Francis “Frank” CastleCosmic Ghost Rider

In an alternate future, decorated Marine and upstanding citizen, Frank Castle suffers a great loss when his family is slain in a mob hit. From that day, he is a force of retribution, doling out punishment, until he dies. He returns as Ghost Rider, a Spirit of Vengeance, and eventually joins Galactus, who grants him the Power Cosmic. He is the Cosmic Ghost Rider!

Mr. Castle Goes to Hell...and Space

The alternate future Francis “Frank” Castle’s life essentially follows the trajectory of his Earth-616 counterpart, Frank Castle, AKA Punisher. A decorated Marine, Francis “Frank” Castle returns to civilian life, married and has two kids. His whole life changes when criminals killhis family in the park. Wracked with guilt and craving vengeance, Castle becomes The Punisher, scourge of the underworld. Many years later, Thanos visits Earth in an effort to kill every living being in the cosmos and nearly succeeds. When Punisher gets knocked out by some falling debris he prays for the power to punish the invader. When Mephisto offers him exactly that in exchange for his soul, Frank Castle becomes the new Ghost Rider!

As it happened, the new Spirit of Vengeance had very few beings to punish thanks to the Mad Titan killing nearly everyone on Earth. Being left alone for millennia, he loses his mind. So when Galactus appears looking for help against Thanos, Frank becomes his new Herald and transforms into the Cosmic Ghost Rider, adding the Power Cosmic to his already impressive abilities. They fight alongside each other for centuries trying to stop Thanos. When the Titan kills the world devourer, Castle decides to serve Thanos. At first, he intends to use this closeness to kill Thanos, but his broken mind eventually betrays him and he serves the Titan for an unknown amount of time.

A Helluva Fighter

The Cosmic Ghost Rider might be the most powerful non-deity in all of space. Already an incredibly dangerous killer with years of training in the Marines, he then goes onto the mean streets as he hardened himself against the worst criminals he could find. When he becomes the Spirit of Vengeance, he becomes the Hellfire-fueled Ghost Rider, wielding awesome supernatural powers including the Penance Stare, which makes the recipient relive all of the evil they've done in the world. He can also control and utilize a Hell Mount, which in Frank's case is a gun-mounted motorcycle.

Frank's time as Ghost Rider is spent mostly alone, leading to some serious mental instability. Still, when Galactus comes to the mostly dead planet, Castle makes a good deal for him to become the new Herald, a position that comes with copious amounts of Cosmic Energy. This upgrade results in a more armored look with a dome covering Castle's flaming head. It also changes his Hell Mount.

Along the way, Cosmic Ghost Rider acquires chains made from the bones of Cytorrak, which he uses to ensnare his enemies. He can also use his combined powers to create guns and other firearms of unknown origins.

Though presumed to be immortal, Castle is killed by a future version of Silver Surfer wielding Mjolnir. He stands up to attacks from Bruce Banner, AKA Hulk, and Thor Odinson, AKA Thor, in the present and even kills Thanos. Beyond that, he boasts killing everything from planets to Celestials. When blown up, the Rider does sometimes cease to be corporeal aside from his skull. Once he comes into contact with sinful beings, though, he can feed off of their misdeeds and reconstitute himself.

Does Not Play Well with Others

The Rider has a complicated relationship with Thanos. On one hand, the Mad Titan's attack on Earth directly leads to him becoming the Ghost Rider and also going mad himself because Thanos killed just about everyone on the planet. With Galactus' help, Castle begins waging a war against the Titan. However, when Thanos kills Galactus, Frank switches allegiances and becomes the Death-obsessed villain's errand boy. Frank even tried to kidnap and raise Baby Thanos, but creates a different kind of monster in an alternate future.

During his travels through time, the Rider meets up with Galactus and Mephisto, who both remember him because of their own fantastical powers. He also garners the attention of Uatu the Watcher when he tries messing with history too much. Uatu makes everyone forget his shenanigans, though, earning a murderous enemy in the process.

While Cosmic Ghost Rider both fights and works alongside the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Avengers, he never makes much of a good impression. More recently, he meets and befriends Cammi Benally, AKA Cammi, a space-faring Earthling. However, his presence in her life also leads to her possession by a mysterious space demon that had been attached to the Cosmic King.

The Ghost with the Most

When Thanos defeated Galactus in their future, Frank found himself without his one and only friend in all the cosmos. Instead of carrying on their mission of vengeance on the Titan, Castle's addled mind allowed him to let Thanos dominate him. The Cosmic Ghost Rider ran errands for the dark king, cleaned up after him and even fed the dog-like Hulk locked in the basement. He also laid the Penance Stare on him every morning.

King Thanos sent Frank millions of years back in time to the present of Earth-616 to bring back the Titan's younger self. After a display of power using both the demonic fire and Power Cosmic at his disposal, the Rider simply asked Thanos to come along with him. His quarry attempted to fight, but Castle wrapped him in chains made from the bones of Cyttorak and took Thanos to the future with a shard of the Time Stone.

When The Fallen (formerly Silver Surfer) attacked with the Annihilation Horde backing him, the Rider fought them alongside Thanoses young and old. The Fallen soon revealed that he'd become worthy enough to wield Mjolnir and used it to smash the Rider to pieces. Though he died, Frank was spirited away by Odin Borson, AKA Odin, and taken to the Valhalla of Earth-616 before his original timeline died off completely.

A New Lease on After-Life

The idea of receiving an eternal reward in the Norse warrior afterlife did not sit well with the man who always assumed he would be punished himself. After he showed his distaste for the place, Odin appeared and returned Frank's powers to him without asking. The god also allowed Frank to travel to whichever time he desired.

Rejuvenated, and now able to return to his human face at will, the Cosmic Ghost Rider knew exactly where he wanted to go: Titan during Thanos' third year of life. When he arrived and laid the Penance Stare on the child, though, he realized the kid was innocent! Not able to kill the boy, the Rider decided to kidnap him and attempt to raise him right.

This choice created an alternate timeline that spawned a time-traveling Guardians of the Galaxy team led by Nathan Summers, AKA Cable, that came back to that moment to stop the Rider. No matter how many heroes he brought with him, though, Cable's allies fell to the would-be father's might. Though Frank tried to avoid it, Baby Thanos also got in on the action and killed Cable right as he was trying to explain that the Thanos raised by him became even worse than the alternative.

At that point, Frank met the version of Thanos that he would raise, Punisher Thanos. The Castle-raised Titan showed his adoptive father the world they created in their shard timeline, which initially looked like an idyllic paradise. It became clear, though, that Punisher Thanos had taken Castle's moniker too far and built an enormous prison for the rest of humanity in an effort to make them penitent. This did not sit well with the Rider so he lashed out at his son, killed Punisher Thanos and left to return Baby Thanos to his place in time, which theoretically destroyed that timeline as well.

Still in the past relative to the current day, Cosmic Ghost Rider attempted to muddle around with history going back to the earliest days of the Fantastic Four and beyond. Eventually, he tried to save his family, which is when Uatu came in and erased him from everyone's memory. Frank was also incarcerated on The Raft until the breakout that led to the formation of the New Avengers freed him. He claims to have eventually killed the Watcher leading into the Original Sin murder investigation.

Guard Duty

Free in the present, the Rider felt drawn to a place where he found Thanos' body after Gamora had removed his head. After paying his unique brand of respect, Castle got blown up by the booby-trapped body. Shortly after, he met Eros, AKA Starfox, who had shown up to carve his brother's will out of his corpse. The Rider attended the playing of that message along with many of the most important and powerful beings in the cosmos. Essentially, Thanos conveyed that he had arranged to have his consciousness downloaded into the body of another. As the assembled attempted to figure out how to handle this situation, the Black Order attacked and stole the body.

To make their escape, Thanos' minions opened a black hole that threatened to entrap some of the attendees including The Rider. The Silver Surfer tied Frank's chains to Beta Ray Bill's hammer Stormbreaker and hurled it away from the point of no return. Making a human chain, The Rider, Bill, Heather Douglas, AKA Moondragon, and Phyla-Vell managed to escape and wound up aboard the ship of Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord, and Groot.

Castle did not stick around for long because of the others' desire to save Gamora instead of stopping her. He left and joined up with another group led by Starfox that included Kallark, AKA Gladiator, Nebula, and Zak-Del, AKA Wraith. They dedicated  themselves to tracking down and killing Gamora, thinking she was the likeliest candidate to become the new Thanos. Meanwhile, Gamora reunited with Star-Lord, Groot and the others while Richard Rider, AKA Nova, inadvertently led Starfox's crew directly to them all. The so-called Dark Guardians made off with Gamora and returned to their leader.

Just as Gladiator was about to kill Gamora based on Eros' orders, Hela and the Black Order showed up! The Queen of Hel made the Rider bow before her and pledge himself to her just before Thanos' mind took over his brother Starfox's body! Frank missed out on the ensuing battle when Star-Lord's blast accidentally sent him straight to Hell!

A Hell of a Time

In the underworld, Frank came skull-to-skull with the King of Hell Johnny Blaze, AKA Ghost Rider. Blaze sent him into fellow Ghost Rider Robbie Reyes' Hellcharger so Castle could send the kid to Hell. Then Frank got mixed up again and began fighting the Avengers. Once he wrapped his head around what was really going on, The Rider offered to take the Avengers to Hell to help Robbie and get revenge on Blaze. At the end of the escapade, Cosmic Ghost Rider decided to head back out into space and leave Hell behind for a while.

Before leaving, though, he went to visit his wife's grave and wound up meeting his present-day self, The Punisher. Present Frank attacked his potential future self with consecrated hellfire rounds, a Vibranium-Adamantium knife, and an explosive all because the Rider did not use his stint as a time traveler to save their family. After saying that they deserve to be punished, the Cosmic Ghost Rider left Earth.

The Spirit of Cosmic Vengeance

Recently, when Galactus crashed into Asgard after nearly being killed by The Black Winter, Thor requested the assistance of any available Heralds. Cosmic Ghost Rider showed up in an attempt to help, but the Devourer selected Thor and Thor alone to assist him in a mission that wound up in Galactus' death at the hands of the God of Thunder.

Around that same time, Frank began a campaign of vengeance to get himself thrown into a Shi'ar prison. While taking out evil doers, he accidentally unleashed a monstrous fellow inmate, an act that led the guards to destroy the entire facility. Months later, Cammi Benally and her pirate crew came across the Rider's skull. Aboard their ship, he regrew himself by attacking them for their sins, eventually reconstituting his fiery form.

After deciding to protect Cammi's innocent soul—much to her chagrin—the Rider learned from her about the intergalactic gangster Cosmic King, who also played host to an unnamed parasitic space demon. The regal gangster was not pleased with Castle after he killed the pirate crew that worked for him. Wanting revenge, the Cosmic King visited Mephisto in Las Vegas and demanded Castle's mortal soul. During their ensuing confrontation, King gave Castle his soul back, but he still had his Power Cosmic, which he used to kill Cosmic King. At that point, Mephisto showed up to let Frank know he was in breach of their contract, so he returned to his infernal realm of Pandemonium with Cammi's soul instead!

Castle used the Power Cosmic to keep himself alive in the demon dimension, giving chase to save Cammi. Ultimately, he offered up his soul to Mephisto in exchange for Cammi's. However, when she came to, the thing that had been living inside Cosmic King took her over and blew the Rider up. Months later, when a group of Brood came to the planet, he used their sins to rekindle himself and set out to save his friend Cammi and exact vengeance on anyone who would get in his way.