Y'see, I stopped reading comics before "Sins Past", etc.  I've never read the stories about twins, totems or resurrected Normans, but I've read about them on the internet - and it just sounds like a terrible mess.  When I left comics in 1990, Gwen's death still meant something, and as Greg posted above Osborn's death cast a long shadow.  (I always "felt" him in every Hobgoblin story.)

ASM #121 & #122 were big deals to me.  I'm glad I wasn't around to see them ... I dunno, "cheapened".

QUOTE: Gwen (and GG) died about ten years into the series, and you sort of get the impression that things mattered more that far back.  Now, we're 50+ years into the thing and literally thousands of SPIDER-MAN stories later--you get the impression that nothing they do with him really matters at this point.  I always enjoyed MARVEL TEAM-UP, but when SPECTACULAR came along, it really seemed like the stories weren't going to matter as much anymore.  When RICHIE RICH and ARCHIE had multiple titles going at one time, you KNEW it meant that nothing of lasting importance could happen to them--and the same was now true for SPIDER-MAN. I think, for Marvel, you just want to read the first 200 issues of all their books and that's enough.  Sure, come back for things like JB taking over FF or other special issues/runs by favorite creators, but, otherwise, the first 200 are enough.

I agree. I think a lot of this has to do with the infamous meeting that Stan Lee supposedly called in the early 70's basically telling all the editors and creators to stop moving things forward and to stay the course--since they had finally overtaken DC. Hell, the first ten years of The Marvel Age alone probably has 90% of everything essential till this very day. One of the reasons the Claremont/Byrne X-Men run was so great is because it was one of the few times since that a title was allowed to grow and evolve and add genuinely innovative things to the mix.

In retrospect, Spider-Man probably "ends" as a living, breathing franchise sometime before the marriage in 1986. Roger Stern's run was the last time it fully felt like Spider-Man to me.

In retrospect, Spider-Man probably "ends" as a living, breathing 

franchise sometime before the marriage in 1986. Roger Stern's run was 

the last time it fully felt like Spider-Man to me.

***

I completely agree. A few years ago I started re-reading all of ASM and I was anticipating getting to the Stern run because I'd stopped reading comics in the very early 80s. My intent was to keep reading post-Stern, but I couldn't manage it. I found the work after that increasingly poor and once I hit the point of insufferable, I dropped it.

"The Death of Gwen Stacy" storyline blew my mind, as a kid. I didn't then think of it as a wrong turn. But my eyes did roll as soon as they brought back a clone. I hated that from the get-go. Kill her or don't! -- I thought.

Later I realized that it wasn't bringing Gwen back that was the mistake but deciding to kill her in the first place. Fake-outs in comicbooks are traditional. "Batman... DEAD?!", any given cover might lead us to wonder, or some cliffhanger have us on the edge of our seats. But, of course, he's not. Comicbook characters are meant to STAY because they aren't created for one generation of readers. You make a big deal about a character, make a bigger deal about killing her or him, and that's it -- you've defined a point in time that is now the biggest deal of all, and every reader after it is forced to deal with that biggest deal. What a drag! Ruinous, really.