Ryan Trent was one of the police officers investigating a string of murder cases in New York before being told by Detective Flint to let Moon Knight be the one to further investigate the crime. He then voices his displeasure for letting superheroes deal with the crimes the police were supposed to investigate before being berated by Detective Flint. Trent's crippling self esteem issues finally lead him to being obsessed with Moon Knight in order to replace him. He begins to do research on his background, showing a specific interest in one of his enemies, Black Spectre. He pretends to be an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in order to interview Moon Knight's associates such as Marlene Alraune and Frenchie in order to attain more information about him. After murdering his wife, Ryan dons the title of Black Spectre and attempts to kill Moon Knight with a number of cars wired to explode the moment Moon Knight's car passes by. Moon Knight is revealed to have seen the attack coming and attacks from the sky through his drone. Ryan is able to wound Moon Knight with one of his darts before being caught in the explosion of the cars he wired that failed earlier. This badly injures him and had his identity revealed by Moon Knight before the latter walked away.