Top Ten Times Marvel Destroyed It's Own History: Spider-Man Rankings

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The whole question of whether a retcon is necessary is going to be based on your subjective understandings.

Well to create any sort of consensus, you do have to make an effort to get past your subjective point of view. So far the only people asked to do that are people who defend the marriage, while those who defend OMD are adamant in insisting in their extreme view which is basically nullifying the longest lasting status-quo in Spider-Man with far more volume of content than any other part.

I mean if I actually had to defend OMD and BND against the marriage, the ones used so far are not even the best arguments (and as a good devil's advocate, I already have rehearsed those best ones and prepared responses against it).

A retcon and its necessity is not by itself good or bad. The only way a retcon can be justified is if it is a good story. Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier is a good story. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is a good story. Both stories overturned and re-shaped the continuity but they didn't outright claim that the previous status-quo and so on never happened, they merely provided additional informatioin that subtly reshaped and reinterpreted the existing one. Nobody has ever defended the Clone Saga and OMD as fundamentally good stories. In the case of the Clone Saga, people like Ben Reilly and Kaine as characters but nobody accepts or defends Ben Reilly's original purpose as the "real" Peter Parker. Audiences emphatically rejected the choice between a single "Peter" Parker and the married Peter Parker when it was offered in the 90s. In the case of OMD, excuses are made always from a corporate perspective and so on, and those kind of excuses are fine in shareholder/investor meetings but they have no place in any fansite. It's not like any defender here is going to get a promotion, salary, or kickback to defend both from a corporate perspective.

Just as there have been changes to Peter Parker's job status at the Daily Bugle, there have been changes to the marital status of the lead.

That small-list is spliting hairs. As far as people in real life are concerned. the only changes to marital status that count are: Parent/Widow/Divorced. All three of those statuses were flirted with during the Spider-Marriage during those three periods you described, but none of them entirely changed or altered the marital status. They were merely illusions of change.

One More Day brought a Peter Parker who had not yet found the love of his life.

Slott in particular often did say in interviews that Post-OMD that Peter did see MJ as the love of his life. And he said in many interviews that this was still the case and even in Go Down Swinging while he didn't reconcile Peter and MJ he did plant the seeds for them getting back together so that Nick Spencer could have his win.

Currently, we've got a Peter Parker who is back with MJ, realizing what he's lost...

Since Peter doesn't remember the Pre-OMD status-quo and the Mephisto deal, he does not in fact realize what he's lost.

The problem with having Spider-Man grow up is that it eventually gets to a place where there is no change, where the majority of his life decisions have been made.

All that has been decided is his romantic life. Everything else...what he will do with his scientific gifts, how he reconciles being Peter and Spider-Man and so on, whether to have children or not, those kinds of stuff still wasn't decided. And Peter teaching at high school was a change and new direction that highlighted a new updated role he could take. Spider-Man's essential problem is his work/life balance. The marriage merely complicated all of that but did not resolve it one bit.

There are some decisions that require retcons to reverse, and I would suggest the books shouldn't have that. These would include Peter getting married, having kids, having his identity revealed to the public, and taking a life.

Peter did in fact take a life in Spider-Man V. Wolverine #1 which has never been retconned, and indeed alluded to and stated openly in Dan Slott's "No One Dies". As they say in Cat Memes...your argument is invalid.

Slott's run actually did make decisions that need retcons to reverse. Because now, Peter's future to the extent that audiences can believe he has one is utterly hopeless. Peter Parker is a former employee for a R&D Company drawing a multi-figure salary, then he was the head of a Multi-National Corporation, then he was Science Editor at the Daily Bugle, and after the obvious holes that Slott created in Peter's character to put him there got plugged by Nick Spencer...Peter Parker is now as Tom Taylor's FNSM points out in his first issue, a "national disgrace". He is basically acquired the reputation of a failed businessman, hack academic and disgraced science writer...nobody in real life with that many black marks ever recovers. Peter Parker in universe is seen as the Martin Shkrelli and Stephen Glass, and basicallly his future is totally impossible to buy in any optimistic terms.

Before, when Peter Parker was a lowly photographer, writer, small-time employee/intern, and high school teacher...you could buy and believe that Peter Parker would be one of those geniuses whose papers posthumously published would make him respected and admired the world over (which I always did see as Peter's fate as a scientist...Tesla rather than Edison), or that Peter would in his '30s and 40s' after a period of struggle finds a way to make his webbing a revolutionary product and so on. Now...short of pretending Slott's run never happened or downplaying his stories, you can never buy that.

[Inversed]

One more thought.

I just can't enjoy when I know a writer's game. All the "relationships" from post-OMD up until Spencer's run just felt hollow and empty. I know Slott didn't actually believe these were going to work out for Peter. I know those "love interests" were not going to be with Peter decades from now, not like Mary Jane will be. But the author has to pretend it can work out, and no one is being honest with themselves. Fans have to play dumb, and the writer has to play dumb. It's so fake and empty it's maddening.

Maybe some fans can't put that feeling aside and enjoy the ride. Maybe some fans fell for it and actually believed Peter and MJ were done. I just knew this was not the case and it is never more clear going forward it never will be the case.

So I am glad we are finally at a point the writers are not pretending anymore. We can finally sit down and enjoy a romantic paring the writers believe in, the fans believe in. No ones pretending anymore. We can just focus on enjoying the stories and believing in them. It's a great feeling.

Honestly that's my biggest problem too. It's not just that fans weren't attached to other love interests because they weren't MJ, it's because they literally didn't do anything with them! Through those 10 years we only got two that actually mattered, Carlie and Bobbi. Carlie's relationship lasted a year, and Bobbi 7 issues.

I was actually one of those people who were all for Peter and Bobbi together, because it was an interesting pairing and I thought their chemistry was built up nicely in the Worldwide issues. I may like MJ the most like most others, but I am also flexible to seeing other relationships if they are done well, if at all. But nothing is ever done with any other love interests, which is either because writers don't like writing Spider-Man in a relationship, or think because MJ is his true love might as well not try; probably a mix of both.

So I can't really buy the whole "They need Spider-Man single so he can be able to date other people" when it's shown they aren't really interested in doing that. Plus, if MJ isn't supposed to be his true love, then why didn't they just divorce, instead of going through the whole "sacrificing the true love to the devil" schtick.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

For me all the interviews post-OMD and other behind the scenes information that came out hurt my ability to move on. Too much wagging the dog going on there. It led to my being less invested because I felt that a lot of the soap opera was going to be predictable moving forward.

For me the big glaring issue is the almost callous disregard for consensus. There's a reason why Stan Lee and Bendis have a much higher reputation and status among Spider-Man fans than Dan Slott and will continue to do so. Because the former two always behaved and acted consensually, and tried to be figures all sides can claim and generally that's what they remain, whereas Dan Slott either by circumstances (his one time to write on ASM coincided with Quesada's BND launch) or by actual choice and decision, will never be a consensus figure. All Quesada and others had to do was come out and say, "The marriage was great. It worked. It will always be a part of Spider-Man's history...this is just a new direction we are going in..." and written a story with that mindset. Instead they were basically insulting the audience and so on. I mean that burned bridges and banked on the expectation and hope that what they were doing is going to go in the pantheon of The Night Gwen Stacy Died, and instead it made Quesada this laughing stock among the fans as this horrible writer with frankly bizarre ideas and a religious fundamentalist's commitment to putting them into effect. All the writers who worked on that run were basically drafted into defending a story and pestered about a decision they didn't make and which has permanently tarnished their time on Spider-Man. Marc Guggenheim in particular discussed that in 2018.

And you know, ultimately I think the decision for OMD reminds me of that moment in DC's original 52 series where Luthor basically has a year without Superman and finally has to live up to the whole "I'd be great if Superman is not around..."and then turned out to be just as bad as before. Then Superman comes and says, "where's the cure for cancer Lex?"

I mean the big defense for OMD and so on was that the marriage had scared away writers and so on like Roger Stern or Ed Brubaker who apparently had Spider-Man story ideas with a single Spider-Man he wanted to do. And yet amazingly, Brubaker never wrote once in all these ten years with a Post-OMD Spider-Man. He's a talented writer and he didn't like Spider-Man being married and so on...and presumably he could have written a story so good that it got people and others on board. Roger Stern did write a few stories Post-BND but none of them were as good as his best work, and were mostly nostalgia pieces, and there was never an attempt to contract another run from him and so on. The only good story he did was the Mary Jane sketch, which is also a nostalgia piece since it goes back to his portrayal of her in ''The Daydreamers'' and uses Tom Defalco's #257-#259. But nothing on the level of his last great Spider-Man stories -- Hobgoblin Lives, Revenge of the Green Goblin -- written in a married status-quo.

Most of Slott's work merely repackages and reuses and repeats ideas from earlier Spider-Man stories with little update or anything new. His two big original villains -- Mr. Negative and Screwball -- were basically buried and forgotten until the PS4 game came along. But everything else...Superior Spider-Man is basically Kraven's Last Hunt if it were written badly and ran on for more than a year or so rather than just the two months. Spider-Island and Clone Conspiracy are basically attempts to salvage the mess of the Clone Saga and the former is basically a big dumb zombie story. The concept of a businessman Peter Parker and Spider-Verse can be sourced to the Fox Animated Cartoon and the final season...and true to form, since all businessmen Peters are shown as D-bags without exception, parker industries is started by Dr. Octopus rather than Peter himself. Peter as a businessman acts like a jerk during the Regent Arc. Go Down Swinging is one big dumb Goblin story without anything to say unlike Paul Jenkins' Death in he family or Stern's Revenge of the Green Goblin...and the concept of a goblin fused with Carnage and becoming a monster-being can be sourced to the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon (where Harry becomes Venom).

All Slott's work amounted to was basically creating and cultivating a new status-quo and sense of history to replace in a short order the 20 years of the marriage. That's what BND was trying to do. It's just glorified gaslighting. Hence cancelling second series and printing ASM twice a month. That allowed Slott to basically move to 600--700--800 in an entirely unorganic manner which allowed people to call his run "historic" when you know other writers didn't have the patronage and support of bi-monthly releases and so on. The twice-a-month ASM titles allowed them to close the gap on the number of issues with a married Spider-Man in ASM. In 20 years you had 253 issues with a married Peter and MJ in ASM, and in the Post-OMD ten years, you have 256 issues with the Post-OMD Peter...and they used cheat codes to do it.

[Mister Mets]

Well to create any sort of consensus, you do have to make an effort to get past your subjective point of view. So far the only people asked to do that are people who defend the marriage, while those who defend OMD are adamant in insisting in their extreme view which is basically nullifying the longest lasting status-quo in Spider-Man with far more volume of content than any other part.

I mean if I actually had to defend OMD and BND against the marriage, the ones used so far are not even the best arguments (and as a good devil's advocate, I already have rehearsed those best ones and prepared responses against it).

A retcon and its necessity is not by itself good or bad. The only way a retcon can be justified is if it is a good story. Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier is a good story. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing is a good story. Both stories overturned and re-shaped the continuity but they didn't outright claim that the previous status-quo and so on never happened, they merely provided additional informatioin that subtly reshaped and reinterpreted the existing one. Nobody has ever defended the Clone Saga and OMD as fundamentally good stories. In the case of the Clone Saga, people like Ben Reilly and Kaine as characters but nobody accepts or defends Ben Reilly's original purpose as the "real" Peter Parker. Audiences emphatically rejected the choice between a single "Peter" Parker and the married Peter Parker when it was offered in the 90s. In the case of OMD, excuses are made always from a corporate perspective and so on, and those kind of excuses are fine in shareholder/investor meetings but they have no place in any fansite. It's not like any defender here is going to get a promotion, salary, or kickback to defend both from a corporate perspective.



That small-list is spliting hairs. As far as people in real life are concerned. the only changes to marital status that count are: Parent/Widow/Divorced. All three of those statuses were flirted with during the Spider-Marriage during those three periods you described, but none of them entirely changed or altered the marital status. They were merely illusions of change.



Slott in particular often did say in interviews that Post-OMD that Peter did see MJ as the love of his life. And he said in many interviews that this was still the case and even in Go Down Swinging while he didn't reconcile Peter and MJ he did plant the seeds for them getting back together so that Nick Spencer could have his win.



Since Peter doesn't remember the Pre-OMD status-quo and the Mephisto deal, he does not in fact realize what he's lost.



All that has been decided is his romantic life. Everything else...what he will do with his scientific gifts, how he reconciles being Peter and Spider-Man and so on, whether to have children or not, those kinds of stuff still wasn't decided. And Peter teaching at high school was a change and new direction that highlighted a new updated role he could take. Spider-Man's essential problem is his work/life balance. The marriage merely complicated all of that but did not resolve it one bit.



Peter did in fact take a life in Spider-Man V. Wolverine #1 which has never been retconned, and indeed alluded to and stated openly in Dan Slott's "No One Dies". As they say in Cat Memes...your argument is invalid.

Slott's run actually did make decisions that need retcons to reverse. Because now, Peter's future to the extent that audiences can believe he has one is utterly hopeless. Peter Parker is a former employee for a R&D Company drawing a multi-figure salary, then he was the head of a Multi-National Corporation, then he was Science Editor at the Daily Bugle, and after the obvious holes that Slott created in Peter's character to put him there got plugged by Nick Spencer...Peter Parker is now as Tom Taylor's FNSM points out in his first issue, a "national disgrace". He is basically acquired the reputation of a failed businessman, hack academic and disgraced science writer...nobody in real life with that many black marks ever recovers. Peter Parker in universe is seen as the Martin Shkrelli and Stephen Glass, and basicallly his future is totally impossible to buy in any optimistic terms.

Before, when Peter Parker was a lowly photographer, writer, small-time employee/intern, and high school teacher...you could buy and believe that Peter Parker would be one of those geniuses whose papers posthumously published would make him respected and admired the world over (which I always did see as Peter's fate as a scientist...Tesla rather than Edison), or that Peter would in his '30s and 40s' after a period of struggle finds a way to make his webbing a revolutionary product and so on. Now...short of pretending Slott's run never happened or downplaying his stories, you can never buy that.

I've definitely been in arguments where the claim is made that I just want Spider-Man to be single because of my subjective tastes. It's an argument made when anyone has any kind of preference for a series. Hell, I made it against myself in the original post.

It definitely helps if a retcon is a good story, but it's not essential. A crappy story that gets a character to the right place can still be worthwhile.

I'll note my own views on OMD are more mixed. Given how much time I've spent arguing on a four issue roughly one hundred page story, I don't think I can look it at fully objectively either way. There is some good in it (nice art by Quesada, a cool time travel twist with Dr. Strange.)

I will not defend the Clone Saga, but it does have some fans. There's a reason the whole thing was reprinted and then put into omnibuses.

Separated, widowed and revealed as an accidental imposter are definitely changes to the marital status of the hero. It cuts against the idea that Spider-Man was consistently married for twenty years. There were some shake-ups along the way.

When his romantic life is settled, it brings all the other decisions closer, especially since you view this as a series where the reader has been promised that they would see Spider-Man grow up. That process will necessitate some permanent changes.

The death in Spider-Man VS. Wolverine was not intentional, so there are still lines Peter hasn't crossed, and choices writers haven't forced him to make.

By the way I think you're wrong on the idea that people with major black marks never recover. Churchill defected from the Conservative party to join the liberals, oversaw one of the greatest military defeats in British history with Galipoli, and came back to the conservative party to push for a Gold Standard. Marlon Brando became a joke in the 1960s before the one- two punch of The Godfather and The Last Tango in Paris reestablished him as one of the best actors ever. I'm not a fan of Trump but he obviously recovered from becoming a 1990s punchline. Ben Affleck became a joke as an actor until he focused on directing, and followed his Best Picture win for Argo with Gone Girl. Ryan Reynolds screwed up Deadpool (in the first Wolverine film), Green Lantern, and a marriage with Scarlett Johansson before getting another shot at Deadpool.

[Scott Taylor]

"a marriage with Scarlett Johansson"

Thats got to have left a mark!

We've been around the horn so many times about OMD that all there is left are sides to take. The arguments have been had. One of the huge reasons I wish it were just completely erased (ala Byrne's reboot) and irrelevant to the current status quo is that it would then go away and stop causing these arguments.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The death in Spider-Man VS. Wolverine was not intentional, so there are still lines Peter hasn't crossed, and choices writers haven't forced him to make.

Uncle Ben's death is not intentional, nor is Gwen Stacy's death (and even that one has an air of ambiguity to it). In the case of that one it's unambiguous that Peter killed someone and saying otherwise is I think close to Zack Snyder's description of "manslaughter not murder" when describing Batman's conduct in BVS.

By the way I think you're wrong on the idea that people with major black marks never recover.

There has never been an instance where a 20 something kid who suddenly became a captain of industry lost it all, and few months later became a national disgrace for a plagiarism scandal (for which Peter is obviously guilty since he never turned in his graduate degree when he had the chance) lost everything ever recovered and bounced back. Academically Peter's reputation going forward will be tainted and have a black mark with all his future contributions and so on having questions raised about it.

Churchill defected from the Conservative party to join the liberals, oversaw one of the greatest military defeats in British history with Galipoli, and came back to the conservative party to push for a Gold Standard.

Winston Churchill was an aristocrat born rich and was a servant to the British Empire...he comes from a class and lived in an era where a good part of England's political and social class had a black mark on them...and where such stuff wasn't held against them. There's nothing to compare him with anyone from a more contemporary era and to someone from a very low class.

Ben Affleck became a joke as an actor until he focused on directing, and followed his Best Picture win for Argo with Gone Girl. Ryan Reynolds screwed up Deadpool (in the first Wolverine film), Green Lantern, and a marriage with Scarlett Johansson before getting another shot at Deadpool.

Hollywood actors and media celebrities are not the same thing. Those are careers with ups and downs, setbacks...."you're only as good as your last film" and so on.

In the case of Peter Parker, he's a scientist. That means reputation, accountability, credibility, and integrity. In Parker Industries he commanded his own business. So that means profits and so on. Peter being a honest scientist who destroyed his business and fired and laid off employees for the greater good...is an example of "good people not being good at business" and so on, but it also means that socially Peter would always be seen as the loser, and Robbie Robertson calls him out for laying people off. He's no longer the working-class hero once he employs and fires actual working-class people, regardless of his good reasons for doing so. As a scientist, that plagiarism thing, which he is totally guilt off...in the sense that anyone in real life who profits of a degree they knowingly know is not earned by their own efforts would be treated that way...that stuff will be there for good.

[WebSlingWonder]

"a marriage with scarlett johansson"

thats got to have left a mark!

We've been around the horn so many times about omd that all there is left are sides to take. The arguments have been had. One of the huge reasons i wish it were just completely erased (ala byrne's reboot) and irrelevant to the current status quo is that it would then go away and stop causing these arguments.

quoted for truth.

[WebLurker]

The important thing is to make sure the stigma of what happens sticks. That people never get over OMD or treat this as normal. In general that has happened. The fandom remains polarized, the anger has never died down. And what you can control is to make sure that people don't forget or pretend the marriage was a negligible part or anything.

That it was a fundamental part of the character's publication history and can never be written away. That is something one can have control over. Correcting falsehoods or bad arguments is its own reward in any case.

You kinda remind me of certain Star Wars who get angry that people dare like anything made by Disney. That the stuff they like is the only true Star Wars and anything that doesn't fit what they think should be torn down. They cannot accept that they're not the only audience for the franchise.

Point is, while not everyone likes OMD or the resulting status quo, there are people who do and their view is perfectly legitimate. While I wouldn't go far as to say that the past should be forgotten, it's not our place to force people to agree with us. We all come to fandoms from different backgrounds and for some people, single Spidey is great. (I'm no fan of OMD and frankly think everything from it til now should erased from canon wholesale, so bear that in mind that I'm defending the creative decisions, just pointing out that I don't think we're supposed to force people to keep remembering it, that it was bad, etc.)

It gets results though. DC eventually listened and disposed of the New 52.

But did they listen because people where whining about it, or did they do it because they thought it would improve stuff?

[WebSlingWonder]

You kinda remind me of certain Star Wars who get angry that people dare like anything made by Disney. That the stuff they like is the only true Star Wars and anything that doesn't fit what they think should be torn down. They cannot accept that they're not the only audience for the franchise.

Point is, while not everyone likes OMD or the resulting status quo, there are people who do and their view is perfectly legitimate. While I wouldn't go far as to say that the past should be forgotten, it's not our place to force people to agree with us. We all come to fandoms from different backgrounds and for some people, single Spidey is great. (I'm no fan of OMD and frankly think everything from it til now should erased from canon wholesale, so bear that in mind that I'm defending the creative decisions, just pointing out that I don't think we're supposed to force people to keep remembering it, that it was bad, etc.)



But did they listen because people where whining about it, or did they do it because they thought it would improve stuff?

Can I give you a virtual high-five? That is literally everything I was trying to say but got too frustrated to say it.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

You kinda remind me of certain Star Wars who get angry that people dare like anything made by Disney. That the stuff they like is the only true Star Wars and anything that doesn't fit what they think should be torn down. They cannot accept that they're not the only audience for the franchise.

I myself said earlier: In a serialized continuity and so on, later stories and so on do affect the overall experience. It's similar to how Star Wars feel about their overall experience being ruined by the Prequels or the Sequels, or you know originally Empire Strikes Back and since the 90s Return of the Jedi. Or how HP fans feel about the epilogue, that play, the Fantastic Beasts movies and so on. Not everything before the Clone Saga was good, and not everything during the Clone Saga was bad, just like not everything before OMD was good nor was everything after OMD bad. But in terms of the overall effect, both of them were the worst things to ever happen to Spider-Man in a serial continuity and it replaced something worthwhile with something that was far worthless in value.

Point is, while not everyone likes OMD or the resulting status quo, there are people who do and their view is perfectly legitimate.

My problem is that the people who defend the Post-OMD era and that status-quo argue that the marriage should be erased and was negligible. That is an extreme view and something that is absurd. Quesada and the entire promotion of BND was basically done in that attempt. So since that view is extreme and uninterested in consensus, and basically based on falsehoods, it becomes absolutely necessary to combat it. There are people like say Mark Ginocchio who says that he would read Spider-Man if he was married or if he was single, and so on. That I respect and so on.

[WebSlingWonder]

This, among my long and hectic work day, is the most frustrating thing this week.

[Miles To Go]

This, among my long and hectic work day, is the most frustrating thing this week.

If you don't like what he's saying, don't read it. He's not going to stop, and I don't see why he should.

[WebLurker]

Can I give you a virtual high-five? That is literally everything I was trying to say but got too frustrated to say it.

Thanks.

[QUOTE=Revolutionary_Jack;4127766]I myself said earlier: In a serialized continuity and so on, later stories and so on do affect the overall experience. It's similar to how Star Wars feel about their overall experience being ruined by the Prequels or the Sequels, or you know originally Empire Strikes Back and since the 90s Return of the Jedi. Or how HP fans feel about the epilogue, that play, the Fantastic Beasts movies and so on. Not everything before the Clone Saga was good, and not everything during the Clone Saga was bad, just like not everything before OMD was good nor was everything after OMD bad. But in terms of the overall effect, both of them were the worst things to ever happen to Spider-Man in a serial continuity and it replaced something worthwhile with something that was far worthless in value.

I have sympathy for people who don't or can't separate different pieces of an ongoing series when later installments recontextualize past ones, since I'm very much that way myself. Reading old ASM issues, it bugs me knowing that OMD happens in the characters' future, to the point that I "have" use the escape hatch that Spider-Girl and RYV also use those back issues as part of their continuities, so I'm "really" reading about the MC2 and RYV characters, not the 616 ones.

However, for some people, that recontextualization is part of what makes it enjoyable. Some people found that the prequels ruined Star Wars, others didn't. Me, I'm a filthy prequel lover and and am young enough then when I was getting into the franchise seriously, it wasn't two trilogies, but a six movie series. That's how I Star Wars and while it may not be to other people's liking, I wouldn't have it any other way.

So, saying that such and such installment that replaced or changed something worthwhile to worthless is a value judgement and may not ring true. I mean, case in point, for some people, OMD created the most worthwhile iteration of Spidey, whether it be because they liked the new stories that got told, it was their gateway into the franchise, or any number of reasons.

My problem is that the people who defend the Post-OMD era and that status-quo argue that the marriage should be erased and was negligible. That is an extreme view and something that is absurd. Quesada and the entire promotion of BND was basically done in that attempt. So since that view is extreme and uninterested in consensus, and basically based on falsehoods, it becomes absolutely necessary to combat it.

Are you that different? From my experience, the pro and anti-OMD camps are both extreme views that are based more on personal preference then any hard evidence or logic. Heck, I will never concede that OMD was okay or read the stuff after it, but that's based on the stuff I want to read, not what "should" be done. So, the logical conclusion of your argument is that we must combat people for thinking differently about something because we disagree with it. Spidey wasn't married when he was first created, there's been multiple stories about him married and unmarried ever since, and I think there will be more of those as time goes one. Both are perfectly viable basis for storytelling with their own pros and cons. (And as far as the Marvel people basing the OMD change on falsehoods, they own the character. They don't need to justify anything to us in regards to status quo changes.)

(I've also come to this theory that the Peter Parker/Mary Jane relationship is the thing that is not negligible, the marriage aspect of it not so much. Take that for what it is or is not worth.)

There are people like say Mark Ginocchio who says that he would read Spider-Man if he was married or if he was single, and so on. That I respect and so on.

I think that's basically everyone. We all have our reading preferences and all are okay (unless you pirate, in which case that is bad). Just because I see no value in the post-OMD doesn't mean that others are wrong to find it, much less feel that the marriage I found to be a key component was a mistake. Long story short, you can be a Spider-Man fan and hate the marriage. IDIC.

[Miles To Go]

Long story short, you can be a Spider-Man fan and hate the marriage. IDIC.

I don't think there's an outright problem with disliking the marriage if it's argued well, but it rarely ever is. The best they can muster for an argument that makes some sense is just to say they don't have much investment in a character being in a content/stable relationship because they feel it encases them in amber. Hell one of the excuses made for Queenpin Felicia at the time was because the writers felt Felicia was encased in "amber" and needed to break out. We all saw how well that went.

A lot of us are arguing more today that the marriage needn't come back at all, just that OMD be resolved. We have the relationship back, we still have marriage stories being told in various alternate continuities...for many of us, that's more than sufficient. OMD failed, so let's just put it to bed already and help the franchise move further along.

[WebSlingWonder]

If you don't like what he's saying, don't read it. He's not going to stop, and I don't see why he should.

"If you don't like it, don't read it or dwell on it."
Ironic, no?