10 Comic Book Supervillains Who Created Their Own Worst Enemy

9. Mephisto And Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze
Marvel Comics

It might not've been Mephisto all along in WandaVision, BUT if you live in the Marvel universe and wake up in the night with your head on fire and with an uncontrollable urge to smite evil, then there's a good chance it actually was.

To date, most of the main Ghost Riders in Marvel Comics have all had their run-ins with Mephisto, the rascally, uber-powerful demonic presence who gets his kicks from offering up Faustian bargains to any poor soul down on their luck. Both the Johnny Blaze and Dan Ketch Riders have the character to thank for their fiery predicaments (well, sort of - it's a tad complicated), and both have done their damndest to inconvenience him whenever the opportunity arises.

It's important to note, however, that while Ghost Rider is very much Mephisto's archenemy, he's still spent a lot of his time doing the demon's bidding. The Rider is summoned to vanquish the evil upon Mephisto's request, but a life spent obliging the devil's orders isn't a particularly enjoyable one, so it's no surprise that Johnny in particular made multiple attempts to get away.

After years spent harvesting the souls of various nasty folks, Blaze was finally able to challenge Mephisto with a little help from Doctor Strange. As told in Donny Cates, Nick Spencer and Rod Reis' Damnation event, the Sorcerer Supreme was able to place Blaze as the new ruler of Mephisto's realm, leading to a battle between the pair that resulted in Mephisto being trapped in Las Vegas' Hotel Inferno.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.