There’s been a few posts about “generational” views of Spider-Man in other threads, especially in regards to stuff like OMD and such, and while I sort of think that *does* apply, I also couldn’t help but think that your first media experiences with Spider-Man also played into it. And since we keep arguing with each other, and since the character has over 50 years of history, I thought it might be more productive to talk about what exactly our individual backgrounds with the franchise were.
For instance:
Generation - I’m a Millenial from the far off year of 1990. That means that, yes, as I was gaining my reading skills, the Internet, book stores the library, and antique stores became more reliable ways for me to get ahold of comic information. The “Comic Crash” happened before I ever had access to a comic shop and well before I had disposable income. So pretty much all my first comic experiences were either collections of issues in TPBs from libraries or from Antique shops, with a lot of raw information from the internet and from the “Essential Guide” by Tom DeFalco.
It also means that Peter’s high school history was very much in the distant past for me, he was married before I was born, and the first real run I had the ability to read on a weekly basis in middle school/high school was JMS’s run… and in particular the reunion with MJ issue. It also means that for a good chunk of my pre-teen to teenage years, almost every major hero I was into was hitched, and frequently to a suspiciously high number of red heads: Spider-Man, Cyclops, Superman, Luke Skywalker… seriously, there were a lot of gingers with well written romances to heroes at the time - or in the case of Wally a west, a ginger hero with a well written romance.
But probably more importantly…
Media Experiences - The Animated Series obviously defined my early experiences with the franchise; Peter was, again, well removed from his teenage years, an experienced hero, and MJ was “the one.” The Raimi series followed shortly afterwards, and while I’m nowhere near as high on it as others, it probably reinforced my love for a traditional Green Goblin and that MJ was “the one” for a major romance part of the franchise (even if I didn’t particularly like Spider-Man 2).
And yeah, being a Millenial also means that a lot of the internet discussion about comics was freely at my hands. So One More Day was sort of doomed regardless, and since Millenials and Gen Zers have more access to old comics, I’ve never been as pressed to buy the monthly issues as older generations might, because I can spend the same money getting digital access to older ones.
So I’m naturally inclined to think of Peter as older, more experienced, growing consistently, and who has one “designated love interest” rather than a soap opera… and I’m not inclined to be a monthly buyer either, and to mostly just “trade wait” or even just “library wait” or even just “ignore until it get good ‘again.’”