How about we lighten the mood after all that nasty business by enjoying some stories about your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man? There's so many places we could start! There's the Clone Saga, where it was revealed that Peter Parker was actually a clone of the original Spidey, who went by the name of Ben Reilly and replaced the Pete we'd grown up with for a couple of years. Then there's Sins Past, where we discovered that Peter's tragic girlfriend Gwen Stacy had had an affair and given birth to children with her eventual murderer Norman Osborn? Oh oh how about One More Day, where Peter and Mary Jane sold their marriage to the devil? It's a dark running joke in the comics that Spidey can never catch a break in either his personal or superheroic dealings, and the same is true for his fans. Over the past couple of decades especially they have had to contend with some gloriously misjudged editorial decisions, perhaps the worst being the undoing of his and MJ's marriage in a storyline that was almost as maligned as the retcon it put into place. Marvel don't seem to be getting the hint that people hate when they muck around with the wall crawler, though, as the recent Superior Spider-Man arc - which saw a dying Doctor Octopus swap brains with his arch-nemesis, then committing to becoming a better hero than he ever could - will attest to. Still, controversy leads to increased sales, and that's all that really matters.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
