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Howard Mackie (born January 22 1958) is an American comic book editor and writer. He has worked almost exclusively for Marvel Comics. His work is controversial; though many of his comics were strong sellers some fans criticise his work for its perceived low quality. He is infamous for introducing mysterious characters and ultimately never revealing anything about them, as well as for setting up elaborate storylines which he never resolves. Mackie parodied his own tendency in this regard in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #16, "Cliché," which featured several enigmatic characters created solely for the story and then never seen again.

His first comics work was as an editor for Marvel in the late 1980s when he oversaw their New Universe line. He also edited Avengers and Avengers West Coast while John Byrne worked on those titles. Early in Mackie's career, a running gag in the columns of editor Mark Gruenwald was that Mackie was a mysterious figure whose face no one at Marvel had ever seen.

Mackie first gained attention as a writer in 1990, when he and artist Javier Saltares launched a new Ghost Rider series for Marvel, revamping the character. He stayed on as that comic book's writer until #69 in 1996. Throughout Mackie's run of over five years, the Ghost Rider's ultimate origins and nature were never explained. A later writer, Ivan Velez Jr., provided the character with a backstory shortly before the series was cancelled.

Ironically though, shortly after "Ghost Rider" was cancelled, Mackie (who was originally thought not happy with Velez giving the second Ghost Rider an origin, but has since revealed that he never read the Valez, Jr. stint as Ghost Rider's write and was told by his editors to write Ghost Rider into the issue in order to allow the character to be used in later issues) had Ghost Rider guest star in "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" and denounce Velez's origin story as being "lies" or at least incomplete. However, since Mackie refused to provide an alternative origin for his creation, Valez's origin has remained offiically recognized as Ghost Rider II's origin.

In 1992 he became regular writer of Web of Spider-Man with #85. He would remain on various Spider-Man titles through the Clone Saga and beyond, finally leaving 9 years later with The Amazing Spider-Man Vol.2 #29 in April, 2001. Mackie's tenure on the Spider-Man books coincided with some of the most controversial stories in the character's history. As one of the main writers Mackie often received much criticism from fans, though interviews with both Mackie and other creators and editors from the time indiciate that there was a lot of collective decision making and editorial interference during that period.

Mackie also worked for the X-Men line, writing the spin-off title X-Factor from #115-149 (1995-1999) as well as its successor Mutant X title (1999). He also wrote several miniseries featuring Gambit, Wolverine, and Rogue.

It has been speculated that Mackie was the writer who was credited as "X" in Marvel's The Brotherhood series (2001), though this has never been confirmed by the company; the identity of "X" remains unrevealed (though in 2005 Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada said "he was W. Mark Felt").

• The Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators