There are few attacks in the Marvel Universe more terrifyingly detrimental than Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare, but one X-Men hero is able to top it by effectively eliminating the hellish technique’s one and only shortfall.
The Penance Stare is an attack within the arsenal of anyone who becomes a Ghost Rider as it perfectly captures the cosmic purpose of the Spirit of Vengeance. Anytime Ghost Rider has a sinner in his clutches, he can gaze into their eyes and burn their souls with their own past sins. If Ghost Rider does the Penance Stare to a murderer, then that murderer will feel the pain of everyone they’ve ever killed. This usually puts people in a catatonic state as their souls writhe in eternal agony within their bodies, but other times the attack doesn’t work at all, even against someone as obviously villainous as Red Skull or Thanos. Unfortunately, the Penance Stare doesn’t have any impact on those who have no shred of remorse for the things they’ve done, even passively. So, if someone is truly evil to their core and actually enjoys the atrocities they’ve committed without the slightest hint of wavering in their sadism, then they are ironically immune to Ghost Rider’s soul-burning attack–a shortfall that one X-Men member effectively corrects.
X-Man’s Penance Stare Works on Everyone, Unlike Ghost Rider’s
In X-Man #3 by Jeph Loeb and Steve Skroce, Nate Grey aka X-Man and his team of mutant heroes are being attacked by Apocalypse’s deadliest assassin, Domino. This issue takes place within the alternate timeline of the Age of Apocalypse, which means the world is much crueler than Earth-616 and some heroes/antiheroes like Domino have opted to use their powers for evil rather than good. Domino, for instance, is a particularly challenging foe, as she has the power to manipulate probability to work in her favor in any given situation. Basically, her power is manufactured luck–so when it would be ‘lucky’ for her to murder a room full of targets, that’s exactly what she can make happen. However, Domino underestimated the power of one target in particular: Nate Grey. Nate Grey is essentially this universe’s version of Cable, who is able to use the full extent of his god-tier mutant powers as he isn’t constantly distracted by fending off a techno-organic virus. Right when it seems like Domino is going to win and succeed in killing everyone Nate cares about, X-Man uses his telepathic powers to infiltrate Domino’s mind and make her feel the pain of everyone she has hurt–which resulted in putting Domino in a permanently catatonic state.
X-Man Is a Mutant Spirit of Vengeance
While X-Man isn’t able to burn the souls of his victims the way Ghost Rider can with his Penance Stare, the pain they feel is essentially the same, as is their resulting physical state upon their defeat. Plus, Nate’s version doesn’t discriminate against true psychopaths as earlier in this very issue, Domino admits to truly enjoying inflicting pain on others. Domino isn’t some hapless victim of Apocalypse, forced to do his bidding against her will–she loves killing people for her all-powerful boss. Based on the rules set by the likes of Thanos and Red Skull, this version of Domino would be immune to Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare, but not X-Man’s.
Even the process of inflicting this attack is exactly the same, as X-Man forces Domino to ‘look into his eyes’ before he makes her feel the pain of all her past victims. All-in-all, the two attacks are identical, with the only difference being that the version used by the X-Men’s strongest hero is actually stronger than Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare.