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When the complaints started to pour in about MAN OF STEEL -- most of them before pencil had even touched paper, just based on the idea that the project was happening -- something I noticed very quickly was that there seemed to be a particular kind of thinking (for lack of a better word) driving at least SOME of those complaints.

And that thinking could be expressed thus: these long time readers were pissed off about being stripped of their "special" place in the fandom pantheon. As of MAN OF STEEL, they could not trot out their extensive knowledge of Superman's lore, to the amazement of friends and fellow fans. They could no longer itemize, and catalog, and cross-reference. They could not longer declare some passing line in the latest issue to be WRONG, since it contradicted an equally fleeting line in an issue from forty years before. Suddenly, as of MoS, the playing field had been leveled, and these people were on that level, that same level, with everybody else.

They fell exactly into a group I had noted years before, in another context: the "experts", those who, rather than working to constantly expand human knowledge, had become obsessed with protecting the area of their expertise.

QUOTE: I thought the nadir had been reached when ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN took six issues to reach the point Stan and Steve had reach in about as many pages, but it seems the bottom keeps dropping.

I couldn't believe that. When I discovered that, I was shocked. It seemed like deliberate dragging out of a story. Years ago, six issues of a Spider-Man book would have featured six separate stories, featuring, say, The Lizard, Rhino, Shocker, Hobgoblin, Sandman and Electro.

So exactly how did it work? Did he get bitten by the spider in the second issue? Did he not put on the costume until the fourth or fifth issue? 

QUOTE: But elsewhere, in the "regular" comics, I applied my usual rules. All the characters demonstrated some aspect of their powers (if they had any) and were called by several variants of their names (civilian and superhero) before the end of the issue. I took my cue there from the issues of FANTASTIC FOUR that had brought me into Marvel as a kid. There Jack always drew the characters using their powers -- even if this meant Johnny just standing around ablaze -- and Stan had everyone calling each other by a short list of names and nicknames that told us not only who they were, but their relationship to each other (a "little brother" from Sue to Johnny, an "old friend" from Reed to Ben, etc).

Seems logical. Yet on the rare occasion I've picked up a modern book, I couldn't tell you who was who or what was what. That's not good.

Here in England in the mid-80s, a comic was published devoted to MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE. The MOTU stories had several dozen characters on both sides, but they were completely accessible to a newcomer.

Hey, kids!  Comics!  That aren't for you and would make Mommy & Daddy's hair turn white!

You like Daredevil?  Too bad, kid!!!

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You're describing the Comics Code. As one who worked under it for a good part of his career, I can say getting rid of it was far from the best idea this industry ever had. There may have been much grumbling about the code from lazyass prima donnas, but it forced us to THINK, to be CLEVER. And in a good way.

That attitude is not uncommon.