Origin

Talia grew up in Boston, where she was plagued by demonic visions from a young age. She was scared all the time, which affected her schoolwork and social life. Eventually, that fear turned to anger and she no longer cared about being normal. She started dying her hair and acting out. She eventually met another occult troublemaker, Stefan Skaar, and he started training her in spellcasting.

Creation

Talia Warroad first appears in Ghost Rider (2022) #1 by Benjamin Percy and Cory Smith.

Major Story Arcs

The Cult of Mephisto

As an occult expert for the FBI, Talia had been tracking Blackheart’s actions across the country. He had been sending his other shadow demons to possess powerful Americans like politicians and executives until the country was under his control. Talia needed Blaze’s help to stop him. They tracked the demon to a mountain top altar called Hell's Backbone, where Blaze was able to smite Blackheart back to Hell. However, his shadows had already infested the country. Blaze agreed to continue working with Talia to exterminate them all.

While traveling around, Johnny struck up a romantic relationship with Talia. Around that time, her visions started getting worse. She realized that her former crew, The Cult of Mephisto, was back. She used the power of the rider to point her in the right direction, like supernatural GPS. It led them to an old mining town in West Virginia, where the kids had been poisoned by the cult’s leader, Stefan Skaar. He convinced them to sacrifice adults to Mephisto in exchange for anything that they wanted. They followed a path of rundown forgotten towns with the same influenced kids in Stefan’s wake. It eventually led them to a reform school in Colorado, which had been warded against adults so Stefan could build a child army.

Since it was a full moon, Talia was able to make a moon child, a homunculus made by combining her and Johnny’s magic, which could pass the barrier. Talia is able to see through its eyes as it makes its way through the reform school. Unfortunately, the barrier was not its only defense. Stefan had used a warding tree to demonize the surrounding forest, and as they were attacked by sentient branches, Talia lost her connection to the moon child.

Once they fought themselves free, they forced their way into the school. Without her connection to it, the moon child fell victim to Stefan’s influence. While the Rider ate the sins of Stefan’s child army, granting them the ultimate forgiveness. Unfortunately, to stop Stefan, Talia opened a gate to Hell, which sent Stefan, herself, and the moon child to hell.

Powers & Abilities

Spellcasting: Talia is experienced in magic. She is capable of spellcasting and has encyclopedic knowledge of the supernatural.

• Second Sight: Talia was born with the ability to see the demonic stains on reality.