Marvel vs DC · City to planet
Lobo vs Ghost Rider
The Spirit of Vengeance finally meets someone with even worse sins. The problem is, Lobo is proud of all of them.
Tale of the tape
| DC | Universe | Marvel |
|---|---|---|
| City to planet | Tier | City to planet |
| A regeneration factor that can rebuild him from a single drop of blood | Strength | Hellfire, a chain whip and the Penance Stare |
| Loves violence too much to stop | Weakness | Little control over the spirit inside him |
| 2–0 | Record on Versus | 1–3 |
The Arena
Ghost Rider was hunting a soul so stained that hell itself had sent him to collect it. He found it in a biker bar on a desert highway: a huge, chalk-white alien with red eyes, a leather jacket and a chain wrapped around his fist, drinking his fourteenth beer and arguing with the bartender.
The Rider stepped into the bar, his skull blazing. Every biker in the room fled. Lobo did not even turn around. “Whoever ya are,” he growled, “ya interruptin’ my drinkin’.” The Rider’s voice was gravel. “Your soul is drenched in blood. You will burn.” Lobo finally turned, looked at the flaming skull, and grinned. “Bastich. I like your bike.”
Then he broke a bar stool over the Rider’s head.
Round One
They demolished the bar in about forty seconds. Lobo punched the Rider’s skull off his shoulders. The skull rolled under a table, still burning, and reattached itself. The Rider lashed his burning chain around Lobo’s neck and swung him through the wall into the parking lot. Lobo got up, laughing, and pulled out his own chain.
They fought with chains in the desert, hellfire against Czarnian strength, both of them tearing pieces off each other that grew right back. The Rider burned Lobo’s arm to the bone. Lobo regrew it in seconds. Lobo tore the Rider in half. The Rider reformed out of hellfire.
Lobo was enjoying himself more than he had in centuries. The Rider was starting to get annoyed.
The Turn
The Rider grabbed Lobo by the face and used the Penance Stare. It reached into Lobo’s soul and showed him every sin he had ever committed: every innocent he had killed, every planet he had destroyed, including his own. Billions of deaths. The Stare had broken demons with far less on their conscience.
Lobo watched it all. Then he started laughing. “Oh, I remember that one!” he said. “And that one! Ha! That was a great day!” The Penance Stare forces the guilty to feel the pain they caused. But Lobo felt no guilt at all. He felt nostalgia.
The Rider let go of him, horrified. For the first time in his existence, the Penance Stare had made someone happy.
The Finish
While the Rider stood there, stunned, Lobo hit him with his motorcycle. Then he backed up and hit him again. Then he got off the motorcycle and beat the Rider with it, over and over, until the Spirit of Vengeance lay in the desert, his flames flickering, too disoriented to rise.
Lobo stood over him, chain in one hand, a fresh beer in the other, which he had somehow saved from the bar. “Look, flamehead,” he said. “I been banned from heaven and hell both. Ya can’t send me anywhere I ain’t already been kicked out of.” The Rider looked up at him. That, unfortunately, was true.
Lobo got back on his bike and roared off into the desert. The Rider lay on the highway for a long time. Then he reported back to hell that the soul could not be collected. When asked why, he said only, “Because he does not think he did anything wrong, and he enjoyed every second of it.” Hell agreed to drop the case.
The verdict
Lobo wins
Ghost Rider’s hellfire and immortality match Lobo’s regeneration, but the Penance Stare relies on guilt, and Lobo feels none: watching his sins only makes him nostalgic.
- No guiltThe Penance Stare has nothing to work with.
- RegenerationLobo regrows from almost any damage.
- Banned from heaven and hellThere is nowhere left to send him.
How the rematch could go differently: A Ghost Rider who simply chained Lobo up and dragged him to hell, without using the Stare, might succeed, if hell would accept him.
Who do you think wins?
Who would win in a fight between Lobo and Ghost Rider?
Lobo wins. Ghost Rider’s hellfire and immortality match Lobo’s regeneration, but the Penance Stare relies on guilt, and Lobo feels none: watching his sins only makes him nostalgic.