Young twenty-something couple Johnny Blaze and Roxanne Simpson decided on a cross-country trip across the United States. One day they came across a bar where they befriended a biker gang, who kept buying them beer. The friendship was a ruse as they killed an intoxicated Blaze as part of a Satanic ritual. During the ritual, they bartered their souls with Satan in exchange for wealth and power. Satan granted their request but kept the upper hand. The deceased Blaze also made a deal that Satan will get his soul in exchange for the assured safety of Roxanne. For twenty years Blaze trained to become the Ghost Rider, burning away his Christian baptism and searing away anything that was soft on the inside, and was sent into the world to get his revenge. He tracked down and killed the members of the motorcycle gang—now rich and in positions of power—individually. Due to these deaths, an executive order comes down from the White House: kill the Ghost Rider. The Avengers are recruited into the mission with no knowledge of the Ghost Rider except that he is 7 ft tall and has the strength of Thor.[12] When the Avengers were unsuccessful in stopping the Ghost Rider from killing his next target, the truth behind the Ghost Rider is learned, and the leader of the motorcycle gang is now the Vice-President of the United States, Michael Blackthorne. The Vice-President sold his soul to become a Ghost Rider, AKA Vengeance, and the two get into a fight which the Avengers are unable to stop. Johnny drags the Vice-President into a church which turns them both back into human form, allowing the Punisher to finish off the Vice-President. Pleading his case, Johnny is allowed to leave. He is later seen in a park with Satan watching Roxanne, who was brought back to life with no memory of what was done. Satan agrees to let her live her life if Johnny continues to be his Ghost Rider, to which he agrees.[13]
