Sweet Jesus, Gregg, I don't think I've ever encountered anyone on this forum who works so hard at being deliberately obtuse as you do. People watch The Simpsons because it's funny, not because it's interesting? The Simpsons, along with other FICTIONAL characters like Archie, have been around for years without aging a single day, and the bulk of their audience has NO problem with that.

You don't see Archie fans bitching that Archie isn't out of high school and married to Veronica. You don't see stories about Betty f*#$(ing Mr. Lodge and getting pregnant. My mom likes to buy the occassional Archie digest--single issue stories that feature the characters as they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago. If people like you are bored with that concept, then YOU are the ones with problem, and you need to move on. Why do you think Peter Parker became the biggest sensation in comics? Because when the audience was made up of its intended base, the average reader could relate to a teenager (same as when Captain Marvel was the biggest seller of his day--Billy Batson was an everyman).

And are you seriously comparing Speedball to Spider-Man? No one here is claiming that being a teenager is a guaranteed sales boost. But being a teenager was the CORE of Spider-Man, an important part of him that was lost when Martin Goodman insisted that Stan Lee move Peter Parker into college. The current Marvel Adventures line has helped restore Spider-Man back to his roots--single, done in one storylines, with no "change and growth." If you miss an issue, it doesn't matter, because you'll be back in the same place next month, without missing a beat.

And you folks who weren't quite bright enough to grasp the L&O analogy--Jesus wept. "You can't compare L&O to comics--comics don't have commercials!"

Sad, sad, sad.

QUOTE: But being a teenager was the CORE of Spider-Man, an important part of him that was lost when Martin Goodman insisted that Stan Lee move Peter Parker into college.

But this is what I don't get.  That happened in Amazing Spider-Man #28.  You're saying the "real" Spider-Man has been without his "core" for 93% of his existence?  Heck, based on what I've heard, that was even before he became Marvel's flagship character (which occured during the Romita Sr period).

I can understand thinking that Marvel wasted the potential of a high schooling superhero, but saying the character has been "wrong" ever since to me is like complaining how the Batman books have been "broken" since Alfred showed up 4 years in or how Superman "should never have found out that he was a Kryptonian."  (Took about 10 years for that one.)  Personal preference aside, it's hard to call them "mistakes" at this late a date since the characters seem to have done okay in the interim.

QUOTE: Why do you think Peter Parker became the biggest sensation in comics?

Because he graduated from High School apparently...

QUOTE: The current Marvel Adventures line has helped restore Spider-Man back to his roots--single, done in one storylines, with no "change and growth."

As much I like the Marvel Adventures stuff, have you ever actually read the original series?  He got a job in #2, a girlfriend in #7, which got a little more serious until it suffered a major setback in #11 that it never quite recovered from, lost his glasses in #8, had a girl go from constantly rejecting him in AF #15 to finally agreeing to a date in #4 to chasing after him by #17 (which was the beginning of a three part story), etc.  These aren't "change the direction of the series" changes by any means, but you can't say they don't show a gradual evolution in the characters.

QUOTE: And you folks who weren't quite bright enough to grasp the L&O analogy--Jesus wept.

Hey, I explained why I didn't think it worked.  If you can show me some examples where Amazing Spider-Man was consistently "done in one" with ZERO continuing threads from issue to issue (ala Law and Order far more often than not), I'll be happy to change my tune.

Maybe he should have been named "Spider-Teen" instead of "Spider-Man"

Sorta like the Legion of Superheroes all being "boys" or "girls" or "lads" ... can't age those, can we?

QUOTE: Fans are willing to play along, such as in the new "Captain America" issues, but if there was a chance that the changes were permanent, there would be outrage.

I've seen some people ticked off at the idea that Steve Rogers might be coming back...  I'd be surprised if he didn't, but mainly because Ed Brubaker's initial interview made it seem to me like this story was more "Death of Superman" than "Death of Gwen Stacy."

It really makes me think about the market, though.  A constant complaint is that the biggest problem with the current market is that there are far too many "long time fans" percentagewise.  But without those long term fans, who are more attached to The Way Things Were (generally), you'd see a lot less outrage at the idea of replacing title characters. 

The reason that the Green Lantern revamp back in 1960 had a fair chance to go over well was because there had been a publishing gap of 9 years between his first appearance and Alan's last and enough of the old time fans had moved onto other things.  Nowadays, we don't move on, so even if there HAD been a gap of 9 years between GL books (and he didn't end up as a back-up series in Flash...), a new GL book without Hal Jordan would cause a fit.

Of course, that's where the new readers come into play.  With enough of those, all you need are "good stories" to keep the book going.  Without 'em, longtimer shit fits have more of a chance of influencing reality.  Even more so because it seems like it's only a matter of time before a "fan turned pro" starts pushing to "fix things" (i.e., get them back to where they were when they were kids).

So it goes.

Your examples of Batman and Superman are way off. They don't make any substantial changes to the character, do they? And it wasn't so much Peter going off to college that changed the character; more that it was the first step down a slippery slope. Then he had to graduate college. Then on to grad school. Then marriage. Then a child.

And Spider-Man became Marvel's official flagship character during the Romita years? Didn't know there was an official demarkation point. Spider-Man was a big seller right out of the gate, pal. He was popular DESPITE getting a bit older than his target audience, not because of it. And Stan Lee, once Ditko was gone, seemed to forget what made the character work so well. After giving up on trying to get Romita Sr to stop drawing Peter as handsome, Lee started WRITING Peter as a hunk, with MJ and Gwen fawning over him. I love the Romita years, too, but his version of Peter was not the same guy as Ditko's.

And you're still missing the L&O analogy. Back in the day, even with ongoing subplots and the occasional two-parter, comics were still easily jumped in to by new/casual readers. Peter may have had trouble in his relationships with Betty and Liz, but you got caught up to speed and were good to go. Today's comics, though, are more like LOST--if you haven't been paying attention all along, you WILL be lost (and in many cases, even if you have been paying attention).

It's been argued by some of the pro-marrage advocates that Mr. Byrne and others are saying that kids don't want to read about adult superheroes.

This is missing the point.

Sure, kids can read about adult superheroes.

But Spider-Man was created as a teenage super-hero, and this was a huge part of his appeal and a key aspect of his characterization and life circumstances.

Reading about adult superheroes who were conceived and introduced as adults from day one is fine, but Spider-Man was introduced as a teenager, and reading about an adult Spider-Man is a very different experience involving a very different character.