20) Please tell in the Character Glossary wether a character is a mutant or an altered human. "That's always a possibility if enough people are interested in knowing that." (Monolith)
21) There are so many Glossary entries without a headshot, please add more of them. Indeed more headshots are currently in the works; over the past three months contributor Christopher Sampson has provided over 200 headshots alone, thus completing the character entries from 2099 and A – F. More to come from him, and Binaryan recently joined him, working on the other end of the alphabet.
22) Please add the appearances lists to the Character entries. That’s too big a project right now, and actually it’s already being done over at the Marvel Chronology Project and at ComiX-Fan. Right now we don’t want to compete with that; it’s doubtful that we’d do a better job than they, so let’s focus on those aspects of the site that make us unique and stand out from the crowd. Another problem would be that such lists can be easily misread as must-have issues, and we don’t want to be responsible for some of our audience hunting down certain issues, only to find that their favorite character appears in the background of just one panel.
23) Can you make the entries of the Characters Glossary a little more indepth? For example add some bio, or at least, if a character is dead, how he died? "The Glossary is not meant to be an in-depth resource for characters; just a source for quick reference and factoids. Bios are out of the question since
a) Spotlights are already designed for that purpose and
b) no one would be able to agree on what's required for a Glossary Bio.
If there's a specific additional fact you'd like to see added to all the entries, let us know. Manner of Death is something I've been thinking about adding next time I sit down and run through all the entries." (Monolith)
24) The Character Glossary and Monolith’s descriptions are really great, but sometimes it’s hard to understand what the terms used to describe the various powers mean. How about some Mutant Power Encyclopedia that explains each term a little better, and maybe cites some examples of characters with that power.
"Something I've discovered recently on the message board is that people don't know what telepathy and telekinesis mean, terms I just assumed everyone understood. I will be going back and modifying those entries for more information. However, I believe most other entries are covered in that area, listing examples of a power after a definition term for it." (Monolith)
25) How about adding two more categories to the Characters Glossary – the Movie universe and X-Men Evolution ? "The set-up of the Character Glossary is such that there would be little point in making those categories. Besides a headshot and a different type of first appearance, they would be virtually identical to the regular glossary." (Monolith)
26) Please add power ratings to the spotlights (like they are done in Marvel Handbooks). No, simply because there is next to no reference in the actual issues to base them on. Height and weight can at least be assumed by comparing the characters‘ looks, but the powers are another thing. Basically each character’s powers are always that strong that the current writer writes them, and depending on story and writer, each character is able to beat every other character.
27) How about linking the relatives section of the Spotlights to the Family Trees, that is if there is a corresponding Family Tree? Cool idea! I’ll start doing that next week.
28) Could you do some spotlights on villains, or maybe even on villain teams ? a) We already have an entire section dedicated to Villain Teams. It‘s a subsection of Cerebro Files.
b) The problem with villain spotlights is that their stories have too many gaps. These characters didn't appear on a regular basis in the comics, and therefore a lot of things that happened in between their appearances would be based on assumptions. It would mainly read "... fought X-Men along with ..., later showed up again working with ..., but was defeated by ..., operated solo for a while only to oppose ..." and so on.
To make it short - too little personal info and interaction, and most appearances are mere fight scenes. That's the reason why there are no villain spotlights. No rule without exception though, when it's people like Mystique, Juggernaut, Wild Child, Emma Frost, etc. who at one point or the other became regular cast member of an ongoing book (either as reformed villain or in their solo title, etc.), then they will surely receive a spotlight sooner or later. Those four already have their entries, and surely Sabretooth, Magneto and possibly a few others qualify as well, and might get their entries one day.
But what about the big villains who do not fall under that rule? Don't worry, there is a category of the Features - Merging Minds, entitled “Villains – What makes them tick“. Although similar to the spotlight concept, they are not entirely the same. These articles include some theories, speculation and maybe an author's voice/opinion. Currently you can find Apocalypse, Sinister, Belasco and Selene in our Bring On the Bad Guys Section
29) Please make sure to add at least one new spotlight per month. Basically that is the plan, however we all have private lives getting in the way sometimes. Additionally, we are currently rather busy updating the existing entries with new story info (like we do every 1-2 years) and Alternate Versions pages, as was suggested by message board user CrissieCris. I’m sure you all like these additions, but the price is that currently entirely new spotlights come at a much slower rate. I guess once we are through with updating, we’ll return to a monthly schedule.
30) Some spotlights need to be updated, especially Colossus, Iceman, Nightcrawler, Phoenix IV, Phoenix III, Storm and the White Queen. Um, yes, we are aware of the spotlights needing updates – we are currently working on them! (see above) As for your requests, Phoenix III - aka Marvel Girl - was updated during the Feedback survey. Iceman received an update only a few months ago, not much having happened to him in the meantime. With Colossus we waited for an explanation for his return from the dead, so his update might come soon. [Edit - the update was published a week ago] Jean’s update will have to wait until the upcoming Phoenix limited (no sense in an update, only to have an outdated spotlight once more by the time the limited series is released).
31) Do a spotlight for... Sigh! Actually the feedback question clearly said "other than more spotlights, what would you like to see", but here goes anyway...
- the members of X-Force and Generation X, why haven’t we seen any of them?
You have seen SOME of them - Cannonball, Moonstar, Cable, Chamber, Jubilee, Banshee and the White Queen are all in the spotlight section.
- Husk, M, Marrow, Meltdown, Cecilia Reyes, Shatterstar, Siryn, Sunspot, Synch and Warpath All interesting choices who will probably receive a spotlight one day. But please be aware that you asked for ten spotlights here, that’s almost a year’s worth of spotlight entries!
- New Mutants and Hellions Unfortunately the person asking this didn’t clarify wether they were referring to the original New Mutants and Hellions, or the current training squads in New X-Men Academy X. Well, if it is the later, then spotlight entries wouldn’t make much sense now. None of these characters has appeared for more than 18 issues, that’s not enough time to establish a history worthy of a spotlight entry. Each of these characters’ biography could be summed up with one or two paragraphs.
If it was about the original New Mutants, a majority of them are already in the section (and to the others applies the same as to the characters in the comment above), and for the Hellions it would be the same as with villains in general.
- Magneto, Xavier and Wolverine, how can you leave out such big and important characters? All three are held back for future Event Month concepts (Onslaught and Logan), besides, if we would do all major characters first, then only the second tier characters would remain, and the audience would lose interest in the section. We prefer to have a mix, some major/big entry followed by a number of "lesser" characters. Additionally with Wolverine there is the problem of figuring out which events in his past happened for real, and which were just memory implants by Weapon X. That’s an almost impossible task.