Who was that guy?

I think it was supposed to be Dan's dad. There were lots of unresolved hints during that time (like when the letter page stated that GR had spurs after Hellgate resurrected him, but only temporarily. They said there was a reason for this and if we looked closely, the reason was in those stories...I could never figure it out.) Anyways it had to be Dan's dad, he was drawn like an older Dan. Of course thats still just a guess.

 

You have a good point there, Blaze. The mystery man was probably meant to be a significant part of Howard Mackie's original intent for Dan's origin - one that was supposed to have revealed his Ghost Rider as none other than Zarathos, all along! In all honesty, no one knows... When Ivan Velez took over, almost all of Mackie's plotlines were ignored and he went ahead with his own ideas.

^ Either that or Howard was just pulling another one of his notorious tricks. Its really hard to tell whether or not Mackie is even serious about coming up with an origin for his characters: he's quite infamous for often leaving his plots vague or unresolved. That had always been, IMHO, his biggest flaw as a writer ...

 

that was your mom!!