There are several versions of Ghost Rider published under Marvel Comics.
The first Ghost Rider appeared in Tim Holt #11 back in 1949, created by writer Ray Krank and artist Dick Ayers, and published by Magazine Enterprises. Given a name of Rex Fury, he was also knowned as the Phantom Rider. The coming out of the character was actually inspired by a popular song back then called the (Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend.
At this point of time, storyline revolving around the character is more horror-filled and old-western.
It was not untill 1967, when Marvel Comics added in the motorcycle-riding element to the character, the older western character was refeatured in in Ghost Rider #1 and later renamed him Night Rider, and then finally the Phantom Rider.
The more popular version of Ghost Rider made its debut in Marvel Spotlight #5 in 1972, being named Johnny Blaze in his human form.
Johnny Blaze
A stunt daredevil, son of Barton Blaze and Naomi Kale, born in Waukegan, Illinois. He spent his early years in the Quentin Carnival where his parents starred in a stunt show with Craig "Crash" Simpson. Johnny's mother walked out on Barton and Johnny and took the family's remaining two children, Barbara and Danny, with her.
When his father died in a stunt, Johnny was adopted by Crash and Mona Simpson, and eventually fell in love with their daughter Roxanne when they grow up.
Blaze would start touring with the Simpsons in their own traveling stunt show, the Crash Simpson Stunt Cycle Extravaganza.
Crash had developed into a father figure for Blaze, and on learning of Crash's life-threatening cancer, Blaze turned to the occult. His studies led him to a spell which supposedly could summon Satan himself. Johnny was unaware that he had in fact summoned Mephisto. Desperate to save Crash, Blaze sold his soul to Mephisto in return for Crash's cancer to be cured.
When Mephisto came for Blaze's soul, Roxanne proclaimed her love for Blaze, and drove Mephisto away with the purity of her emotion. As an act of revenge, Mephisto trapped the spirit of the demon Zarathos in Blaze and turned him into the vengence seeking Ghost Rider.
Daniel Ketch
The third person to get his head burning, Ketch first appeared in Ghost Rider #1 in 1990, volume 3 of the title.
Ketch was born in Brooklyn, New York. One night, Daniel and his sister Barbara were attacked by gangsters; with his sister grievously wounded by Deathwatch, Daniel fled and hid in a junkyard, where he found a motorcycle bearing a mystical sigil. Upon touching the sigil, he was transformed into the Ghost Rider.
Ketch and Johnny Blaze later learned they were long-lost brothers and that their family was the inheritor of a mystical curse related to the Spirits of Vengeance.
Alejandra Jones
She first appeared in Ghost Rider #1, 2011 (volume 7). Daughter to a human trafficker and an unknown Mexican woman, she and her siblings were sold by her father at young age to a man called Adam.
Adam adopts many children and trains them to become the next Ghost Rider. During one ritual, he successfully manage to achieve that with Jones.
In an event later, she was deprived of Ghost Rider's full power when Johnny Blaze took back most of the character's power.
Robbie Reyes
Reyes first appeared in All New Ghost Rider #1, 2014. Robbie Reyes was a young Mexican-American, working as a mechanic in Los Angeles, California.
In need of money, Reyes entered a race using an old car. Unknowing to the fact that the car is possessed by the evil spirit of the serial killer Eli Morrow, which incidentally possessed him after the race and transformed him into Ghost Rider.
Thus, in this version of the flame-head hero, there is no more motorcycle as his ride. Instead, he rides in a Dodge Charger. Call it - Evolution, perhaps.
