SER: I'd agree with you but the marriage was but the worst of many changes to Peter Parker:

No longer a teenager

No longer a student

No longer lived with his elderly aunt

All three things -- just to name a few -- were things that set him apart from other heroes of the period.

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Two of these three changes were made by Stan Lee. Did he not get the character ?

Its always seemed clear to me that from the beginning Spider-Man was meant to evolve. Lived, learn, grow. Both as Spidey and Peter.

This is a great example of the illusion of change.  Stan moved Peter from High School to College, but he was still a teenager and still a student with all the same problems he had before.  He moved out of Aunt May's house but still felt responsible to take care of her if memory served me correct. 

It was all Stan's slight of hand that still fools everybody.

Well, this has turned into a monster thread (as I had a feeling it would). As always, I'm pleased to see that Spider-Man can provoke such spirited debate. It's a testament to the character's hold on people that they would argue so passionately.

But has the character reached an impasse with his fans? There seems to be a pretty big division here--those who feel that growth is an inherent part of the character, and who love the marriage, vs. those who prefer the older style Spider-Man stories, and feel that the character has lost his way and mutated into something else completely.

I fall into the latter camp, but I do understand why the former camp feels the way that it does. After all, I grew up in the shadow of the marriage, and so I feel a twinge of regret now that this whole OMD fiasco has occurred.

At the same time, however, I've long felt that Spider-Man has been drifting off the rails.

I was 10 years old when the Clone Saga began. At that point, I was pretty well-versed in Spider-Man lore, and had read stories from pretty much every era. I'd always preferred the older stuff (Lee, Conway, Stern, DeFalco, etc.), but I did enjoy many of the pre-Clone Saga contemporary comics (which, of course, featured a married Spider-Man).

But as soon as the robot parents story, "I am Spider"stuff , and Clone Saga began, it felt like Spider-Man was no longer the same character I'd grown to love in my short lifetime. One stunt after another failed to impress me, and made me feel that the character was being damaged, perhaps irreparably.

The death of Aunt May felt like a bad move, and the story itself was not very affecting for me. Also, I was so dissatisfied with the current state of Spider-Man that I preferred to read the Ben Reilly solo stories (during the period when the four Spider-titles were divided so that two went to Peter, and two to Ben). Ben Reilly at least resembled a recognizable Spider-Man to me (which I now know was the intent).

And, despite my youth, I felt the painful slap of "Peter is a clone" just as much as anyone who'd been reading for 30 years. That was the first time that I quit reading present-day Spider-Man.

It's just been one thing after another--clones, deaths, resurrections, retcons, failed reboots (although I liked Chapter One for what it was--though it could never supplant Lee and Ditko's stories), and on and on. The mythology has become convoluted and implausible. I can't relate to what Spider-Man has become in recent years.

And very few stories within the past 15 years have lured me in, caused me to suspend disbelief, and made me pretend that the guy I've read about is the same Peter Parker from the 60s, 70s, or even 80s. I've become cognitively and emotionally disconnected with Spider-Man. The modern-day version just does not feel like the guy I've known and loved since I was a kid. He's like a stranger.

Even though there were variations in characterization, tone, etc., for the most part during the "good old days", Peter Parker still felt and acted like Peter Parker. While there were missteps along the way, the world of Spider-Man still felt like the world of Spider-Man, for the most part. For a good while, the illusion of change served the character, but he slowly drifted away from his roots. And then, beginning with the marriage, and accelerating with the domino effect of the various events in the 90s, Spider-Man mutated into something Not-Spider-Man.

It this point, I've spent literally more than half my life with the feeling that Spider-Man is off the rails.

And now, it seems that there's this impasse. The people who want growth and aging will be upset if the status quo is reset to a point resembling an earlier version (which it has been), and the people who prefer the earlier versions have been upset with the current, "evolved" state of the character. There's really no way to please both camps.

Of course, if Spider-Man hadn't "evolved" in the first place, then there probably wouldn't be two disparate camps to begin with.

Where will it go from here? Will the character slowly go down in flames? Can the mythology be restored in a way that will please most people? Or should The Last Spider-Man story be written, and the original version of the character retired (or rebooted from scratch--in which case, Ultimate Spider-Man would be the most liekly successor for the "real" Spider-Man)?

It just seems like this situation keeps getting weirder and more horrifying, with no end in sight. Where will it all lead, I wonder?

Have the Muppets changed to match their changing audience, or have they maintained the same demographic they started with? Same for Mickey. Same for Peanuts.

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Indeed.

What is it that makes comics so different from those other properties, whose fans "know their place", so to speak (and I don't mean to be harsh or insensitive to pro-change people by saying that)?

QUOTE: Would there really be much difference between an adult complaining about the continuity errors and lack of "growth in change" in, say, a new "Muppet" movie and an adult who feels the same way about a new storyline in the Spider-Man comic books?

Depends on how you look it:  No, since there's only so much aggression an adult should have regarding how a fictional character is handled.  Yes, since the two properties have historically been handled differently. 

It's not like Spider-Man has been in high school since day one, trying to get a date with Liz, fending off Flash Thompson, etc. while fighting supervillains in between homework assignment, and NOW fans are starting to complain that it's "getting old."  The status quo has been changing from the beginning (at various speeds) and the biggest complaint seems to be that folks simply didn't want the character arbitrarily rewound to a previous point by a frankly bizarre creative decision.

With a muppets movie, people are only concerned about the basic elements - Miss Piggy shouldn't be dating Gonzo for example.  Or if she is, that would be something to be explained in the movie.

I have observed these boards long enough to know that there are good number of Christians as members. SO, what do YOU think about OMD from the point of view of a Christian?

I'm a Christian and I think this another example of bad characterizations.  I have always hated how these "demonic" characters are written (Mephisto, Ghost Rider, Spawn etc.) because the writers seem to pick and choose when they want to follow the rules.  For the longest time Mephisto was not written to be the same as the biblical devil so it gave the writers freedom to fight Norse gods and silver aliens for their souls.  But once he is being protrayed as the biblical devil (he annulled the marriage to hurt God himself) then he has to be bound by the source materials.  I only get offended when writers portray biblical characters in ways that are not consistent with the text.  Some writers portray angels as murderers and give the Devil way more powers than the Bible does.  I have no problem with fiction, but if writers research mythology to write characters like Zeus and Thor accurately then they should do the same with biblical characters.