A superhero being married is fine (Reed Richards).

A superhero being succesful in his career, or even rich in some cases is fine (Tony Stark is filthy rich, as is Bruce Wayne. Clark Kent is no failure in the reporter department.)

Spider-Man is not the one who should have these successes. Peter Parker is one of the few characters who have lasted that long after coming into being in a form that needed almost no adjustments to its essential core. Screwing with that formula after decades of success is just silly.

If this reboot, through some miracle, assuming Marvel doesn't figure out how to screw it up in other directions, manages to restore that core concept of Peter Parker as a single young man with troubles who still strives to live up to his great responsibilities, then I'm all for it, even though I'm not at all crazy about the way it was brought about. Still, it is the future stories that concern me the most.  

Yet -- and herein lies a central problem -- writers insisted on keeping him the "loser". The guy with the black cloud over his head. Which is fine when he's 16, because most 16 year olds feel that way (and, importantly, think they are the only ones who feel that way). I have long maintained that Parker is a sad sack, but not a "loser". But a thirty-something who pulls O Woe is Me out of his hat every time something goes wrong -- that's a loser. Especially when, because of the real changes to his environment, Spider-Man has ceased to be his "escape". He has what should be a pretty good life, with the wife and the career. Simple responsibility -- also central to the character -- should dictate it's time for him to hang up the webs. Amazing how fast the dark clouds would scatter.

JB, I always thought Spider-Man should be a bit younger than me, I'd say... 20/22 years old. Can he be a "sad sack" at that age, or is he already too old for that?

By the way, I still fondly remember your last issue of ASM... Peter with no wife, house, job and money anymore. Only one way to escape from those sad, REAL problems: Spider-Man. I love when Peter Parker has the problems of the everyman.

I was struck by the fact that Quesada holds OMD up with DD:Father as his favorite and most personally satisfying story

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OMD is that bad? I HATED DD: Father. It destroyed the origin of DD.

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Yeah David, OMD was that bad. The most bizarre aspect to his DD story that was to honor his own father, was that he turned Matt's fathher as an abusive bully that beat and verbally abused his kid.... it boggles the mind.

Simple responsibility -- also central to the character -- should dictate it's time for him to hang up the webs.

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But the same things that made him become Spider-Man are still valid. The city is full of scum bags and he has the power to help people. The only time I could see him stopping is being physically unable to continue.

This is, of course, one of the main reasons this kind of serial fiction needs to be read not as a massive, cohesive work, but as isolated snapshots. The latest issue in which Doctor Octopus hatches a nefarious plot to capture and kill Spider-Man should be played as the "first" or "second" time he has done so (tho not implicitly stated as such), since this will be the first time this plot has been trotted out for (in a perfect world) most of the readers. (When I was a kid, reading Superman's adventures, he fought Luthor almost every issue -- this was in the days of three and four stories per issue -- and never once did our Mr. Kent pause to total up the number of times Luthor had struck before. The closest I recall to such a thing was some convicts chiding Luthor as he is returned to jail. "The warden is thinking of putting in a revolving door for you!" This acknowledged the multiple encounters, without using them to indicate passage of time or any of the other incursions into the willing suspension of disbelief.)