Comic Book Questions Answered – where I answer whatever questions you folks might have about comic books (feel free to e-mail questions to me at brianc@cbr.com).

Reader Carlito B. wrote in to ask, "Would you happen to know when guys like The Thing, Wolverine, Gambit, The Punisher and Nick Fury stopped smoking?

Because back in the late eighties and early nineties they used to smoke all the time and when I got back to reading comic books in the mid 2000s it's like they all dropped the habit. I mean, I'm not a fan of smoking and all that, I'm just curious. Thanks."

Interestingly, Carlito, the move to drop smoking started (as I pointed out in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed) even during the 1990s, but it started outside the comic books.

You see, Marvel used to have a series of popular trading card collections during the 1990s and since these cards were designed to look as similar to the actual comic books as possible, that led to stuff like Johnny Blaze (who was then starring alongside the then-new Ghost Rider, Dan Ketch, in a team-up series called Spirits of Vengeance) being drawn with a cigarette in his mouth on his trading card...

One of the "problems" with these trading cards is that it was a lot easier for parents to flip through cards to find something that offended them rather than flipping through a comic book (quotes because I'm not saying that their concerns weren't legitimate here) and so very often, stuff would be brought to Marvel's attention directly because of a trading card.

For instance, it was a Red Skull trading card from 1990...

that led to Marvel banning the use of the swastika in their comics for a few years.

However, in this particular instance, it was a kid rather than a parent, as a little kid wrote in to the New England Journal of Medicine to complain about Marvel having heroes smoking on their Marvel Masterpieces trading cards, like this Johnny Blaze one. So Marvel agreed to ban the use of smoking on all of their trading cards.

Their comics, though, continued to have characters smoke in them.

That changed when Joe Quesada became the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics.

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In 2001, Marvel banned heroes from smoking in their non-MAX comics (basically all of their main comic book series). Joe Quesada discussed the reasoning to the New York Post:

"Villains can still smoke, but that's OK, because villains are stupid," Quesada told The Post, elaborating that the decision was instituted because it was the "responsible thing" to do.

Quesada went on to say that the "main culprit" was Wolverine, the cigar-chomping star of the company's best-selling X-Men titles, which were turned into a hit movie last year.

"[Wolverine] is a role model for some kids and he shouldn't be smoking," Quesada said. "Besides, the healing factor would keep him from getting addicted to nicotine anyway, so it doesn't even make sense for him to smoke."

The Post article went on to report that the no-smoking ban will also target Wolverine's fellow X-Man Gambit, as well as two of Marvel's oldest characters - Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing.

The no-smoking decision was a personal one for Quesada, a non-smoker who lost his grandfather to smoking-related emphysema and saw his father suffer a collapsed lung from smoking last year and still have problems quitting.

"It's a nasty habit that's affected my life in a tragic way," Quesada said.

Quesada elaborated:

So for example, if an artist wants to draw a guy on the street smoking, fine by all means. We just have a problem with Wolverine smoking.It's just a matter of whether we want to promote cancer or not, and quite frankly, we're done promoting it."Again, there are exceptions. I just went through this with somebody. Can Nick Fury smoke? Well, you know what, if Nick Fury shows up in the FANTASTIC FOUR, I'd rather not have him smoke. But if Fury's in a MAX title, which he is, sure, let him smoke away. I think our adult readers are a little more responsible and know whether they want to smoke or not."

This was applied retroactively, as well, like the elimination of smoking on older covers...

And covers that were in the works when the ban went into place...

were also replaced...

Thanks for the question, Carlito! If anyone else has a question about comics, feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!