brevoortformspring:

Yes. Sure.

But that’s “The Fans”> Not “Some fans”, not “a bunch of vocal internet fans”, not “all of the people I talk to in my local comic shop.”

Every fan feels strongly about his or her own opinion, that much is certain. But you only need to look around this page with your eyes open to see that most opinions are not universally held—and even on basic questions, there are fans who feel differently all across the spectrum. So it’s not even as simple as just black or white.

Also, there is Mark Gruenwald’s very excellent, very correct credo: “Give teh fans what they want, not what they think they want.” If we’d “listened to the fans” as you say, SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN would never have happened, or would have been hastily and artificially reversed in an issue or so. But now that the story is over, we’ve seen dozens of fans all saying that they had hated it at the start, but having run its course, they now love it. So those fans would have been deprived that experience if we reacted in haste to what they seemed to be saying.

There is one ting that is certain: you can find fans who hate every single comic book we’ve ever published. As a storyteller, you can’t be paralyzed by that.