Thanks, Rob, for getting it.  My point is that it could work if someone wanted it to.

What about Vic.  He says Peter is 22.  I am not a big Spi9der-Man fan, but that seems a little young to me.  His guess of 27 seems much closer to me.

It does come to 27.  But I think it is far too old and changes the character.  Its best to just ignore that. 

So my rule that Jason called so wrong is actually right?

Why should Bill Maher be the only guy with new rules?

BTW, I do not like him...

QUOTE: I'm not sure it works though to have time continually passing. Mark Gruenwald experimented that in his Mark's Remarks, but the idea of Peter Parker and others being replaced does not really appeal to me.

My theory is that when he got to be about four years old, Franklin Richards subconsciously decided he didn't want his Mom and Dad and all their friends to change, and subconsciously froze time in such a way that nobody we care about ages (but our favorite characters all lived through the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush administrations).  It's a fanboysih theory to explain away a problem that only fanboys care about.

As for Spider-Man, I first started reading reprints of the early Romita stuff in Marvel Tales (my first issue was a reprint of Amazing Spider-Man #43).  Peter was a college freshman in those.  I quickly jumped to the then-modern stuff, which was the MacFarlane stuff in which Peter had just published a best-selling book of Spider-Man photos.  Whether Spidey is young or old, a good writer (like Stan Lee or David Michelinie) will make the character seem right, and a bad writer (I'll let you supply your own example) will make the character seem wrong.  I feel the same way about the marriage to Mary Jane, by the way.

Gregg, I don't know.  You can go on and on about who SHOULD be the audience/target audience for mainstream comics, but all that really matters is who IS the audience for mainstream comics.  Sadly, I do not know the answer to this question.  I am 35 and STILL reading comics.  In a high school of 2100 students, I know of 2 who read or have read comics.  IF they are NOT the audience, then they SHOULD NOT be the target audience.

Huh?  So because the industry has become more insular and obsessed with pandering to aging fanboys, to the point where it's essentially at death's door, we should not target the audience that supported mainstream superhero comics for decades?

If WE are the audience, then (IMO) some steps should be taken towards allowing for our characters, because we do consider them to be our characters, to grow, develop, and change within continuity, in either one of two ways... 

Well, I can't speak for you, but while I do care very deeply about these characters, I don't consider them mine, nor should the creative team working on any given book (unless they did create the character/characters).  If a creator considers a character that they haven't created "theirs", they can (and, sadly, often do) trash the character on the flimsiest of premises. 

Stan Lee and JB have both spoken about the "illusion of change" as a goal on a mainstream superhero comic:  you want to keep things fresh, but not at the expense of the very things that characterize the character.  I always hold up JB's FF run as a great example:  the team got new uniforms, a new headquarters, a new member, two long-running characters started a serious relationship, and one even changed their code-name.  And yet, all of these changes could (and, with the exception of The Invisible Woman) be undone with next to no fuss.  It seemed fresh and new, but at the same time, it didn't piss all over the characters or change the FF into something that was completely unrecognizable as the title Lee and Kirby created.  Compare that to JMS's Spider-Man.  The character is no longer recognizable as the Stan Lee Spider-Man on any level.  Is that a good thing for the industry?  Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you believe it is.  Me?  Well, considering that virtually every Spider-Man project in other media- including the Sam Raimi films (which stray considerably from the source material)- has used some variation on the Stan Lee Spider-Man (eg young student Peter Parker, accidentally bitten by an altered spider, struggling to make a living and support Aunt May, etc.), I have to believe that's still the popular conception of Spider-Man.  I suppose an unwary new reader may wander into a comic book store next year and fall in love with the well-off armoured Spider-Totem avatar Spider-Man, but when you have a formula that works, why tinker with it, especially when the decline of the industry has suggested that altering the fundamental characteristics of a long running character alienates basically everyone except the most hardcore of hardcore fanboys?

Oh no!  Not the old 7-year rule arguments again!

Anytime you start trying to quantify time passed in comics, the whole mess just goes kablooey!  I like some semblance of continuity in comics, but when people start breaking it down to actual time that's when it takes a sad turn. "According to my calculations, that happened 4 years, 2 months, and 13 days ago in the comic."  Gleep!

Continuity should be like this: The current issue is happening now.  Last issue was before now. Twelve issues ago was sometime before that. That's really about as difficult as it should be.

When I was a young comics reader, the first thing I learned was ignore the passage of time.

I remember once I briefly grasped how comicbook time worked, but my puny mortal mind could not handle the truth so it faded away. 

In the end it is just best to ignore that whole can of worms.  Right now continuity should focus on the big picture.  

Spider-Man is Peter Parker.  He has an Aunt May.  He does not stab people with his spider claw.  Get that stuff straigtened out before worrying about what issue Electro made Spidey give up.   Crawl before you walk and walk before you run. 

Right now continuity should focus on the big picture.  

I forget the exact phrasing, but JB once said something to the effect of we only need enough continuity to make sure that Superman is always a Kryptonian in every issue and that his secret identity's always Clark Kent.  That's basically the way I feel- consistancy should be strived for, but if story A from 2006 doesn't precisely match up with story B from 2001, I don't mind, as long as the broad outlines are still there.  A lot of TV shows take this approach too...as I recall, Smithers on the Simpsons was originally black.  Then, one episode, he was white, and to the best of my knowledge, nobody ever made the changeover an important plot point.  Richie Cunningham originally had a brother.  Then, he didn't (in a very funny Nick at Nite ad from years ago, they showed a clip of Howard explicitly saying he only had two children).  Tom Baker and Graham Williams said in the 1970s, they never tried to intentionally subvert a past episode of Doctor Who, but by the same virtue, they were really only concerned with the current season.  There were tons of oddities in the early episodes of both the original Star Trek and Star Trek:  The Next Generation.  And yet nobody- outside of hardcore fandom, that is- raises a fuss.  If tonight's episode is entertaining enough, nobody's going to worry too much over the fact that it contradicted some minor fact revealed in an old episode.  Similiarly, if this week's comic is entertaining enough, nobody should particularly worry that it contradicted some minor fact revealed in an old issue.

Nobody demands this from Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck and other everlasting corporate owned characters.

****True, but then, you don't see much of these characters anymore.  They have lost a lot of relevance to today's kids/fans. They are corporate symbols, but few are paying for new adventures in this country (cartoons or comics). I am one of the few-I like the Uncle Scrooge and Mickey comics, and would buy their new cartoon adventures (of which there has been a few).

Not that i am saying a 50 year old Mickey would have fared better