DoomRulz said:
The impression I get is that people aren't against OMD, the Clone Saga, and other stories. Rather it's more end result than anything else. Am I right?
When I was following the Clone Saga, I was interested in what role Ben Reilly had to play. When it was "revealed" that Ben was the "original" and Peter was the "Clone," I shook my head and groaned at the ridiculousness of it. And when Ben took over as Spider-Man, I was really hoping that the real one would come back and that Marvel wouldn't be stupid enough to try and make this stick (although, I must admit, I thought the new Spider-Man costume and impact webbing were really cool, and Kaine was a very in-depth villain). In hindsight, the whole Clone Saga was part of a larger trend in comics at the time in which both companies thought they could revitalize their franchises by substituting long-time heroes with cooler versions of them. Isn't it interesting that none of the "revamped" versions lasted?
With One More Day/Brand New Day, it was pretty obvious where Marvel was going to eliminate the marriage of Peter and Mary Jane; the whole unmasking stunt (and it proved to be just that) was when the writing was on the wall. Not that I was opposed to the idea of having Peter single again, because I do believe he's a much more interesting character when he is not just single but also a college student (ideally, Spider-Man should be about the same age or a few years older than Robin IMO). However, it was the way it was done that was incredibly stupid and shortsighted. I mean, come on! You have your flagship character, one that is actively marketed to kids, whom you want younger and younger readers to read and what do you do? You have him guilt-trip his wife in making a bargain with Mephisto--who is either Satan or the epitome of evil, take your pick--in which said villain completely benefits. And all to save the life of his Aunt in a scenario which made Peter come across as not only needy, unable to deal with the reality of death, but also with a serious Oedipus Complex. What's even more ridiculous is that, even if they felt the marriage limited the character, the fact is that, because of the marriage, a very successful movie franchise, and a variety of other Spider-Man related media--including the comic books--Mary Jane is now regarded by even people who do not read the comics as Peter's "true love" and Marvel has actively promoted her as such. Any relationship Peter gets into now is only going to be seen as an obstacle until he gets back with MJ, whether they are married or not, especially since Joe Quesada has gone on record saying that marriage is off the table, which means any relationship Peter has is doomed to never go past the dating stage.
Plus, as a result, we also got a reboot which Marvel claims isn't a reboot, despite the fact that you have Harry Osborn back from the dead, the return of the webshooters, Aunt May's house intact, etc. Couple this with the claim that Peter and MJ still had a relationship but weren't married, that people still remember Spider-Man unmasked, but no one knows who he is anymore, and that he's been inactive for months, and Marvel has only ended up creating confusion as well as anger amongst it's fan base and probably the "new readers" they're trying to attract. In short, rather than just going with a full reboot because they knew it would interfere with all kinds of comics outside of Spider-Man, they took the half-assed route and ended up doing precisely what they wanted to avoid.
Both examples were both motivated by the same thing: to make Peter Parker as close to what he was to when Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, and John Romita were working on the comic out of a misguided sense of nostalgia. And the end result is the same: trying to both keep continuity intact while at the same scrapping or altering years worth of stories in order to make things fit and creating a bigger mess than what they had to begin with. Guess no one pays attention to the adage, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions," or "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
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Ya, no argument there 
