When in doubt, deal with the devil. A terrible story on so many levels!

Call me new to the comics scene (I’m only about seven years deep; didn’t get started until after college), but I’ve never known a Spider-Man without a Mary Jane. I thought their romance (in its many appearances in the many incarnations of the Spider-Man story) was *the* great romance of the Marvel U. So Spidey without MJ? It’s great power and great responsibility sans the other part of the story that was great.

I also thought that the best thing about Civil War was that it shook up the way the Marvel U characters were dealing with their realities–something that is, to me (as a new comics reader) fundamentally more interesting than stagnation. Reboots are for new series. If you’re going to keep telling the same story over and over… let Robin Hood shoot his arrow, put it together in a nice collection, hard bound, limited edition (with six different covers), and you’ll still get several years of sales off of the re-reads. I also loved the interplay with the regular Marvel U characters and the “new” series–like Runaways. A retcon this big doesn’t just impact one series, it impacts every series where Spiderman has ever shown up. That strikes me as bad storytelling.

I hardly think that’s the case. I started reading Spider-Man when I was 5. Spider-Man got married when I was 8. I had no problem with that development at all, nor did I have any problem with reading about a married Spider-Man, something I certainly couldn’t identify with at that age. I liked the stories, so I kept reading them, and I don’t see why any “actual permanent changes and growth” harm ones enjoyment of the story whether Amazing #545 was someone’s first Spidey comic or their 1000th.

If apparently there was some great desire out there to return to an unmarried Spider-Man, why have all of his best-selling adventures take place while he was married? Does Joe Quesada think Spider-Man #1 would have sold 10 million instead of 2 if only Mary Jane wasn’t around?

The news of this sudden rewriting of the Spider-Man mythos seems remarkably poor. This is either a cheap stunt intended to play out for a number of issues as the lead-in story to new weekly issue “experiment”, designed to be reverted or it is a move by a corporate publisher with no institutional memory of the damage it wreaked upon its franchise character with the Clone Saga. If it truly is a purposeful editorial change, I think that the bleeding of readers that will occur will be very similar to that which accompianied the Clone Saga and will be eventually be reversed to save the property. How long that would be would be dependant on the stubborness and ego of the management.
However, I cynically believe that stunt is more probable and think the comics community is being played. For those that care, and for some reason inexplicable to me, I find myself in that number, don’t invest emotionally or financially in this stupid, tasteless, inelegant and disrepectful editorial fiasco.

And yeah, the door was left open to undo OMD–I think Marvel learned the lessons of the Clone Saga and Heroes Reborn well enough to leave an escape route for the next editorial regime–or if fan outrage impacts sales badly enough during the current regime…

Really??

You’re kiddin’, right?

Remember guys, you can’t take these characters with you when you die. Let it go. Read these books for either nostalgia or for a brief period of escapism.

I would disagree that serialized adventure comics can be categorized as literature as you define it here. What you say about literature is true, but those character progressions can only be sustained within a narrative that has an ending. In a novel or a short story, the characters learn and change and grow and then we as readers stop being privy to their lives. And good thing, too, because in real life those changes are temporary, the lessons are fleeting, and that momentary adventure will swing back to mundanity. The ending of the story lends the work meaning and purpose. We know that Robin Hood must eventually shoot that arrow to find his burial spot and without that moment, without that point at which his time runs out, none of his stories carry any real weight.

If a story has no ending it becomes more like the old movie serials — the character is a vehicle for some thrills and twisty plot points and all kinds of good old fashioned fun. But we all want these heroes without end to somehow maintain that level of change and growth and excitement all the time. How many times can a hero change and grow before none of these changes even make sense any more? Yet fans still clamor for those changes, and then get angry when the changes come.

Tellers of serialized stories would be better served taking inspiration from those movie serials, in my opinion. Use these characters as legends or popular myths, and use the archetypes to tell however many ridiculous interpretations and permutations as they wish. Marvel Adventures, Ultimate, Spidey Loves Mary Jane — whatever it is, make enjoyable take-offs on an established theme and just have fun.

If everyone insists on these characters having some sort of consistent “reality” then please give them the respect of a proper ending as well.