I didn't say Spidey should show up in Thor. Just that a minor reference to Asgard being in Manhattan could be made in in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man. 

I repeat, with emphasis, bullshit.

(It almost was. I planned to do is as an XHY annual, if we ever got one.)

Myself, tho, I think we should put a MATURE sticker on CASPER. It's about a dead baby for chrissake! Who would let kids read that!?! And don't even get me started on HOT STUF!!

"I have never had someone explain to me why it was important to them that an issue of Fantastic Four acknowledge the events in Iron Man."

For me, at least, it's all about suspension of disbelief.  If you establish that Fantastic Four and Iron Man all take place in the same reality in, roughly, the same time period you should at least make some effort to consistently observe that fact.

Example, if Tony Stark hands over the job of Iron Man to someone else in his comic, Stark as Iron Man shouldn't show up in an issue of Fantastic Four unless there's some in-story or editorial explanation for that.  Everytime something like that happens with no explanation, it pulls me out of the story.  When Kang takes over and enslaves the entire planet and that goes on for months in AVENGERS, but every other comic based in the same reality and supposedly occuring at the same time ignores the whole thing, it's hard to emotionally invest in the AVENGERS storyline when every other comic you're reading is telling you that nothing going on there is really important.

Mike

"We, as fans, shouldn't EXPECT those references."

When a publisher makes those sorts of references a long-standing tradition in their books, long-time fans can have a reasonable expectation for those references to continue.

Mike 

 Magpie shoves a stick of dynamite in the mouth of one of her goons who needs to be "punished", as her other goons cry "No, Boss! Not 'Happy Birthday'!"

***

Wow. I read that at 9 years old. 

JB, I will be sending my psychiatrist's bill to you, should I incur any.