And from what I recall about the Spider-Man books in those 40 issues before One More Day were fans still complaining about how Peter Parker was constantly being written out of character.
Sins Past, The Other, and the Unmasking. I remember very vividly many fans voicing how Peter was totally out of character. He would never have spikes shoot out from his wrists. He would have never unmasked. He would never have been that stupid.
The fact of the matter is there are fans that, no matter what the creators do, will never be happy with the direction of the book. Very rarely on these boards have I seen fans on here collectively agree that a Spider-Man book was good.
I've enjoyed the direction of the book since Brand New Day. It's had a very old school Spider-Man feel to it that makes me excited to pick up the book every week.
Maybe one day soon you will be able to pick up the book again and be able to enjoy Spider-Man. As another poster said earlier in the thread. They are not going to be changing things anytime soon. Peter is not going to be magically married to Mary Jane again. That's just the way it is.
You are right, in the past couple of the years even before pre-OMD there was a lot of mischaracterization,
but I openly argue that this was more the fault of the storylines in question. Stuff like The Other and Unmasking were just bad ideas and awful directions for Spidey. That's something that I think most Spidey fans will agree to.
However, there is a big difference between
slight mischaracterization and
radical mischaracterization. I've used this example before as I find it accurate. Around 10-15 years ago, Hal Jordan went insane and murdered his own allies and friends. This was a
radical mischaracterization. Now, I could care less about Hal Jordan and I actually liked his replacement way better then I ever liked him, but I still recognize just how big of a WTF moment it was. His fans were up in arms, even formed their own group called H.E.A.T. Sure, over the years it died down, but it was still something that came up in discussion pretty much until Hal returned to main GL status.
Spidey and MJ making a deal with a being that they both knew was probably the most evil in the Marvel Universe for a woman who had repeatedly let them know that she wanted to die was a
radical mischaracterization. Whether you agree with the outcome or not, it's really not that hard to see just how off the wall that is.
Of course, part of the reason was the real agenda behind it, but how they went about it wasn't just out of character, it was a totally different character taking the place of Peter and MJ. Just like it was a totally different character taking the place of Hal Jordan when he turned heel. Sure, it's just fiction, but we should all realize that most hardcore fans treat it as more then just mindless, throwaway entertainment. Especially those who go out of their way to regulate boards like these.
It's true that we'll never see full unity of fans on franchise directions, but it's easy to recognize the reason why OMD has been so controversial and why it continues to pop up in discussions.
