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).

Longtime reader (and Line it is Drawn fan extraordinaire) Big Mike wrote in to ask the following mystery about What If...? #114, which was a fun story by Jay Faerber and Gregg Schigiel that showed what would have happened if the heroes had gotten stuck on Battleworld in Secret Wars. Essentially, they would all settle down and intermarry and now 18 years later, the kids of the heroes and the kids of the villains continue the battle between good and evil.

Big Mike, though, had a question about the girlfriend of Matthew Storm, the son of Human Torch and the Wasp...

In one scene we are introduced to Matt Storm, son of the Human Torch and Wasp, teasing Molecule Man's son. He's in the company of a teenaged girl who is then never seen or mentioned again for the rest of the story. She's not seen with the heroes or the villains, and the only other child there is the infant child of Storm and Logan. My question is... who the heck is she then? I realize she has zero impact on the story but it has always seemed odd to have her appear with no apparent connection to any of the other kids save for the one scene.

I asked Jay Faerber about it and he did not recall, but he then checked with both Gregg Schigiel and Frank Pittarese, who was the editor on the comic.

As it turned out, the answer lay in the original Secret Wars series. When the heroes met Spider-Woman for the first time in issue #7, she points out that a whole suburb of Denver was brought to Battleworld when the Beyonder took land from all over the universe to form the new world.

And thus, when Gregg found Jay's original script, he found the script direction for Becky..."Cut to Firefly, his girlfriend Becky (a pretty, red-haired girl), and Moleculon. Firefly is laughing; having himself a grand old time, and Becky is giggling away, too. Moleculon, however, is most certainly not."

That doesn't help much, but then Gregg noted that Jay mentioned that the heroes' homes were built around the above-mentioned Denver suburb, so clearly Becky is just someone from that suburb.

So there ya go, Mike!

Thanks to Jay and Gregg for the info! I bet Frank would have eventually answered it, as well, so let's throw in a thanks to him, as well!

If anyone else has a question about comics that they'd like to see answered, feel free to drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com.