Was, is and always shall be.  

Without commenting on the quality of the comics that are being discussed in this thread because, quite frankly, I gave up reading Marvel and DC over five years ago, I can only go by what is being sold to me.  That's advertising, correct?  Marvel has a pitch, in this case it's Peter Parker as CEO, and I either buy it or I don't.  Nothing says I have to accept it at first blush.  I'm not Grandpa Simpson simply because it doesn't work for me.  I may not like it for a myriad of different reasons, but it certainly doesn't come down to a single one.  The character and discussion, as this thread is proof, is far too complex to narrow it down to "either/or".  

So that's my start.  It's where I come from. Given that...

I feel cold with regard to Peter as a CEO.  Forgetting the time it takes to make him such (which in the real world from Zuckerberg to Facebook is more than a couple of years) the notion that Peter turns his meager successes and failures as an unknown into corporate successes and failures without the escape of being Spider-Man sets my teeth on edge.  

But let's say I could get past even that vast hurdle.  Now I read arguments that Spider-Man/Peter Parker can't be "de-aged" to the perfect zero.  He can't go "back in the box" that was so perfect with Ditko/Romita.  BUT he can if he's got a legacy in the wings; Miles Morales.  "He's perfect!" screams a fan.  "He's a teen and he's ethnic!" which, I'm sorry, feels like hitting a demo rather than staying true to character.  But I digress.  It's the perfect "cake and eat it too" scenario, right?  Dan Slott is saying we've still got the same Peter Parker (which I don't think he is if he's a CEO) and we've got a teen Spider-Man (which he isn't if he's not Peter Parker). The clouds have parted and all is well in the world.

Until it's not...

We've seen Cassie Sandsmark aged from barely a teen in JB's WONDER WOMAN run to a slutty TITAN in less than a decade.  How long before Morales himself ages out of high school by writers who tire of crafting teen stories for him?  Now we're left with a Parker CEO, or whatever passes for putting "the genie back in the bottle" at the end of that run, and a Morales who is in college.  Honestly, does anyone think that transition will last even twice as long as it actually takes to get out of high school which would be six years?

So what, exactly, has Marvel gained except a stay of execution before the substitute becomes the same problem as the original and yet another has to be found to take his place?  

Honestly, I'm not the guy yelling from his front porch at the kids to get off his lawn, but as the one who has seen all of this happen before warning people who should know better that they're making the same friggin' mistakes.  

At the end of the day, it's just exasperating.  

I've mentioned on another thread that I make my own 8-page comics (drawn and colored well, professionally printed) and give them away at conventions and at Halloween time.  At least HALF of the 200 kids who come to the door at Halloween express excitement at getting a comic!  (And that's just the obvious reactions.)

Kids still like comics!  Somebody needs to figure out a way to get them in front of the kids again!  Having SPIDER-MAN et al actually match somewhat the super-popular movies seems like a no-brainer to me.  At the very least, don't contradict them with Lady Thor, Sam Wilson Captain America, and Miles Monroe Spider-Man.

ASM #12 has the death of Betty's brother Bennett.  Yes, not a true supporting character but this was the first time, save for Uncle Ben, where a character had been overtly killed in events that Spider-man had direct involvement in. **

Up until that point most of the public's hatred of Spider-man was based on superficial things like "He's creepy" or "I don't trust someone who completely covers their face" supplemented by JJJ's editorials acting as comfirmation bias.  With the death of Bennett Brant, a major supporting character is given a specific reason to hate the main character of the book.  Peter's relationship to Betty is also affected and he becomes more 'hands off'.  Six issues later we are introduced to Ned Leeds and Peter and Betty's relationship never really recovered.  

Even Aunt May's revulsion of Spider-man isn't based on anything tangible.  It's not entirely clear in the early stories if the connection between the arrest of Ben Parker's murderer and Spider-man was made public, though I wouldn't be surprised if later writers made form fit fact (much like how the Power/Responsibility quote is retroactively attrubuted to Uncle Ben).

It isn't until the deaths of Fredrick Foswell and Captain Stacy that these sorts of permanent endings for characters are seen again in the book.  In the case of Captain Stacy that's a full 78 issues later (more than 6 years publishing time).

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Everyone points to the the death of Gwen Stacy as being the point of no return for permanent Spider-man changes but I personally think the biggest damage was done later in the 1970's -- specifically Marvel Two-in-One Annual #2 (and we always thought that nothing of importance happened in Annuals!).

Very quick plot summary:  This was Starlin's final cosmic arc of the 1970's basically shelving both Adam Warlock and Thanos until the 1990's.  The Spider-man bits revolve around his key role in rescuing the Avengers, distracting Thanos and buying enough time for Warlock to regain the Soul Gem and defeat Thanos by turning him to stone. 

During the course of this issue Master Order and Lord Chaos reveal that Spider-man's involvement in these events were predestined and his sole purpose was to be in a specific place at a specific time.  It's also revealed that events were manipulated to bring Spider-man to this point, including being bitten by the radioactive spider, gaining power and losing his Uncle in the process.

That's a pretty mind-blowing revelation on Starlin's part.  This is the first time (that I'm aware) that our street-level everyman hero who has problems like the rest of us now has a cosmic importance that makes him completely unlike the rest of us.  It also means that Peter has no control over his destiny.   It basically opened the floodgates for Spider-man to be Captain Universe, for Spider-totems, and for Mephisto to be slumming in Spider-man stories.  All sorts of cosmic meddling that really had no place in a Spider-man book.

To Dan Slott's credit he doesn't throw away or ignore parts of Spider-man history that he doesn't like.  A lazy writer would simply ignore the clone saga and Spider-totem when given the chance to do their run.  Dan embraces both the good and the bad and puts the bad or silly in new and/or better contexts with the rest of the continuity.  You have to at least admire that.

** edit: I just did more research into Bennett Brant.  I wish I hadn't.  Turns out some writer resurrected him.  Even minor non-supporting characters can't stay dead.  Feh.

And they still like Legos and Lincoln Logs and Barbie Dolls and GI Joe and Transformers and trucks and sticks and balls and bats.  I've been screaming this for years when people say that kids are different today than they were 60 years ago.  Kids I know today like the same things I liked 45 years ago.  They just do.  They haven't miraculously left the womb liking different things than any kid has liked for centuries.  It's all in how it's presented to them and, unfortunately, mainstream comics from Marvel and DC have given up on them except the lip service that's been mentioned in this thread of a mind-numbing three titles from Marvel that are suitable for them.

I'll repeat that again.

Three titles from Marvel that kids could pick up and read today.

Three.

That's doesn't show a fundamental shift in what kids like to read so much as an industry deciding thirty years ago that they had to cater to the fan my age so they didn't lose me.  The irony, of course, is that in the attempt to keep me they not only lost me but new readers as well. 

I don't think that's the mark of a lazy writer, but a smart one.  Ignore it.  Who cares?  Why address it only to create more problems?  Why keep the door open when the easiest thing to do with a stupid story is to simply ignore it?  Sorry, but nothing good can come from the Spider-totem crap, so why would I be declared a "lazy writer" if I chose to simply ignore it as has been done for decades in serial fiction?

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And they still like Legos and Lincoln Logs and Barbie Dolls and GI Joe and Transformers and trucks and sticks and balls and bats.  I've been screaming this for years when people say that kids are different today than they were 60 years ago.  Kids I know today like the same things I liked 45 years ago.  They just do.

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And they'll toss all those things aside once they see the iPad lying around.

I don't think anyone is saying that kids can't still enjoy comics. They certainly do. And I won't argue that the comics industry hasn't done it's best to hasten its nichedom. But it was heading toward that point anyway. There's much more competition for a kid's attention, and video games/animation/movies provide the same experience that comic books did, but better. That was not true when I was a child. Even if Marvel and DC returned to all-ages storytelling (and please note, I'm not arguing against this), the industry is never going to go back to what it used to be.

Bullshit.  I'm older than you by a long shot and video games et al were the "new normal" then.  I had more things to occupy my time than my father did in the 40s and I still enjoyed comics.  Kids don't know any different.  They like what they like as long as it's presented as a viable alternative.  Sure, they like the newest "shiny thing" just like the rest of us but that doesn't mean that it pushes out everything else.  I see kids playing with Hot Wheels to this day when they could be playing a video game driving that same car.  I don't see kids eschewing comics because they see them on TV, in the theatre or can play them as video games but because, unlike Hot Wheels, mainstream companies like Marvel and DC have given up on them.  

I had room enough to like a ton of different things and I was the first generation that grew up in the age of video games, VCRs and cable. As long as you tried to cater to me, I at least tried it.  If you don't at all, which is where Marvel and DC are at, why would I?

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But they haven't. They've just shifted the medium. When I say video games/animation/movies provide the same experience as comic books, I'm being very literal. They are providing the same content as comics except with movement and voices. SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS was not the same experience as picking up a comic book.