Why would Fred Van Lente want to speak more carefully when addressing scans_daily, rather than a lone fan?
Possibly because scans_daily is a den of easily-enraged comics geeks who love to pile on with harsh rhetoric whenever a writer puts their foot in their mouth and comes across as sounding flippant or offensive.
I don't even mean that in a bad way... but this is definitely not a place where a comics creator ought to speak without thinking.