Okay, so
the Marvel Powers on High (that means you Q) decided that it was time to retcon
Spidey.
Why? I mean, sure, they decided to unmask him during Civil War to suck audiences in with the hook “What the heck are they gonna do in the aftermath with Parker’s big reveal?” I think the general comic audience were more intrigued with the ramifications of this little nugget to their favorite wallcrawler than anything else from the Civil War run (of course until Cap’s death). They essentially had the perfect set-up to pose the question comic readers have always asked of our masked adventurer’s “What happens when you’re covers blown to the world?”
Granted, to tread into the aftermath of this pivitol character event and attempt to salvage the core of what makes Spidey unique in comics would have been as difficult as traversing a mine field blindfolded, but for this beloved character a real effort should have been made. Im my opinion, they should have attempted to plot-out an alternative solution to bring Spidey back to the status-quo in his existing continuity or go boldly into waters unknown and take a crack at the impossible – have him move forward unmasked rather than gimmick retcons to solve gimmick device problems they created when unmasking him. Sure, it would have taken a lot of brain power and time to conceive of resolutions to his unmasking that wouldn’t have come off as gimmicky (see Doc Strange, Xavier and a host of others mindwipers) but a full blown retcon, using Mesphisto? Lame.
To me that just screams intellectual laziness. It reminds me of the niavete of some scribes to butcher the past to sell the books (or merchandise) in the present without any thoughts of the ramifications on the future of the titles or their stewardship of such icons. Now, I’m not going to begrudge any company from making a buck, but there are always options to taking such foolhardy actions.
You had a multiverse of options as publishers (see Ultimate Spidey for example) if you needed to make things fresh to draw new readers. The equity of continuity is a precious commodity. By retconning Spidey, you are haphazardly dismissing the audience’s investment in the character(s) development and relationships we’ve read religiously over the years (See Hal Jordan/Parallax). While your “New Classic Spidey” may dispell our emotional reactions as readers over time, it does not assuage you of the guilt that you should have for not putting more thought into the ramifications of your actions. I guess we'll have to leave up to some genius writer in the future to clean up after your errors in judgment in ways that you just don't have the capacity to now.
