GHOST RIDER

Robbie Reyes, the East Los Angeles mechanic introduced in All-New Ghost Rider #1 (2014) by Felipe Smith and Tradd Moore, died in a street race gone wrong and woke up bonded to the spirit haunting a black 1969 Dodge Charger. The presence introduced itself as Eli Morrow, claimed gangsters had murdered him, and offered a partnership: neighborhood protection in exchange for help settling his own score.

The partnership was a con. Eli was Robbie's estranged uncle, a Satanic serial killer who had murdered at least thirty-seven people in ritual killings before police shot him dead in 1999, and whose occult rites left his spirit shackled to the Charger. Robbie is therefore the one Ghost Rider with no Spirit of Vengeance aboard at all — his power source is a human monster wearing a dead relative's face.

Johnny Blaze himself rode out to investigate the newcomer and confirmed the arrangement with a Penance Stare. Robbie's answer was a bargain of his own: Eli could stay permanently bonded, but his lethal urges would only ever be unleashed on souls that had earned them. His flaming skull even forms as a smooth metal helmet rather than bare bone, a visible tell that this Rider runs on a different engine — and his Hell Charger, not a motorcycle, is parked right behind him in the gallery below.