What did you think of Parker Industries?

[Inversed]

There's the eight month time jump between the end of Vol. 3 and the start of Vol. 4, and then exactly one year between Zodiac's defeat and return shortly after PI went under, so at the ABSOLUTE LEAST it was around as an international mega company for a year.

[Jman27]

At this point Parker Luck just seems to be nonsense that means whatever people want it to mean. I can't feel bad for an ex-billionaire owner of startup who laid off thousands of employees when his company crashed and who also sunk Mr. Aunt May's savings. Sure Peter took a meager salary from that and so on...but that's basically hogwash based on misunderstandings of stuff like Trump saying that he's not going to take a salary when he becomes President or Steve Jobs taking a $1 salary, proving once again how totally Parker Industries and Worldwide fails any attempt at verisimilitude.



Some adventures count for more than others. For instance in FF...Susan Storm gave birth to Franklin. Then Doctor Doom helped her deliver Valeria, for whom he is godfather (and we can definitely say that Doom "renounced Satan and all his sins" after Triumph and Torment much like Michael Corleone).

In the case of Spider-Man, Harry Osborn was a guy Peter knew in college, same age as he. He and Liz have a child who is currently featured in Absolute Carnage in a key role. Peter is godfather to Normie (and he definitely has not "renounced Satan and all his sins" after OMD...basically Doom's a better godfather than Peter).

I mean what does being a godfather even means really? But u raise a point certain events can remain like Normie birth, Valeria still happen. But they too are stuck at a certain age. Normie is like 7 and probably will still be 7 until the end of comics. And speaking of timelines Immortal Hulk states that Hulk been around for 14 years which kinda fits Peter being Spidey for 13 years during his relaunch when he got back his body. So time does move just very slowly or reset to a certain point. But from Parker Industries to now that at the very least has to be 4 months if we want to keep it realistic.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

There's the eight month time jump between the end of Vol. 3 and the start of Vol. 4,

A time-jump caused by Hickman's SECRET WARS and was general across the Marvel Universe which means easily retconnable and dismissed.

I mean what does being a godfather even means really?

If Harry dies, and Liz dies...Peter becomes parent/guardian of Normie. In most cases, it's expected that never comes to pass but parents wouldn't be parents if they didn't take this into account.

But u raise a point certain events can remain like Normie birth, Valeria still happen. But they too are stuck at a certain age. Normie is like 7 and probably will still be 7 until the end of comics.

He seems to be younger than 7 in Absolute Carnage. Basically he's old enough to walk and talk in sentences and maybe just out of kindergarten and into first grade. Someone coming later will make him younger than that. He seemed very young in Go Down Swinging based on his speech patterns, and still didn't seem to fully understand stuff.

And speaking of timelines Immortal Hulk states that Hulk been around for 14 years which kinda fits Peter being Spidey for 13 years during his relaunch when he got back his body.

Hulk was published in May 1962. AF #15 appeared in August 1962, but a full year passed before ASM #1 and Peter didn't age a great deal between AF#15 and ASM #1. So Hulk is an older established character than Spider-Man. Which is evident if you consider ASM #14 where the Hulk makes his first crossover appearance in Spider-Man.

So it makes sense for Hulk to be 14 years and Spider-Man to be 10.

[Frontier]

I mean he did lead the spidermans and spiderwomans during spider verse well that was his reasoning to even continue PI. Pretty sure there are other times when Peter lead that you can find examples for. Plus can't he just learn along the way? I doubt the average owner automatically knew how to run their company the moment it start up they had to learn like everyone else.

He didn't really do much leading. He basically just kind of stood around while everyone else took charge and did their own thing.

He even said Miles did a way better job then he did of leading everybody in Spidergeddon.

Is it surprising that I don't really like Peter being in Spider-Verse stories?

[Prof. Warren]

At this point Parker Luck just seems to be nonsense that means whatever people want it to mean. I can't feel bad for an ex-billionaire owner of startup who laid off thousands of employees when his company crashed and who also sunk Mr. Aunt May's savings. Sure Peter took a meager salary from that and so on...but that's basically hogwash based on misunderstandings of stuff like Trump saying that he's not going to take a salary when he becomes President or Steve Jobs taking a $1 salary, proving once again how totally Parker Industries and Worldwide fails any attempt at verisimilitude.

By that "I can't feel bad for Peter because..." logic, one could just as easily say "I can't feel bad for someone who has powers beyond what most people can dream about but still can't get their life together." Peter is a hard luck hero because the breaks never seem to go his way. Every gain he makes typically has a cost, going back to when he got his Spider powers in the first place.

And trying to denounce PI on matters of verisimilitude is just silly. The PI arc wasn't about presenting a serious study of the business world and all its ramifications.

It was about having fun with putting Peter in a new situation, one that was unfamiliar to him, created new dilemmas to deal with, and allowed Slott to give Peter access to a whole host of shiny new Spider-toys.

Complaining that it wasn't "real" enough is missing the point.

Some adventures count for more than others.

Not true. Some adventures are more memorable than others. Some adventures are more pivotal than others.

But if we're talking about matters of Marvel Time, every adventure is equal in that they all count. On those rare occasions where something is meant to not affect continuity going forward, a story will be written out or ret-conned in some way but, generally speaking, the big selling point of Marvel continuity is that all the stories matter.

[Lukmendes]

Is it surprising that I don't really like Peter being in Spider-Verse stories?

That and Spider-Verse type of stories just aren't well done, in the comics at least, since Spider-Verse's movie somehow works...

[Revolutionary_Jack]

By that "I can't feel bad for Peter because..." logic, one could just as easily say "I can't feel bad for someone who has powers beyond what most people can dream about but still can't get their life together."

If the boot fits. I personally have never set truck with luck being Peter's problem. As it is Peter is hardly the superhero in the Marvel Universe with the worst lot in his life...Matt Murdock has it worse, Hank Pym several times more so. Then you have the entire mutant community who makes Peter's whole "JJ smeared me again" stuff look mild and trifling. Spider-Man exists in a very sanitized corner of the Marvel Universe. There's a reason his stories don't deal with stuff like rape, child abuse, (which Jessica Jones and the Punisher tackle) because then you can't have Peter interact with victims of actual suffering and come away complaining about Parker Luck because he would look like a callous sociopath. Imagine if The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man ended with Peter moping about "typical Parker luck".

...going back to when he got his Spider powers in the first place.

Huh...what happened to Uncle Ben isn't Parker Luck. It's his own damn fault. When you make a mistake out of your negligence and face consequences, then that's not luck. That's the opposite of luck.

And trying to denounce PI on matters of verisimilitude is just silly. The PI arc wasn't about presenting a serious study of the business world and all its ramifications.

When Roger Stern wrote Peter getting out of grad school in ASM he realistically showed the entire process in his pages, because that realism added something. When JMS showed Peter as a high school teacher he showed the set-up as believably as possible. Likewise, go back to Lee-Ditko when they had Peter working at the Bugle for JJJ there was a lot of detail there showing the lot of a freelancer (not surprisingly since Ditko modeled that on his own interactions with Marvel, that bit in ASM #33 where Peter negotiates a raise, that's based on his own dealings with Martin Goodman). When Conway showed Peter at work on the Spider-Mobile he devoted several issues to Peter finding a way to make the prototype work, realizing he needed Johnny's help in putting it together and all the nuts and bolts, so the Spider-Mobile was presented carefully and believably.

So I do think that if a writer plans to show a status-quo shakeup they try and put work on the verisimilitude. That's the pattern and norm established for a long time. And I think that it's fair to judge Slott on that ground. If the Peter Parker side of his life is just as fantastic and unbelievable as the Spider-Man side and sometimes less so, then there's no contrast whatsoever between the two aspects of the character.

Not true. Some adventures are more memorable than others. Some adventures are more pivotal than others.

But if we're talking about matters of Marvel Time, every adventure is equal in that they all count. On those rare occasions where something is meant to not affect continuity going forward, a story will be written out or ret-conned in some way but, generally speaking, the big selling point of Marvel continuity is that all the stories matter.

So does Sins' Past still count? Some stories are always going to be more equal than others. Good stories will always win out over bad stories or unmemorable ones. And to return to my point, in Spider-Man, Normie Osborn, Harry's son exists...and he's of a certain age. Likewise Valeria and Franklin Richards, so their existence means there's hard limits on issues of time passing and so on.

[Agent Z]

If the boot fits. I personally have never set truck with luck being Peter's problem. As it is Peter is hardly the superhero in the Marvel Universe with the worst lot in his life...Matt Murdock has it worse, Hank Pym several times more so. Then you have the entire mutant community who makes Peter's whole "JJ smeared me again" stuff look mild and trifling. Spider-Man exists in a very sanitized corner of the Marvel Universe. There's a reason his stories don't deal with stuff like rape, child abuse, (which Jessica Jones and the Punisher tackle) because then you can't have Peter interact with victims of actual suffering and come away complaining about Parker Luck because he would look like a callous sociopath.

1) Kevin Smith's Evil That Men Do dealt with rape and while the story has flaws, the way it approached Felicia and Francis Klum being rape survivors was actually well told. At least better than certain other superhero stories about rape like Identity Crisis.

2) The Spider-Man comics have featured no less than three victims of abuse. Flash Thompson, Harry Osborn and Mary-Jane Watson.

I will agree that other Marvel heroes have it worse but calling Peter's corner of the MU sanitized is highly inaccurate.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Kevin Smith's Evil That Men Do

Heavily downplayed, hardly ever referred to, and not having any influence in Spencer's take on Felicia and for that matter in her solo Black Cat title.

... while the story has flaws...

That's why.

The Spider-Man comics have featured no less than three victims of abuse.

By child abuse, I implied pedophilia. Not that I think other forms of abuse shouldn't be taken seriously of course. But there's a reason why for instance "abusive stepfathers", child runaways, or broken homes feature in stories for children like Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn and even Harry Potter. That's part of the acceptable window of trauma you can introduce in stuff for children.

I will agree that other Marvel heroes have it worse but calling Peter's corner of the MU sanitized is highly inaccurate.

A number of artist/writers have said that Spider-Man's corner is deliberately sanitized. Todd McFarlane's run on Spider-Man for instance ended early because he was trying to put content that wasn't usual at the time. And Ryan Ottley in a recent interview said it clearly:

Nrama: As I said, you seem built to draw blood-red symbiotes and all their mucky splatter. Any unique challenges with all of that?

Ottley: The hardest challenge is to try to keep it appropriate for the Amazing Spider-Man audience.

"Appropriate for the Amazing Spider-Man audience" which clearly states that there's an implicit understanding about what can and can't be done, especially in more recent times.

[Huntsman Spider]

Heavily downplayed, hardly ever referred to, and not having any influence in Spencer's take on Felicia and for that matter in her solo Black Cat title.



That's why.



By child abuse, I implied pedophilia. Not that I think other forms of abuse shouldn't be taken seriously of course. But there's a reason why for instance "abusive stepfathers", child runaways, or broken homes feature in stories for children like Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn and even Harry Potter. That's part of the acceptable window of trauma you can introduce in stuff for children.



A number of artist/writers have said that Spider-Man's corner is deliberately sanitized. Todd McFarlane's run on Spider-Man for instance ended early because he was trying to put content that wasn't usual at the time. And Ryan Ottley in a recent interview said it clearly:

Nrama: As I said, you seem built to draw blood-red symbiotes and all their mucky splatter. Any unique challenges with all of that?

Ottley: The hardest challenge is to try to keep it appropriate for the Amazing Spider-Man audience.

"Appropriate for the Amazing Spider-Man audience" which clearly states that there's an implicit understanding about what can and can't be done, especially in more recent times.

A lot of the issue with that, I feel, is that Spider-Man is seen more as Marvel's main mascot, the ambassador of the Marvel brand for the outside/real world, than necessarily a character in his own right. In that sense, Spider-Man is deliberately tailored, especially in the last decade or so, to appeal to kids and families since he's the character kids respond most favorably to and the families of those kids, as well as the company itself, thus feel quite strongly about preserving Spider-Man's appeal to them. As a result of that, Spider-Man is locked into a status quo that keeps him "accessible" and "relatable" for said kids, and somewhat more importantly, inoffensive to their parents or other adult guardians. The price of being a globally popular brand within an even bigger brand, I suppose.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

A lot of the issue with that, I feel, is that Spider-Man is seen more as Marvel's main mascot, the ambassador of the Marvel brand for the outside/real world, than necessarily a character in his own right.

That's definitely a major aspect of it. It's not always been the case. In the '70s when Spider-Man was still the mascot, Stan Lee didn't hesitate to defy the code with the Drug Trilogy. Of course, the drug trilogy is pretty tame in a lot of respects and is of more symbolic than actual defiance and is pretty useless owing to the fact that LSD is the drug that gets Harry hooked (when LSD isn't habit-forming as pointed out by Lee's succeeding writer Gerry Conway, who was also a major LSD user at the time).

But even then Lee said later that it was about doing a good story and not trying to make the story grownup. Since he felt Marvel could appeal to both kids and adults. There had always been restrictions. Famously Bill Mantlo pitched editor Danny Fingeroth and then went over him to EIC Shooter to do a story where Felicia would father Spider-Man's child out of wedlock. Shooter told Mantlo it's not happening and he said that Marvel had signed licenses with many companies with morality clauses that involved Spider-Man not being associated with anything that might cause an issue with the Bible Belt. At the same time, Shooter didn't have issues with Spider-Man growing up and didn't have issues with Peter having hookups with Felicia and so on. So there's a sense of studied balance there. The unspoken idea was that Spider-Man could go a certain way but that there was this line you didn't cross.

The price of being a globally popular brand within an even bigger brand, I suppose.

Yeah...to some extent Spider-Man's in danger of becoming like Mickey Mouse. That's a character who's so important to Disney that Mickey is pretty much dead as a creative character. You can't do much with Mickey in stories, the way you can with Donald, and maybe Goofy.

I see this happening especially in the cartoons that Quesada and Wacker and others have put out. Not only are they bad from an aesthetic view (poor animation, character designs, ugly colors) but it's definitely a cartoon made by people with no idea of what actually entertains kids...and as such you have Spider-Man presented as an infant. This is even worse in the MCU where Tom Holland's Spider-Man basically is mickey mouse.

[Frontier]

That and Spider-Verse type of stories just aren't well done, in the comics at least, since Spider-Verse's movie somehow works...

The movie is the only time I felt Spider-Verse felt like an actual Spider-Man story. And even then it kind of emphasizes that it's not really a story that serves Peter all that well .

[Prof. Warren]

If the boot fits. I personally have never set truck with luck being Peter's problem. As it is Peter is hardly the superhero in the Marvel Universe with the worst lot in his life...Matt Murdock has it worse, Hank Pym several times more so. Then you have the entire mutant community who makes Peter's whole "JJ smeared me again" stuff look mild and trifling. Spider-Man exists in a very sanitized corner of the Marvel Universe. There's a reason his stories don't deal with stuff like rape, child abuse, (which Jessica Jones and the Punisher tackle) because then you can't have Peter interact with victims of actual suffering and come away complaining about Parker Luck because he would look like a callous sociopath. Imagine if The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man ended with Peter moping about "typical Parker luck".

There's a better reason that Spider-Man stories don't deal with stuff like rape and child abuse - because they're Spider-Man comics that have to be safe for children to read. You get that, right? Even though Spider-Man stories can deal with mature themes on occasion, there's never going to be a time where ASM is going to be a SVU episode. Because Peter isn't encountering pedophiles doesn't mean Spider-Man is "sanitized", it means that it's primarily a superhero comic where the threats are more about costumed super villains than all too real evils.

Huh...what happened to Uncle Ben isn't Parker Luck. It's his own damn fault. When you make a mistake out of your negligence and face consequences, then that's not luck. That's the opposite of luck.

No one ever said Peter's failure to act as the burglar ran past him was an example of bad luck.

What makes Peter relatable is that gaining powers did not instantly solve all of his problems.

He still has bad breaks, he still has to struggle to make ends meet, things don't always go his way.

When Roger Stern wrote Peter getting out of grad school in ASM he realistically showed the entire process in his pages, because that realism added something. When JMS showed Peter as a high school teacher he showed the set-up as believably as possible. Likewise, go back to Lee-Ditko when they had Peter working at the Bugle for JJJ there was a lot of detail there showing the lot of a freelancer (not surprisingly since Ditko modeled that on his own interactions with Marvel, that bit in ASM #33 where Peter negotiates a raise, that's based on his own dealings with Martin Goodman). When Conway showed Peter at work on the Spider-Mobile he devoted several issues to Peter finding a way to make the prototype work, realizing he needed Johnny's help in putting it together and all the nuts and bolts, so the Spider-Mobile was presented carefully and believably.

So I do think that if a writer plans to show a status-quo shakeup they try and put work on the verisimilitude. That's the pattern and norm established for a long time. And I think that it's fair to judge Slott on that ground. If the Peter Parker side of his life is just as fantastic and unbelievable as the Spider-Man side and sometimes less so, then there's no contrast whatsoever between the two aspects of the character.

In regards to PI, showing each step of Peter's rise to the head of a global company and paying strict attention to the every day nuts and bolts of management is just not what that story was about or needed to be about. Devoting a few panels in an issue to Johnny and Peter working on the Spider-Mobile is quite a bit different than taking a painstaking, detailed look at Peter's journey as a CEO. That's not what you want to devote valuable page space to. PI was meant to be a fun change of pace. It was never meant to be a permanent, long term status quo. Jumping right into the middle of it, exploiting its wilder elements, letting Spidey play on a global scale with the kind of tech he never could have afforded before, was the way to go rather than try and turn the book into a How To Succeed In Business tutorial.

So does Sins' Past still count? Some stories are always going to be more equal than others.

Of course Sins Past still counts. It hasn't been retconned.

And, as I said, some stories will be more popular or more pivotal than others but that has nothing to do with whether or not they "count" more in regards to assessing the timeline and continuity.

Some days of a person's life are more memorable than others. Marriages, graduations, births, anniversaries and so on. Some days are just a blur. Doesn't mean those days never happened or didn't count. They're still a part of a person's history.

Good stories will always win out over bad stories or unmemorable ones.

Good stories will be more popular, sure. I mean what kind of point are you even trying to make?

Saying some stories are more well-liked and memorable doesn't mean the ones that aren't automatically vanish from the timeline.

And to return to my point, in Spider-Man, Normie Osborn, Harry's son exists...and he's of a certain age. Likewise Valeria and Franklin Richards, so their existence means there's hard limits on issues of time passing and so on.

There are no hard limits. It's all very fluid.

Sure, kids grow up in comics. But then they just kind of...stop.

There's no way to accurately measure the flow of time in comics. Character change and age depending on what the stories require, not by any rules of the passage of time.

Yeah...to some extent Spider-Man's in danger of becoming like Mickey Mouse. That's a character who's so important to Disney that Mickey is pretty much dead as a creative character. You can't do much with Mickey in stories, the way you can with Donald, and maybe Goofy.

What planet do you live on where you think, were there not restrictions, that there'd be a lot of real character advancement with Mickey?

Mickey was already dead as a creative character in Steamboat Willie. It's a cartoon fu*king mouse. What rich character development do you think Disney shut the door on over the years? None, is the answer. Suggesting that, "Gee if not for the corporate need to sell T-shirts and plush dolls, they really could have gone deep on this mouse, you know?" is just, for lack of a better word, goofy.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

There's a better reason that Spider-Man stories don't deal with stuff like rape and child abuse - because they're Spider-Man comics that have to be safe for children to read. You get that, right? Even though Spider-Man stories can deal with mature themes on occasion, there's never going to be a time where ASM is going to be a SVU episode. Because Peter isn't encountering pedophiles doesn't mean Spider-Man is "sanitized", it means that it's primarily a superhero comic where the threats are more about costumed super villains than all too real evils.

I agree with this. But the fact is that Daredevil, Punisher, and other comics, such as the X-Men have tackled stuff like this. And back in the 70s and 80s they were rated for the same comics' readers as Spider-Man was. So the same audience that read Spider-Man would have been likely to be exposed to Marvel comics that dealt with the darker stuff. X-Men comics tackled the Holocaust at a time when American media as a whole didn't discuss it a great deal.

I was only pointing out that the idea and concept of "parker luck" hits a wall when you think about what the comics leave out. Real misfortune are victims of rape, people of color being shot by police for existing, victims of school shootings and so on...so there's a certain level where the concept of Parker Luck is meant to be self-deprecating and not entirely to be taken seriously. At least that's how I see it.

To reiterate, imagine The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man if that story ended with Peter going "typical Parker luck, I get a make-a-wish and I don't get to feel like a hero about it and I'm one fan less". That wouldn't work well now, would it.

What makes Peter relatable is that gaining powers did not instantly solve all of his problems.

He still has bad breaks, he still has to struggle to make ends meet, things don't always go his way.

That's true. For me, I always saw Peter's story as an ethical struggle, the difficulty of being a good person and a selflessly good one. Peter not being rewarded for his goodness directly or easily only makes it more impressive when he continues to be good. Like I am thinking of Marvel Knights Spider-Man where Peter comes across a windfall of cash that he can potentially keep for himself but instead he gives it to Vulture's grand-daughter in a totally selfless gesture. Millar's Peter was established as a little more cynical and sour during that comic so it was more impressive when Peter actually did that.

In regards to PI, showing each step of Peter's rise to the head of a global company and paying strict attention to the every day nuts and bolts of management is just not what that story was about or needed to be about.

Okay, but one can argue that doing so would have been more in keeping with Spider-Man and Peter Parker as a title.

PI was meant to be a fun change of pace. It was never meant to be a permanent, long term status quo.

Nor was Peter working as a high school teacher, nor was Peter dropping out of grad school in Stern's run, and other moments before.

Some days of a person's life are more memorable than others. Marriages, graduations, births, anniversaries and so on. Some days are just a blur. Doesn't mean those days never happened or didn't count. They're still a part of a person's history.

Well the day when Peter found out his first real love, Gwen Stacy, cheated on him with his worst enemy (and her future killer) and birthed children she planned for him to raise, all without telling him...has in fact been treated like a blur in the Spider-Man continuity. I should think the day you find that out should be important. I guess maybe Peter stopped recording valentine day's messages in a tape recorder after that.

And you can go before and point out the miscarriage during the Clone Saga. I mean that was totally buried and in JMS' run, the issues of MJ losing a child (and the fact that she had recently spent months kidnapped by a stalker and kept in solitary confinement...which should have given her psycholoical issues) aren't touched on at all. I mean Bendis' New Avengers Annual where Luke marries Jessica has MJ announcing "You have a baby. I love babies".

I think ultimately some stories count for more than others.

What planet do you live on where you think, were there not restrictions, that there'd be a lot of real character advancement with Mickey?

By comparing him to Donald Duck. Donald Duck evolved as a character and was transformed by Carl Barks into what was for a long time the biggest selling comics in America and certainly the most influential (on Crumb, Spiegelman, Osamu Tezuka and Anime in general, Spielberg, Lucas, Christopher Nolan). Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie and other early cartoons had a more rag tag and manic characterization which got softened very quickly with many rough edges sharpened.

[Prof. Warren]

I agree with this. But the fact is that Daredevil, Punisher, and other comics, such as the X-Men have tackled stuff like this. And back in the 70s and 80s they were rated for the same comics' readers as Spider-Man was. So the same audience that read Spider-Man would have been likely to be exposed to Marvel comics that dealt with the darker stuff. X-Men comics tackled the Holocaust at a time when American media as a whole didn't discuss it a great deal.

I was only pointing out that the idea and concept of "parker luck" hits a wall when you think about what the comics leave out. Real misfortune are victims of rape, people of color being shot by police for existing, victims of school shootings and so on...so there's a certain level where the concept of Parker Luck is meant to be self-deprecating and not entirely to be taken seriously. At least that's how I see it.

To reiterate, imagine The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man if that story ended with Peter going "typical Parker luck, I get a make-a-wish and I don't get to feel like a hero about it and I'm one fan less". That wouldn't work well now, would it.

But of course it didn't end like that, did it?

Even when life beats Peter up, he doesn't act as though his suffering is greater than anyone else's.

You've never seen him with a victim of a crime or someone down on their luck or in some dire straits thinking, "But I have it so much worse!"

That's not his nature. At worse, he might ruefully wonder why someone like Johnny Storm gets all the glory while he's public enemy #1. But he would never think of himself as more of a victim than people living through worse situations.

"Parker Luck" is about him experiencing the kind of setbacks and bad breaks that most people can easily relate to.

Nor was Peter working as a high school teacher, nor was Peter dropping out of grad school in Stern's run, and other moments before.

But they could have been. Whereas clearly PI, being so removed from classic Spidey scenarios, had an expiration date.

Well the day when Peter found out his first real love, Gwen Stacy, cheated on him with his worst enemy (and her future killer) and birthed children she planned for him to raise, all without telling him...has in fact been treated like a blur in the Spider-Man continuity. I should think the day you find that out should be important. I guess maybe Peter stopped recording valentine day's messages in a tape recorder after that.

In universe, it's easy to believe that Peter wouldn't dwell on that revelation and instead would focus his memories of Gwen on the happy aspects of their relationship.

It's also easy to believe that Peter would not hold any ill will towards Gwen.

And you can go before and point out the miscarriage during the Clone Saga. I mean that was totally buried and in JMS' run, the issues of MJ losing a child (and the fact that she had recently spent months kidnapped by a stalker and kept in solitary confinement...which should have given her psycholoical issues) aren't touched on at all. I mean Bendis' New Avengers Annual where Luke marries Jessica has MJ announcing "You have a baby. I love babies".

I think ultimately some stories count for more than others.

Some stories are more successful than others. Some are better remembered than others. But, again, if we're talking about timelines, quality doesn't matter.

Incidents still accumulate. Whether or not stories are well-remembered or whether they are mostly forgotten, they still happened.

By comparing him to Donald Duck. Donald Duck evolved as a character and was transformed by Carl Barks into what was for a long time the biggest selling comics in America and certainly the most influential (on Crumb, Spiegelman, Osamu Tezuka and Anime in general, Spielberg, Lucas, Christopher Nolan). Mickey Mouse in Steamboat Willie and other early cartoons had a more rag tag and manic characterization which got softened very quickly with many rough edges sharpened.

Again, I wouldn't blame corporate interference on Mickey not being taken down a more challenging, fleshed out route.

He's a cute cartoon mouse. That's kind of where it begins and ends.

Donald is just a funnier character to play around with due to his propensity for anger.