> > I do believe he was wrong in certain respects but from what I've read I've earned a newfound respect for the man.
>
> A question, just out of general curiosity: if JMS had gone ahead with his planned way of undoing the marriage, where he would retcon things way back during Amazing #ninetysomething in such a way that it would undo the death of Harry, Gwen, Peter's relationship with Felicia, with MJ, the marriage and everything that's happened since 1971, would you still say you have this newfound respect for him?

Not liking his story ideas doesn't mean that there's no respect. The answer to your question is No, I would not have cared for that story idea. We know JMS' script isn't what Quesada expected or wanted. It most likely still would have involved some deal with Mephisto and it would have been a black eye on the character of Peter Parker. What really stands out to me is that there was only these two options, which I would certainly classify as a lose-lose propostion.

I admire JMS' conviction and request to have his name taken off the last two issues of OMD. He clearly didn't agree with the way Marvel didn't want to do things in the end. His name is forever attached to this storyline and if it wasn't the story he wanted then he had every right to ask for his credit to be removed. He responded only after Quesada began his CBR interviews. He's a professional and he takes a certain pride in his work. And while his idea for the resolution was no better in theory than the actual ending we never will get to see it executed, so no one can truly say if it would have been better or worse. I enjoy JMS' work on Thor and have heard good things about The Twelve, which I may check out. For quite some time I've vocalized my dislike of his Spider-man work but that doesn't mean I don't respect him as a writer. The conversation he had with Newsarama in which he revealed Marvel's philosophy just to attribute everything to "magic" was both hysterical and eye-opening and I applaud his decision to come forward and defend his own position.