10 Unpopular Comic Book Character Reboots (That Were Actually Perfect)

Marvel's infamous Civil War storyline isn't nearly as bad as some of its detractors would like to believe, but it didn't even come close to living up to the potential it had. One of its fatal flaws was a tendency to shoot off on tangents that distracted from the central conflict, the most famous of which was Spider-Man revealing his secret identity to the world in accordance with the hero registration program that Iron Man's faction backed.

Obviously, the fallout from such an action was massive and had a huge impact on the Spider-Man comic line that lasted longer than the Civil War story. And since that was causing a lot of problems for the writers, they resorted to a tried and true method of getting out of a narrative corner: total and abrupt retcon.

After Aunt May was shot, Peter encountered the demon Mephisto who made a deal with him that saved Aunt May and restored his secret identity at the cost of his marriage to Mary Jane Watson.

If that one-sentence recap seems lackluster and jolting, that's because the story was too. Fans immediately raged against the story as a lazy excuse for writers to reset the Spider-Man status quo. But time has shown that to be nothing but a good thing. After all, Spider-Man is not a character that was meant to evolve or grow from his wimpy but endearing high-school persona and reseting his secret identity revamped the tension and stakes in his story.