Marvel Comics' superheroes have met their match: a 7-year-old.

The comic book giant is eliminating cigarette and cigar smoking from its superheroes trading cards because of a complaint from Sammy Blum.

Sammy wrote to the New England Journal of Medicine, which printed his letter in today's edition.

"I collect Marvel Masterpieces," Sammy wrote. "So do some of my friends and my brothers. I found five out of 100 cards that were smoking!!"

Sammy listed the offending characters, both heroes and villains: Blaze, Gambit, Kingpin, Nick Fury and Red Skull.

"Why do they make cards for kids that show people smoking?" wrote Sammy, the son of family physician Alan Blum, who is chairman of a Houston anti- smoking group called Doctors Ought to Care.

In a reply printed below a copy of Sammy's letter, Marvel Entertainment Group President Terry Stewart, whose company owns such characters as X-Men, Captain America and Spider-Man, announced it would eliminate smoking from future cards. Marvel spokeswoman Pamela Rutt said Sammy's letter "really did open our eyes." She said the company had no plans to reconsider the use of smoking characters in comic books, "but . . . it might come up."