Correspondence

A Letter from Sammy Blum

N Engl J Med 1994; 330:1321May 5, 1994

Article

Dear Sir,

I collect Marvel Masterpieces. So do some of my friends and my brothers. I found 5 out of 100 cards that were smoking!! Some of them were villains and some were heros. Here are their names Blaze, Gambit, Kingpain, Nick Fury, and Red Skull.

P.S. These cards are made by Sky Box. why do they make cards for kids that show people smoking?

Sammy Blum (age 7)
5115 Loch Lomond, Houston, TX 77096

Author/Editor Response

Sammy's letter was referred to the Marvel Entertainment Group, which offers the following reply:

To the Editor: Sammy's question regarding the depiction of a small number of Marvel characters smoking on trading cards has raised our awareness that these images might be subject to misinterpretation by young card enthusiasts. Hence, we have decided to omit smoking materials from all future Marvel trading cards.

Although we make this decision voluntarily and are convinced of its soundness, we also want to emphasize that no Marvel trading card was ever intended to suggest approbation of smoking. We are simply storytellers, and we lend credibility to our characters by placing them in dramatic situations where their behavior mirrors behavior found in our society. In some instances, this means they demonstrate strength and nobility; in other instances, it means they demonstrate foibles and frailties. In short, we present our characters warts and all.

Over the years, Marvel has taken a strong antismoking posture in a variety of ways. For example, we have developed a special comic book for the American Cancer Society that effectively delivers antismoking messages to young people. Another example is a particularly powerful issue of The Amazing Spider-Man released last fall in which Peter Parker persuades his wife to stop smoking by forcing her to confront someone with cancer.

Extending these efforts, we reiterate our decision to keep smoking materials out of future trading-card collections.

Terry Stewart
Marvel Entertainment Group, New York, NY 10016

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