WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Spirits of Ghost Rider: Mother of Demons #1, by Ed Brisson, Roland Boschi, Dan Brown and Joe Caramagna, on sale now.

Who looks like a demon and meddles in human affairs? Who makes tricky deals, abusing loopholes to get mortals to do what he wants them to with no consequences? Throw in ruling over a dimension where damned souls go for good measure. Call it Hell, while you’re at it, and you have… Mephisto, who is supposedly not the Biblical Satan. That’s why he takes his name from Faust’s Mephistopheles -- who himself is meant to be either an analog for, or a minion of, the actual devil, but still not quite. Marvel is adamant about this, clearly saying Mephisto’s realm, "is neither the Biblical Hell nor Pluto’s Olympian Hades."

However, Marvel just threw a wrench in all that. Spirits of Ghost Rider: Mother of Demons #1 never specifically calls Mephisto the Biblical Satan, but with the context, it doesn’t need to. He’s portrayed in such a way that there’s really no other way to interpret it. The issue has all but named Mephisto as being the Biblical Satan, and it’s sure to cause some confusion.

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It’s not the most obvious type of problem around religious imagery, where you can expect backlash for blasphemy. It’s kind of hard to blaspheme Satan, and the type of person who normally cries foul would probably let it slide in terms of... well, the actual devil. The problem is that it makes things really confusing.

This story comes from Lilith’s perspective, recounting her time during the dawn of creation. She’s presented as Adam’s first partner, and before her children were killed, she was banished, only for another woman (not named, but clearly meant to be Eve) to take her place. Upon returning to Hell, we see Lilith with someone resembling the Biblical Satan, whom she calls her partner. We then see a goat and a serpent, Adam biting an apple and Adam and not-named-but-definitely-Eve sent out of the Garden of Eden.

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If that’s not meant to be the Garden of Eden and the Biblical creation story, then what is it? Lilith is more connected with Jewish folklore than Christian, but it’s still essentially the same story. It diverges shortly after, with Doctor Strange and Johnny Blaze taking over Hell. Even so, the beginning of this issue is clearly telling the creation story, just in the Marvel Universe.

Is this is a retcon, with Marvel changing its mind about who Mephisto’s supposed to be? Is this just a small thing in a side story that’s not meant to be taken literally? It’s kind of unclear, especially since clarifying that Mephisto is not the devil is in the second line of his official character biography. There are other Marvel characters who aren’t the devil, as well, but we might now have one who is. That’s going to muddy the waters a bit.

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Of course, these could all just be references that aren’t quite what they look like. Lilith never actually calls Mephisto "Satan" or "the Devil," instead referring to him as her partner. He’s already a suspiciously similar substitute for Satan, so why not lean into it? It starts to strain credulity for him not to be the Christian Devil ruling over the Christian Hell after this introduction.

Marvel is no stranger to making its continuity dense and confusing, but this is a particularly weird and sensitive one. Whatever this ends up actually meaning, going this far into using Biblical figures is a move that can backfire, especially when Marvel's gone to such lengths to keep its distance before. Whatever happens, this seems to further complicate a character who’s just fine being a Devil pastiche versus the actual Devil.

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