WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Cosmic Ghost Rider #3, by Donny Cates, Dylan Burnett and Antonio Fabela, on sale now!

Is there a limit to the killing prowess of Frank Castle? Even after dying, returning as the Spirit of Vengeance, being imbued with cosmic powers (and then dying again, of course), the Punisher kept his hardened, murderous edge, and it was an edge he used to tear through droves of enemies. When those enemies were no longer around, he had plenty of time (millennia) to reflect... and in doing so he does the most reasonable thing imaginable and kind of loses his mind, or at the very least becomes somehow even more unhinged than usual.

Donny Cates and Dylan Burnett's madcap miniseries Cosmic Ghost Rider has embraced Frank's lunacy by letting it run wild. The creators have a special section roped off for them in the comic book playground, and as long as whatever the hell sort of nightmare monstrosity they have turned the jungle gym into doesn't invade the swing sets right away, Marvel seems content to leave the weird kids to their own devices. Seriously, this whole exercise in cosmic craziness is still baffling (in the best kind of way). The fact they get away with half the crap they pull in the Earth-616 continuity is nothing short of mind-boggling.

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One of the more interesting facets of the miniseries is how it feels as if it is lovingly poking fun at the Marvel Universe in a very broad, yet meta manner. Everything from how Cates has diligently handled Thanos with a strange sense of humanity (and madness) across multiple titles to the myriad fellow superhero personalities the Punisher has adopted over the years, feeds into Cosmic Ghost Rider's structured and how the series is constantly paying homage or poking fun.

Cosmic Ghost Rider #3 really drives that notion home by killing off a team of beloved superheroes, the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, we are well aware that comic book scripts are written eons before they are turned into the finished product, but how quickly a team of Guardians led by Cable is dispatched and gets replaced by a whole new team (who meet the same fate) echoes a few things happening in the larger world. The most obvious would be the parallel to how X-Force is shredded to pieces (sometimes literally) in Deadpool 2.

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The months leading up to the reveal of Juggerduck and the other Guardians of the Galaxy spawned a bit of fanfare on social media. Fans were ready to get acquainted with these wacko versions of established characters, but Cates and Burnett had other plans. Shortly after making an appearance, they are killed and replaced when Cable slides into the time stream to recruit new team members (we're sorry if you who got a Juggerduck tattoo prematurely). Once a new team of Guardians takes the previous one, the Rider takes them out. And what happens to their replacements? Wash. Rinse. Repeat. The entire sequence of Frank Castle chewing through team after team is like reading a page out of the anti-comedy handbook: do something funny, keep doing it until it isn't funny anymore, keep going it until it's funny again.

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When viewed through this lens, the entire sequence feels like a slight knock to Deadpool 2. It's a loving knock, but a knock all the same. The other parallel, which might be pure conjecture and simply projecting something that isn't really there, ties into Jame Gunn, the writer and director of the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Shortly after being fired over old tweets, swaths of fans rallied behind Gunn on social media, hash-tagging "Rehire James Gunn" in a last-ditch effort to get the director back at the helm of the now-stalled Guardian of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

News sites reported potential meetings between Disney and Gunn and assumed some sort of bargain was going to be made. The entire news cycle was a tug-of-war on the heartstrings of many Gunn fans. Just when it seemed there was a ray of hope, a spokesperson from Disney snuffed it out, similar to how, when a new team of Guardians attacked the Rider, they were snuffed out. Again and again.

Whether or not there was a bigger meaning behind the constant refresh of Guardians of the Galaxy doesn't really matter. The act itself felt natural in a comic where nothing does. It's hard to see if Cates and Burnett can dial it up at this point, but we're more than certain they have a few cards up their sleeves (speaking of cards, what was up with future Gambit's facial hair?).