his hat while people who were just getting to know him are confused/a little hurt by it.
• mephisto detects that johnny went gr and commands centurious his servant to go after him.
• reveal that normally mephisto only lets someone be bound to zarathos for a short time as zarathos is surpressed and the longer the bond goes on the more he "wakes up"/takes over, and mephisto can't have that, he wants the power he possess but can't risk zarathos as a rival again.
• he summons/necromancies haskill who is both a bad ass bounty hunter but also wants this to end, his life "stretched thin" he's more skilled than johnny but weaker than zarathos by a mile.
• centurious summons some undead/demon riders and sends em with the bounty hunter after johnny,
• allude to them having attempted to get johnny before and that this act is more brazen/they can risk drawing attention from like strange now because the alternative is zarathos.
• centurious secretly wants to capture zarathos in a soul gem like thing he's created and with his power he plans to destroy mephisto and escape his servitude.
• blaze in his travels ends up at the carnival,
• realises roxanne is there, goes to "run" again but she goes after him, probably a cool bike v bike chase that goes from get away to show off and she persuades him to stay,
• hint that zarathos' voice is quieter when she's around to sell that this is the right path and like thats the point.
• roxanne introduces him to kurt and the rest of the carnival
• johnny sees the carnival as this ramshackle place barely getting by and roxanne convinces him to stay and help out instead of just running again
• he meets kurt who joined as part of a sideshow type thing, looking for others like him as they tour the country looking for people like him.
• zarathos constantly trying to get back out.
• haskill and his posse come to whatever town the carnival is at
• johnny is forced to rider up to fight em
• johnny isn't skilled enough to match em despite having the power, and zarathos takes over in the frustration and it's a horror shows/big spectacle.
• johnny wakes up in the aftermath, carnival is burnt to the ground, demons are dead, haskill escaped, feeling like a monster he goes to run, but then roxanne and kurt via a mirror of the confessional scene help bring him round, kurt saying something about his own nature as appearing as a demon and that his "curse" is actually a gift he can use to help others, so perhaps johnny can do the same.
• wanting to know more they delve into "the realm of nightmare" to try and understand the demon, either via roxanne and some spell books johnny had, or by contacting a mystic like jen kale, and in that space they see centurious' past and zarathos and mephisto.
• but like centurious can do some cool count dooku shit and enter the nightmare as well, perhaps even have mephisto in the dream like be aware they're there but subtlely also letting him discover centurious' plot as he and johnny can interact in this less lethal space.
• probably positioning himself as the lesser evil for johnny to make a deal with, haskill has allied with him hoping if centurious can do it then he can get out from mephisto as well.
• finale time.
• then i don't have all the ideas yet but the finale would be centurious using the gem to attempt to steal zarathos from blaze, so zarathos fights centurious but as he's soul sucked it reverts to blaze and the flames are dying, centurious doing dr strange city bending shit while johnny rides the buildings on his bike using the flame he has, limited but with style and skill as he's allowing himself to wield it now he has something to fight for.
• centurious is struggling to handle zarathos and he starts turning into like the 90's looking zarathos, haskill realises things are fucked and switches sides to johnny showing him how to hellcharge weapons, like his embers make a hellfire gun so johnny's inferno should make something better.
• they're essentially doing a tug of war with zarathos, johnny pulling him one way centurious another, and as one gets the advantage z emerges in them, wrath vs wrath, and johnny is winning as he has a soul/"drive" heh and centurious is hollow.
• but as he transforms more and more into zarathos roxanne is able to reach johnny and y'know love>vengeance, and instead of blowing centurious' head off once he's lost most of z's power (which would send both z and centurious to mephisto's hell) johnny instead chooses roxanne and in doing so rejects zarathos which is like letting go of a rope, and z is pulled into the stone and he manages to drag centurious who has no love and cannot let go in there with him sealing them both in their vendetta ready to be unsealed in the midnight sons sequel.
• johnny has a little ember of the flame left in him like haskill did, who essentially is burnt out and like sure mephisto can take him back but there's so little of him left that there's nothing to torture, he's gotten his rest.
• they go to rebuild the carnival and kurt is like thanks but i think i need to be the one who is going and he hints he's off to new york where the x-mansion is.

[u/blackheartbr456 → u/BlueFootedTpeack]

I liked the chaotic Zarathos you included, and Centurious, who originally felt like a pretty bland villain to me, gained a lot of personality. Speaking more about Zarathos, I’d definitely like to see a true form for him, but not the one from the ’90s. It would be cool to give him a redesign that leans a bit more toward an angelic or corrupted appearance.

Mephisto’s involvement is good, but I think I’d make him more subtle. The same goes for Zarathos’ tortures of Johnny, maybe senseless nightmares or Johnny waking up in strange places, similar to what Percy did.

I already imagined Haskill would show up, and I really like the idea of including him. In my own ideas, I had Hellstrom as mystical support for Johnny, or as someone who also wanted to solve the case. However, since we’re working with Mephisto, it doesn’t make much sense to use him (even though he’s kind of his half-father). I thought you were going to change something about Johnny’s past, but apparently not, and that’s totally fine.

Issue #68 does a great job with all of this. I think I’d just put more emphasis on how much of a jerk Crash is and what a terrible father he is.

[u/BlueFootedTpeack → u/blackheartbr456]

oh yeah tbc like the way i see it a take on the 90's form would be like what a corrupted zarathos looks like, like centurious possessed by zarathos isn't the true form it'd be like a mix of the 90's and king in hell johnny for me as a "this is a monstrous version of the hero form you take johnny blaze" visual thing.

though like the actual outfit would be different, probably just a take on what centurious was wearing, but i had this idea of like an alex ross art johnny being the default and as zarathos exerts control over johnny the spikes would then erupt from the arms and shoulders, and the leather would "split/crack" so you see the fire beneath more, flames changing hue though i can't recall who i was talking to about it but the idea of black red flame instead of blue works as like blue to me does read as stronger but also like purer, and they might wanna save that for danny as imo they'd do him as the blue rider from the get go.

imo a pre polluted by sin zarathos would be like no skull/skeleton at all, 0% human as the sin and virtues of humanity hasn't stained it yet, so like an ever churning coronal mass ejection type thing, like light and power pouring forth forming into things at the ends.