I didn't gain any new respect for the creative genius of Joe Quesada. I thought the "deal with the devil" he concocted to erase the memory of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's wedding (from 1987) was poorly thought out and did real damage to the Spider-Man franchise - both in character development (what "hero" would make a selfish deal with the devil?) and by disrespecting the history of the character and fanbase (who really cares about serial story telling if the creators don't honour even the spirit of the "serial"?).
"One Moment in Time" re-visits that terrible storyline to close up loose ends, but tends to open up wounds. The "revision" might have been a better story than the original, had it been originally written that way, as it removes the Mephisto bargain. However, to heal the damage, it is not strong enough.
I understand the differences in outlook between creators, who want to make their mark, and fans, who need to have a continuity in the character and appreciate references to earlier events. However, I think the balance is currently out of whack. Storylines are being designed for trade paperback re-printing (e.g. 4-6 issues), which is fine, but illustrates that the focus is not on long-term character development, but focused on shorter individual storylines.
I think the writers need to acknowledge that the reason Spider-Man or other mainstream characters are only interesting to write because they have a distinctive character and history. Treating these characters as "independent" to be used to further the short-term storyline might be fun, and might create a nice six-story arc, but ultimately kills the character by fragmenting the history and the consistency. With Spider-Man alone, in recent years he was retconned to be part of a historic "spider-cult", giving him new powers and changing his basic "everyman" origins, his first real girlfriend Gwen Stacy was retroactively given a storyline wherein she willingly slept with Norman Osborn (the Green Goblin) and secretly had twins, before her untimely death at the hands of the Green Goblin in the early '70s and most recently, Spider-Man revealed his identity to the world.
All of these stories would be great as mini-series (e.g. out of continuity stories) - except the Sins Past Gwen Stacy story which never should have seen the light of day.
Several times Marvel has created alternate titles for this very reason - allowing new interpretations of characters in their own sandbox - Ultimate Universe is a great example of that. However, the "real playground" is the mainstream 'Amazing Spider-Man' and the radicals want to play there. Here is where the corporate voice should be strong - playing with the corporate character has consequences - adhering to continuity and not making permanent, radical changes to the character (unless they are part of the long-term strategy of the character). Radical storylines and significant departures from the existing fabric need to be kept separate. Change that "works" in these storylines could later be adopted into the mainstream books, but on a pace and direction of the mainstream titles.
I've been a reader of comics pretty steadily since the mid 70s. I'm not arguing for a fixed continuity that monitors and needs to keep track of every detail, but a recognition that the stories are part of a series - that is the strength of the medium. Time dilation is needed (otherwise Peter Parker would be in his late 60's), and there is no need to be fixed to keeping all details of a 50 year series of comics. I think seminal events need to be maintained as they are character building points (e.g. death of Uncle Ben, death of Gwen Stacy, the marriage of Peter and MJ), and the past 4 or 5 years of stories need to be treated as gospel, given that that is really the recent past for the characters. Stories older than 4 or 5 years can be gradually faded from continuity, but I suppose never completely erased (e.g. if he fought somebody, he probably should remember, but I think lesser characters could be updated or refined without a great loss of integrity).
I'd call this process "soft continuity", which should keep both fans and creative-types happy. It will maintain a continuous character development environment, without creating a need for a PhD in spider-lore to write stories.
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