I'm with Matt. Death and divorce are limited, inside-the-box examples of real world thinking. In the MU, virtually anything is possible-- they have myriad ways of hitting the 'reset' button. Would the fans accept a return to "classic" Spider-Man? Who knows? But frankly, the character is so far removed from the troubled kid I liked way-back-when that I have (and continue to have) no interest in reading about the current version of Spider-Man.

(And darn it, I am now one post past my birth year. Shoot.)

And while the sales of everything have fallen, Spider-Man has fallen harder than most.  According to THE STANDARD CATALOG OF COMIC BOOKS, an early 1980s issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN sold about 50 thousand more copies a month than DETECTIVE COMICS and BATMAN combined. 

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or "psycho ninja" Batman has increased, relstive to the rest of the comic population.

It's a false analysis to compare Spider-man to one character, say Batman, and use it asd proof of anything. It may be to the (remaining) audience, Batman is just that damn good (not to me but).

Heck, post-Crisis, post Dark Knight Returns, post 5 movies, Batman was going to increase.

and you can't compare Spider-man to himself, because everything has fallen.

You'd have to somehow compare the average fall for Marvel comics, and then compare that to the fall in Spider-man comics and see if he fell further.

and even then you couldn't necessarily ascribe that to the marriage-it may be any number of things besides that-change of taste in the audience, clone saga fallout never recovered, etc.

In the MU, virtually anything is possible-- they have myriad ways of hitting the 'reset' button.

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Historically, Marvel Fans seem more loathe to accept reboots and resets which lead to negating history. (Mark Gruenwald's memorable "Marvel should never need a Crisis on Infinite Earths")   Which is why explanations for things have become increasingly complicated for Marvel.  The Ultimate universe it its own thing, but any wholesale "the marriage never happened" I think would be rejected. Of course things have changed.

Judging by the debate, while MJ remains popular, the issue divides many Spider fans.  However, I would guess the marriage is more palatable to people since they dropped "MJ is a stupid whiner" the last few years. One of the few things I have totally enjoyed about JMS's stories is the way he writes the marriage and MJ.

IIRC, it has been reported that Stan Lee asked for the marriage to coincide with the Spider-man newspaper strip.

Personally, the end of the marriage may be the thing that would make me drop Spider-man, a tough decision for me. I have put up with a lot over the years.  I personally would reject any "Spider-man wakes up and is 16 again." I want the comics I have read to have mattered-not so much as chains dragging the character down, but as events that happened to the character

My personal feeling is that Spider-man isn't broken or an outdated character. and rather than new powers, or a change in status quo, or Spider-totem stuff, all he needs are solid stories-interesting, engaging, and fun.

There were plenty of bad stories before, of course, but with everything a six issue arch these days, more or less, it is harder to move away from a bad story.

I like what Peter David has said, and look forward to trying his post Other-stories.

"or "psycho ninja" Batman has increased, relstive to the rest of the comic population.

It's a false analysis to compare Spider-man to one character, say Batman, and use it asd proof of anything. It may be to the (remaining) audience, Batman is just that damn good (not to me but).

Heck, post-Crisis, post Dark Knight Returns, post 5 movies, Batman was going to increase.

and you can't compare Spider-man to himself, because everything has fallen.

You'd have to somehow compare the average fall for Marvel comics, and then compare that to the fall in Spider-man comics and see if he fell further.

and even then you couldn't necessarily ascribe that to the marriage-it may be any number of things besides that-change of taste in the audience, clone saga fallout never recovered, etc."

I wasn't trying to claim that the marriage led to any decline in Spider-sales, only to point out that you really can't defend the marriage or fans' opinion of it by claiming Spider-sales have been relatively stable.  Sales have not been stable, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the marriage.

And it's not invalid to compare sales of one book to another over a period of time.  The conclusions you draw may be invalid, but not the principle of comparison.

Mike

And while the sales of everything have fallen, Spider-Man has fallen harder than most.  According to THE STANDARD CATALOG OF COMIC BOOKS, an early 1980s issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN sold about 50 thousand more copies a month than DETECTIVE COMICS and BATMAN combined.
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That had more to do with sales on the Batman books being outrageously low than sales of the Spider-Man books being high.

I didn't say that the marriage helped sell books,
actually. However, I do think it's pretty low on the list
of what drove people away from the Spider-Man
books. It's more a non-factor than a negative one for
most fans, I'd bet. Kids don't seem to mind that he's
married, and if the stories are enjoyable, most adults
don't seem to mind one way or the other, either.

It's bad stories that have killed people's interest in
Spider-Man more than anything else. Knocking up
Gwen Stacy's corpse, letting everyone in the Marvel
Universe in on Spider-Man's secret identity, maiming
and killing Spider-Man to establish a "shocking new
direction!", assigning gritty artists like Mike Deodato
to draw what should be a fun, light-hearted book,
making Peter Parker and all of his supporting cast
into miserable, whiny creeps, getting rid of the Daily
Bugle and the rest of that great supporting cast that
Lee, Ditko and Romita created way back when...the
marriage doesn't even come close to making the top
ten (or top twenty) list of reasons that I gave up on
the Spider-Man books a couple of years ago.