Have you ever tried to condense all the relevant information surrounding one of your favorite Marvel Comics character into a two-sentence blurb? It’s harder than you think! We’re finishing up the new-and-improved packaging designs for the upcoming Series 23 & 24 of our Marvel Minimates line, so I’ve been going over each character’s Wikipedia page with a fine-toothed comb. Here are my own geek-tastic rules for these mini-bios and some examples to help explain.

1. Tell People What They Need to Know.
This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Include a description of the character’s powers, a bit about their origins, those pesky secret identities and any other must-know information. The trick is to weed out unnecessary information or decorative character tid-bits. You need to know that Gamora was Thanos’ adopted daughter, but not that she had an on-again off-again fling with Nova. Stick to the facts you’d want small children to read and remember.

2. Avoid Big Spoilers.
Now this applies to a lot more than packaging text, but most of this boils down to Spoiler Etiquette. Yes, everyone knows that Kraven died at the end of Kraven’s Last Hunt… but that doesn’t mean I have to include that fact in big bold letters when I write his bio. At the same time, that book came out in 1987 - meaning it’s been a part of Marvel history for over 20 years - so it’s not really a spoiler any more. Still, there are people who haven’t read the story or maybe haven’t followed the character over the years and as a result do not know the outcome. I compromised in this instance and avoided any specific mention of Kraven’s death, however I did write his bio in the past tense.

3. Beware the Fanundrums!
Just because you read something on one comic site, don’t assume the info to be correct. If you’re not careful, you can get caught in the middle of a fanundrum. What is a fanundrum? It’s a sticky point of contention that will clearly not be resolved any time soon. Ask a Star Wars fan about the color of Han Solo’s pants and you’ll get one of two answers - brown and blue. If there is enough doubt surrounding the source of a character’s powers for example, you don’t have to go into detail. Just vague it up and try to walk the middle of the argument. Here are a few of the fanundrums I avoided.

Cloak & Dagger - It seems like these two have had their origins messed with more times than Supergirl, but I navigated the fanundrum minefield by referencing BOTH their classic drug-induced origins as well as their retconned-in mutant status. For hardcore fans, I considered including a reference to the Predator… but the nature of Cloak’s powers is yet another fanundrum to run away from.

Cosmic Spider-Man - Since they’ll probably retcon Captain Universe again, I avoided specifically mentioning his origin and instead gave a little shout-out to the Tri-Sentinel instead. Plus you never know when Marvel will relaunch a character like Captain Universe - so it’s best not to nail down too many details such as “current status” facts.

Spider-Man - Let’s see… Fanundrums to avoid… The Clone Saga, Mephisto, Ben Reilly, the unmasking, the Gwen-Norman love-child, the events surrounding The Other… Plenty of things not to talk about, right? I was pretty much left with the radioactive spider origin story, the Peter Parker identity (ignoring the public vs private debate entirely), power description, one nickname and a New York reference.

Oh well, I think I’ll be fine until we make something from the Han Solo vs Greedo shootout… THAT fanundrum is the stuff of legends!