WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider #5 by Dennis Hopeless, Scott Hepburn, Antonio Fabela, and VC's Travis Lanham, available now.
There are plenty of dark entities in the Marvel Universe that can transform simple people into terrifying beings, such as the Brood or alien symbiotes. There's one such being that previously possessed the Cosmic King, and it turned a warrior into someone capable of standing up to cosmically empowered forces.
And in Revenge of the Cosmic Ghost Rider #5, that being has taken over the body of a young Marvel hero, Cammi, the former sidekick for Drax and Cosmic Ghost Rider. Now, we're going to take a closer look at how she was corrupted into becoming one of the biggest threats in the Marvel Universe?
WHO IS CAMMI?
Cammi was introduced in the Drax the Destroyer miniseries by Keith Giffen and Mitch Breitweiser. Originally just a snarky and defiant 10-year-old girl growing up in a remote part of Alaska, she encountered Drax by chance when a prison ship he was aboard crashed near the town. She quickly befriended Drax and ended up going into space with him, finding herself drawn into the events of Annihilation. After getting separated from Drax after the events of the event, she spent time traveling through the galaxy and becoming a skilled and crafty space bandit.
Upon finally returning to Earth, she was captured by Arcade and made one of the participants in his most expansive Murderworld ever in the pages of Avengers Arena. She quickly became a leader of the survivors, repeatedly keeping her newfound friends from being killed or even killing themselves. Although she briefly spent time with her mother after the events of Avengers Arena, Cammi was one of the undercover heroes who investigated the new Masters of Evil headquarters during Avengers Undercover, before deciding she was done with Earth and made her way back into the cosmos to become a wandering bandit. Since then, she's worked with various groups and even encountered Drax again along the way.
WHAT HAPPENED TO CAMMI?
Cammi has been traveling space recently with the Cosmic Ghost Rider. After becoming the only survivors of one of his rampages against a crew working for the Cosmic King, Cammi's immunity to the Pennance Stare (due to her genuinely innocent and noble soul) allowed the pair to work together against the Cosmic King. She even befriended Frank Castle, becoming something of a surrogate daughter to the long-suffering Punisher. When she was briefly lost in a black hole by the Cosmic King, Castle went berserk. But Cammi was flung through space and time, witnessing how the Cosmic King was first corrupted by a mysterious and dark entity that stole his soul and used him for its gain.
Returning to the present, Cammi was quickly attacked by Mephisto, who claimed her soul to get to Castle. Although Castle was able to rescue her soul -- albeit at the cost of becoming a Ghost Rider again after just having the power exorcised -- and defeat the Cosmic King, he didn't destroy the dark parasite within him. Unable to claim Castle's soul and all the power it possessed, the darkness instead attacked Cammi. The young woman was quickly overwhelmed and taken by the dark entity, which quickly seemed to take over her body fully and capture her soul. The issue ends months later, with a bitter Castle making his way through the galaxy after being reborn and on the hunt for a "friend" who's become a monster.
Thanks in part to the massive power of the being it possessed, the Cosmic King was a major threat to the safety of the universe. The being was able to match the Cosmic Ghost Rider in battle, a character with access to both the Power Cosmic and the influence of Mephisto. But now that Cammi has been corrupted, she's become a massive threat to the universe. It clearly is a strong enough being that the Cosmic Ghost Rider has tried and failed to bring it down. Given her knowledge of the universe, then the being could have become far more intelligent by taking over her body.
There's also the question of whether or not there's anything of Cammi left inside the being. When she was exposed to the being in the past, it unearthed all the darkest parts of her psyche and overwhelmed her with them. Maybe there's a way to save Cammi, who has proven to be such a genuinely good person that not even Mephisto could affect her in the bowels of hell. Or maybe she's lost, and the Cosmic Ghost Rider will have to embrace his Punisher side to bring her down before she goes on a genuine rampage through the universe.