Picking up a Spider-Man comic after ten years or so can throw you into (minor) turmoil: you are looking into a retro '60s style of story where Parker is struggling with the same aggravating job/personal life situation he faced back then - which for me at least looks rather irrelevant in the '00s. Following what prompted the change, I started reading Joe Quesada's interview at the end of the volume (penciller + Marvel editor-in-chief) and it hit me at some point mid-through. This is not about Spider-Man or aunt May or Mary Jane, of course. This is about the death of the '80s: how all these things that were running through you when you were reading SM then (the studies, the girlfriends/boyfriends, the job, your friends, your favorite books, your favorite team) were done or off somewhere else, were memories, were past. And erasing the marriage between MJ and Peter Parker along with erasing their storylines was also erasing your memory in some subtle way, telling you it was time to forget all this, forget the Hobgoblin, forget Doctor Oc, forget waiting for next Tuesday for the orange and black-and-white pages, forget your 15-year-old self, forget the '80s. And grow up. Violently.
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