Okay, let's see. Over the past fifty years, Spider-Man has battled:
And the beat goes on.
It's really no wonder that the latest Jack O'Lantern (working for the latest Crime Master) claims to have killed the others that have used that alias "to clean up the brand." A new criminal to adapt an old name is fine, but really? A half dozen people? As a reader, I see a new villain with an old "noms de guerre" and think "Darn this is getting confusing. Which guy is this?" Then we have the inevitable unmasking of this new bad guy and it turns out to be a long dead character, back from the grave. After a while, it just gets silly and uncreative.
Then again, let's look at the brand spankin' new villains that Spidey has been dealing with since Brand New Day began: Mister Negative, Freak, Paper Doll, Menace, Vin Gonzales and Dexter Bennett. None of them made a great impression on readers. It seemed that Marvel editorial was so eager to get rid of them that they walked off the comic panel, never to be seen again.
I really don't know what to make of all of this. We fans say we want something new, but new characters crash and burn. Yet we cant help rolling our eyes at yet another re-hashed bad guy. Have all the good ideas been used? Does Marvel need to hire better writers? Do we as fans not know what we want?
Let me know what you think.