Marvel has spoken with Fox Nation on their upcoming variant cover programme to suport the Susan G Koman For The Cure charity, aiming to prevent breast cancer. The charity is also working with WWE, in a similar move away from traditional female-focused areas of entertainment.

Marvel EIC Axel Alonso is quoted a saying "Everyone's got a mother, everyone's got a sister and sometimes that mother and sister are buying the book. There are more eyes on our characters and on the Marvel brand than at any time in history. It's not a bad way to highlight a cause than to tie it with our characters. And while most of our readers may be male, don't underestimate the number of female readers out there. Our titles, such as Captain Marvel [the new Captain Marvel is female], the Fantastic Four, the X-Men — they all have powerful female lead characters. I think that Marvel is a great brand to bring awareness to any cause, large or small."

A spokesman for the charity, Carrie Glasscock, is quoted as saying "And we always need to reach new audiences with self awareness and early self detection … The Marvel partnership allows us to reach comic book readers in a way that's unique and interesting for them. They are used to reading these comic books that are just classic, and Marvel has been a fabulous brand that's been around a long time. So, the opportunity to expand our reach to these comic books readers who are new but who also may have been affected by breast cancer was a key to our partnership with Marvel."

As well as the variant covers, themselves causing some retailer controversy as they are only available to those who order large numbers of the non-pink covers, Marvel comics will also carry an advertorial to promote the charity and Breast Cancer AwarenessMonth which "features a conversation where Iron Man's alter ego, Tony Stark, reveals his own personal battle with breast cancer to Captain America."

This is how Fox Nation commentators have responded so far;

This is just more of the media and society trying to feminize men andget the boys to wear pink under the guise of breast cancer. There are plenty of cancers that affect men, prostate cancer being one, and there are no special clothes or events for that. While I sympathize with women and some men that suffer from breast cancer trying to get hero's to wear pink to influence young men to be more feminine is pure Men can support breast cancer without wearing pink,

I used to support them but they give the money you give them to Planned Parenthood. PPH than spends the money on abortions and running ads for Obama.

The Komen Foundation is not in the business of serious cancer research. It's in the business of business. Otherwise it wouldn't have ended funding for stem cell research after caving to political pressure. The pink ribbon is an exercise in brand awareness draped in the guise of charity. Support an organization interested in research, not political marketing; Nancy Brinker took home $417,171 last year – more than twice the salary of the average research pathologist.