Not to insult anyone, but even the page posted of BND has Parker sitting around moaning and crying about life...and everything about the art screams "I'm hip! Earrings on dudes and cutie-pie bangs and big nerdy glasses on a hot chick!" I can't stand this stuff.

Peter is the hard-luck hero, I understand that. But it's either hard luck or super-models according to the guys who run comics, and that I don't get. I feel like Peter was often pretty happy, despite whatever hardship befell him, outside of May getting sick or the Vulture whipping him raw. The status quo has swerved from "the humble guy" to "the loser". Peter wasn't a social incompetent or a psych case...he was just a kid, a little awestruck by the other heroes and not entirely sure of how good he was as a superhero.

But I never got the idea Peter considered himself a bad person, or an outcast. He simply WAS an outcast; he didn't cry about it. He accepted it as fact, and his acerbic sense of humor reflected that. He wasn't some weak-willed momma's boy and he wasn't two-fisted like Captain America, but he always dug the hell out of being Spider-Man. I don't know, I haven't read enough stuff in recent years to say, but Peter IS Spider-Man, not some schlub who wears a Spider-Man mask. There's a difference there, in my mind.

It's all easy, if you want it to be!
*****

Thank you, that was exactly my point too.  They are comic books, none of it (even the Other and Civil War and whatever) needs to be difficult to explain unles someone wants to make it difficult.

Matthew, all that needs to be said is DC used to have multiple, parallel Earths. These Earths were blended into one with the original Crisis on Infinite Earths.  Recently, the Earths were split apart in a mad attempt to create one perfect world. In stopping this madman, we were left with 52 seperate Earths, each one slighty varied from the next.

There. Its as easy as the Fantastic Four origin. Four people go up in space and come back with superhuman powers. 

QUOTE: It's all easy, if you want it to be!

Well said.

QUOTE: Not to insult anyone, but even the page posted of BND has Parker sitting around moaning and crying about life...and everything about the art screams "I'm hip! Earrings on dudes and cutie-pie bangs and big nerdy glasses on a hot chick!" I can't stand this stuff.

Glad I'm not the only one!

A single earing seems almost retro now.

I don't know...too obviously manipulative? Too Hollywood "smart sexy"?

I still recall a wee grin when I read Grell's connecting of Green Arrow to
Warlord by blood. One of the great "Up Yours, Fanboy!" moments.

***

I didn't know he had done that.  I do remember a hilarious story from Grell's run on Green Arrow where the Warlord had showed up in Seattle and every low-life in town, seeing the beard, assumed he was Green Arrow and tried to take him out.  Not surprisingly, Warlord was not happy -- the first thing he did when he tracked down the real Green Arrow was punch him in the nose!

Edit:  I should have kept reading -- Matthew McCallum already referenced the same story!