So when do we get the "Man of Webs" mini-series that re-tells Spider-Man's origin?  In it, he was bitten by the spider as a teen, but never became Spider-Man until he moved from the suburbs into the city.  Both Aunt May and Uncle Ben are alive and he only assumed a masked identity because his Uncle suggested it after Peter had snuck into his old room in the suburbs, Uncle Ben hearing a "creaking" floor board upstairs, and Peter sitting in the dark saying "they all wanted a piece of me, Uncle Ben...".  oh, wait, snap....a strange sense of dejavu....

(edited to change "Uncle Bean" to "Uncle Ben")

I've been thinking about this and have more than a few questions about what this reboot will mean. Will Spider-Man still be a member of the New Avengers? Is there still a Venom? Is Norman "dead" again?  Unless this is just a short term storyline, this could become confusing very fast.

I stand corrected. Will become confusing very fast.

Tho I still think Slott and Marc are great choices to be writing Spider-Man.

hm.

It would be nice to think that all of the questions of "but where does that put Spider-Man's relation with this character?" have been thought out and dealt with, and that all of these will be revealed in time.

But I just don't have the faith in the company.

I had faith in DC when "Crisis on Infinite Earths" came out, and look where that led: within a couple of years things were being re-written once again, people were sneaking in references to how things used to be, and generally became a big muddle.

Fool me once: shame on you; fool me twice . . .

It'll be interesting to see where this all goes.

I've made no secret of my love for Spider-Man, nor my personal outrage over events in recent years.

I grew up fascinated with the Spider-Man mythos, and collected issues from various points in the character's history. I didn't buy every then-current issue, but I did end up getting quite a few of them.

Unfortunately, my prime reading age was during the period when things really started to go down the toilet--the "return" of Peter's Parents, "Pursuit", and the Clone Saga.

Despite my increasing distaste with what was going on (the "I am the Spider" and "Spider-Man dying as a result of being poisoned" stuff), I hung around, and bought various issues.

It wasn't until the revelation that Ben Reilly was the real Peter Parker that I was appalled enough to quit.

I tuned back in for "Revelations" and the restoration of Peter as the real Spider-Man (although I had mixed feelings due to the return of Norman Osborn), and I hung around for a while, buying a few issues here and there. But it still felt like something wasn't right.

Then came JB's Chapter One series, which I eagerly bought. And, despite my ambivalence toward some of the changes, I still enjoyed the series for what it was: a fun, modern-day retelling of the original Lee-Ditko stories.

I hung around for some of the post-reboot stories, but they didn't quite convince me to stick around for too long.

I never turned on to Ultimate Spider-Man, since he wasn't the character created by Lee and Ditko, the character I'd loved since childhood.

Then came JMS' run, and being younger and more foolish back then, I decided to try buying and reading that entire run as it was published, since it was being hyped as a great new era even before it began. I stuck with it, and fell into the trap of buying comics I didn't particularly like. But I stuck with it, because it had become a habit.

Then, "Sins Past" came along, and my eyes were finally opened to what was really going on. I immediately dropped Spider-Man (and all other M***** books). It was at this point that I began to learn some painful truths about just what had been going on with the industry, and what kind of long-term damage was being done to my favorite characters.

I have not bought a single first-run M***** book since that time. And, despite the potential return to form for Spider-Man that is now possible, I don't see myself buying again anytime soon.

While I do see some positives in this "reboot" situation, the whole event smacks of a contrived story designed solely to fix old damage.

The reaction from the fanbase has been quite interesting. It's my personal feeling that a large amount of Spider-Man's loyal fanbase was alienated and quit some time ago (as a result of any number of storylines over the past few decades), and that most of those fans who remain (and who post passionately on message boards) are those who accept the notion of growth and change being natural for Spider-Man.

Certainly, the one comment I've seen repeated most often is that if the marriage is undone (which it now has been), then that's a deal-breaker.

There are the people who consider the marriage to be a core portion of the mythos now (and they're not wrong, since Spider-Man has now been married for nearly half of his history), and say that destroying the marriage is The Last Straw for them. Many of these people think that this is just a stunt designed to make way for new stories that regurgitate the tired old Single Spider-Man stories of the past.

I'm somewhat conflicted, myself. I grew up in the shadow of the marriage (and thus I'm at least nostalgically partial to it), but I've always preferred stories featuring a young and single Spider-Man. I think the character's youth and isolation are core aspects of his appeal.

I'm cautiously opimistic about the final results of this turn of events, but I have a bad feeling that it won't work. After all, now there's room to repeat the same old mistakes that led to such a radical reboot, or to make newer, even more terrible mistakes.

Only time will tell.

Since the straw that broke my back as a Spider-reader, I've become gradually more and more disconnected. I still love Spider-Man dearly, and enjoy exploring and appreciating his rich history, but in terms of whatever mud he's currently being dragged though, I feel a curious lack of interest. Almost a numbness. It feels as if the character is long-since dead, and all that's left now is to see what paces his corpse is put through.

I never thought I'd feel that way, but it's really happened.

Sure, there's always the possibility of a genuine rebirth for the character, but that possibility has seemed more and more remote.

Lots of good points there, Greg. I've maintained for a long time that Spider-Man doesn't need any kind of reset or reboot, just a creative team willing to tell good stories in the traditional Spider-Man style. That's all it would take.

And I'm convinced those creators and those stories are out there. Just remember: When the Clone Saga was at its peak (or nadir, as the case may be), we got the wonderful Untold Tales of Spider-Man series. I'm still hopeful that good things are ahead for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.