John Ryder was born during the time of the Byzantine Empire, he would become the Horseman of the Apocalypse, Pestilence (none of the other Horsemen are ever shown to encounter him) which takes its form four significant times in history through the Plague of Justinian, the Black Death, a possibly fictional plague that affected the Puritans (although it occurred alongside the Great Plague of London) and again in 2002.