Kenny Jacobs of Nuclear Comics & Skate in Laguna Niguel, California saw the commentary on the 'One More Day' storyline (see 'Sharpening the Sword--The OMD Fiasco') and is also frustrated with Marvel's editorial decisions that regularly erase character histories:

With all of the opinions flying over the Amazing Spidey re-start, it's just typical Marvel.  It is completely irresponsible for Peter Parker to make a deal with the devil.  No man on this planet would take his geriatric aunt over his beautiful wife, it just would not happen and it's completely stupid on every level.  I agree that the character of Spider-Man is much better off with out a wife, but at the same time Aunt May is three times as annoying and just as bad as a wife, for the character.  It's the memory of his Uncle Ben that drives Peter, not the constant complaining from his eternally dying aunt.

But, none of those trivial things tick me off more than Marvel's recent trend of erasing history with zero explanation.  I am not a strict continuity guy; I feel that being too strict with continuity puts creative handcuffs on the writers, so there's a fine line when dealing with continuity.  But with Marvel, there is no line.  Fans buy comics, get emotionally and monetarily invested in big stories like Civil War, Spider-Man unmasked, Captain America dies, Aunt May dies (again), Colossus dies, Silver Surfer is dead, only to have Marvel just pretend this stuff never happened?!   I understand that some of this stuff is story driven but most of it is just re-written like it never happened, like the most recent event with Spider-Man making a deal with the devil and erasing large chunks of Spider-Man history including the biggest Spider-Man story in the last 20 years, the unmasking of Spider-Man.  In comics terms, this just happened yesterday, now all of a sudden his identity is secret all over again?  Did the writing staff over at Marvel run out of story ideas containing an unmasked Spidey?  I think that there were maybe two or three story lines in the Amazing Spidey book after Spidey was unmasked and it's over already? I'm not a writer but I'd say that guys over at Marvel really dropped the ball here.  I don't think fans had even settled in to the idea of an unmasked Spidey and now they never will.

Boiled down, my major point is, why should I continue to read these stories when Marvel is just going to pretend, at a later date, that the story I read didn't happen?  How many times are customers supposed to accept this before they get sick of it and simply say, 'It's just not worth buying.'

Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, will be back because Marvel does not make a movie with out the character currently in print. So although Steve Rogers is dead now he will be back.  Now let's hope Marvel can come up with a good story to complement his non-death, rebirth or resurrection.

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.