I always thought it was rather shallow to make age a lynchpin in a character's root concept. The root concepts that I've always liked about Peter Parker remained the same, even as he got older. It's all about personality, really!

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As has been stated in other threads on this subject matter, one of the key elements to Spider-Man's character is that there is a conflict between his responsibility in fighting crime and his personal life: work, school, relationships. When he is incapable of meeting the demands of his personal life, because of his crime-fighting, it appears that he is being an irresponsible flake. This was depicted in the most recent Spider-Man movie. A high school or college student who acts the way Peter appears to just seems immature. An adult nearing his 30s who acts the way Peter appears to is a loser. Age does matter in this case.

I honestly don't know how Peter has kept his job as a teacher when he calls in late or sick so much.

I always thought it was rather shallow to make age a lynchpin in a character's root concept. The root concepts that I've always liked about Peter Parker remained the same, even as he got older. It's all about personality, really!
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Do you think Superboy and Superman are different characters and concepts? Do you think Robin and Nightwing are different, as well? A 30-year-old high school teacher who's Spider-Man is different from a 15-year-old high school student who's Spider-Man.

I don't see how you can say that age is not a lynchpin in who Spider-Man originally was. Superman and Batman can be anywhere between 25 and 35 without changing their characters all that much. But you can't do that with Spider-Man.

Age is also what made Spider-Man unique. Even now, there are no teenage heroes with their own titles (Robin excluded). Say what you will about change and growth, but it's definitely wrong when it makes a unique character less so:

Spider-Man when originally created was a teenager who lived with his aunt and who had the typical problems of youth (adults against him or not understanding him, not able to reveal how "cool" he really was to his peers, and so on). Now, he's a married man with a respectable job.

And I hate when people say "just read the old stories". It's selfish in the sense that new readers should be able to encounter stories involving characters who haven't been diluted by years of bad creative decisions. More hypocritical is that most of these fans are around my age and thus grew up on comics that had tossed old, barnacled continuity.

I don't understand how they don't see the selfishness in taking that position.

If ^^***** had the stones they'd say "Screw continuity! As of January 2007, we're hitting 'rewind' and resetting all the books to where they were in 1972 -- just set in modern time."

No "cosmic events", no 100 issue crossovers. Just an editorial fiat, like MAN OF STEEL. Only way to get things done.

I'm with you, but of course Marvel won't do it because It makes too much sense.

...they could have simply created a new black director of SHIELD named Mack Battle, or something...

I've been labeled a "sellout" because I believe that characters of Color deserve there own unique identities.  I still have trouble understanding why someone would want a pre-existing character "recolored" instead.

As has been stated in other threads on this subject matter, one of the key elements to Spider-Man's character is that there is a conflict between his responsibility in fighting crime and his personal life: work, school, relationships. When he is incapable of meeting the demands of his personal life, because of his crime-fighting, it appears that he is being an irresponsible flake. This was depicted in the most recent Spider-Man movie. A high school or college student who acts the way Peter appears to just seems immature. An adult nearing his 30s who acts the way Peter appears to is a loser. Age does matter in this case.

'Nuff said?

[edited to fix the mess that I made]

I have never like Quesada as the Editor in Chief of Marvel. And if he goes a head with Peter Marriage to MJ ends. I wil start by cut down a lot of Marvel books that I get. And you know what the funny this is. I use to read a lot of Marvel comic before Quesada became the Editor in Chief. I read a lot more DC books now. And I can tell one thing I do read a lot of titles.