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 Jason W. wrote in to ask:

Something that’s always bugged me that I don’t think ever went anywhere. I could be wrong. Perhaps this is how I finally find out.

Secret Wars 8. Spider-Man gets the alien suit that eventually becomes Venom. Classic story that most folks know. The part that I always wondered about is how it goes down. Spidey is on Battlewold in his tattered suit when he comes across Thor and Hulk who mention that they just found a machine that restored Thor”s cape and Hat and that he should try it. He does and the rest is slobbery, pointy toothed history. My question is this….why is there no Thor symbiote? You’d think that, especially in the 90’s when Venom and the symbiote were thrown into every possible book Marvel could think of, they’d have exploited this storyline. Did they?? Did I miss it?

Jason, of course, is referring to this famous sequence from Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 (by Jim Shooter, Mike Zeck and John Beatty)...

Clearly, Jason is wondering why, if Spider-Man's costume from the machine turned out to be an alien symbiote, then why isn't Thor's costume the same?

The answer is in the final issue of the series, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12, where Spider-Man discovers that the machine that Thor (and the other heroes) used was NOT the same machine that Spider-Man used.

The machine Spider-Man used turned out to be a prison. Why it was in that room? Well, Beyonder threw together stuff from a bunch of different worlds to form Battleworld, so I guess he just accidentally threw an alien prison cell into a room with a machine that made clothes.

So there ya go, Jason, that is why Thor's costume is not an alien symbiote.

NOTE: The featured image is from an early issue of the second volume of What If...? where we see the alien costume possess other heroes, including the Hulk and Thor.

If anyone ELSE has a question they'd like to see me address, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!