After 31 years of appearances in Marvel comics, the antihero Ghost is finally going to be unmasked. July 6’s Ant-Man sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, is going to put both a face and a name to the mysterious comic book character whose alter ego has remained totally unknown ever since his first appearance in Iron Man #219 in 1987. But when the identity of Ghost is finally revealed, it may come as a shock to many comic book fans, since Marvel decided to gender-swap Ghost for Ant-Man and the Wasp and make the character female.
Actress Hannah John-Kamen, who will be playing the villain in the Ant-Man sequel, recently commented on the gender-switch. Speaking with ComicBook.com, John-Kamen feels that the change is an interesting one and is forward-moving in the modern world. The actress points out how comics from 50 or so years ago have characters that could have easily been female, with Ghost being an obvious choice.
Definitely that, that’s been amazing. I think that you know, the kind of gender swapping from male to female is, you look at graphic novels, you look at comic books, written so long ago. They’re like 50-years old or 40-years old. It’s nice to like go, do you know what? This is a modern, it’s a modern world. It’s again, freeing, to be able to take that character and go, yeah, that can be played by a male or female and that’s definitely forward thinking, and that’s been amazing to be able to do.
Regardless of gender, there’s no doubt that the MCU design of Ghost looks great. John-Kamen’s Ghost in Ant-Man and the Wasp will have the same “power set” as in the comics.
Executive producer Stephen Broussard explains that John-Kamen is playing a new interpretation of Ghost with the gender swap, but one who’s just as enigmatic as the male comic book figure. Marvel chose to switch up Ghost’s character for the movie to create a fully rounded character.
We thought that was a cool opportunity to create a character that was all about mystery and kind of, ‘What are the origins? and ‘What is the backstory? What is the goals and agendas of this person?’ It was a great vehicle for the kind of the story you wanted to tell because Ghost in the comics itself was a mystery. So she’s very different from what has come before in the comics but in ways that kind of…Suffice it to say that she is on a path and she is on a mission at odds with our heroes on this journey but of a similar goal, of a similar aim, at the worst possible time for Scott Lang.
Marvel has been pushing toward a more female future in recent times, however, within the scope of comics, there just aren’t as many female villains as their male counterparts, and John-Kamen has enjoyed adding another to the ranks.
Ant-Man and the Wasp face off against Ghost on July 6.
Source: Comicbook
