When a colleague of his was gunned down during a robbery and as a result of his own inaction, Lazarus Lane felt the guilt of the world resting upon his shoulders. Seeking to redeem himself, Lane went in pursuit of those same thugs. Thrown into a shallow stream by those contemptuous bank robbers, Lane was sudddenly struck by a bolt of lightning, leaving him on a coma from which there was no recovery.

Carried back to his remote hacienda by Wise Owl, the elderly Apache shaman whom Lane had taken into his home after the Indian had been exiled by his own people, Lane sat seemingly lifeless before the fireplace, his eyes blank and staring, his heart beating only through some minor miracle.

For the next two nights, Wise Owl did not leave Lazarus' side, ministering to Lane with strange herbs and root drugs of his own concoction, chanting ancient

El Diablo

From that night forward, the part of the man that was Lazarus Lane would sleep, while his other self would ride as a dark avenger of justice, the frontier phantom known only as - El Diablo.