"Evil is the Orb!"
Riding while tired almost proves fatal for Johnny Blaze in his Ghost Rider form. The flame cycle dissipates under him, but momentum catapults the Rider headlong into the middle of the road. The fall would kill any mortal, but Blaze has dark angels watching over his soul.
Pure luck prevents the prone body of the the stunt cyclist from being mangled by passing traffic. A hippie pothead helps Blaze to his feet and offers Johnny some of his weed. J.B. refuses the drugs, but accepts a lift to the next town.
That cowboy biker Johnny met on the desert roads tries to make a move on young Roxanne Simpson. Like she would ever look at him twice in a million years. Johnny is nearby at a cycle shop picking up some brand new wheels.
Out of the corner of her eye, Roxy spots Johnny speeding away on his new hog. She yells out after him in vain, but a gloved hand silences her call.
Brahma Bill, the cowboy biker watches Johnny as he prepares to pull out of this slow-poke town. Thinking to himself, with Blaze out of the way, this would open up a path to sweet little Roxanne. But the camaraderie of the road overcomes lust for a friend's lady. Bill follows at a distance.
Out on the open road again, Johnny is unsettled to see a row of headlights heading directly towards him. These entranced bikers circle, then attack without mercy, clubbing Blaze into the dirt.
When Johnny comes back to lucidity, he is at the feet of the Orb, a madman with a fevered grudge against the Ghost Rider. The Orb plans to cause Blaze to become as disfigured as himself, to exact revenge.
Bill makes good on his pledge, by freeing Johnny from the mesmerised mob. Which buys Johnny just enough time to transform into his spook-self. Panic seizes upon the Orb as he sees the Hellspawn plough through his hypnotised masses.
Brahma and Blaze shake on things, and part company. Bill returns to town and finds a now more receptive Miss Simpson mooning around over him. Perhaps miracles do happen, but Bill doesn't know that it was the Orb's hypnosis that influences Roxy to seem interested at all.