Is this the problem with Marvel Comics?
I wish I was more of a comics scholar to say this with confidence but I'm thinking that Marvel may currently have fallen into a rut that is similar to what DC fell into way back between the Golden and Silver Ages(and even into the early Silver Age with Batman). Superman was contstantly trying to teach "lessons" to his friends and teammates which these days is known as Superdickery. Batman faced increasingly outlandish problems that he never the less had the answers to, whether from esoteric knowledge or something from his utiltity belt.
Even thought Marvel seems obsessed with changes they're also quite intent on writing certain characters exactly the same.
Spiderman has to have tons of personal problems that drag on his mind in his fights. In fact they're willing to take insane steps to take away the good things in his life. And as the problems of being a superhero get increasingly worse in the Marvel Universe so to do Peter Parker's personal problems get worse and worse.
Perhaps, they think this makes him seem less self absorbed, but there comes a point where the problems of the outside world are so bad that no matter how bad your life is your problems pale in comparison. The MU has reached that point. Peter has reached a point where if things are so bad for him, then it's time to take a vacation or even retire. Even police officers and soldiers end up doing that if they experience to much trauma. Hell, they're forced to. To bad that Marvel has destroyed his personal life to the point there's no one around to be a temporary Spiderman, something characters like Iron Man, Thor, Cap, almost all of them experience. But there's more heroes than ever, even if he doesn't like their philosphy and the public has declared they think the greatest responsibilty for Marvel heroes is submit to the government.
Tony Stark seems to me to always climbing to the top of the mountain just to fall back off again. He also tries to be a leader, but never ends up doing a good job of it. He also tries to manipulate things so he comes out right(an Irondickery equivalent of Superdickery, perhaps) As I recall it was revealed that in the early days of the Avengers he wanted Hulk on the team so they could keep an eye on him. He ends up fighting them. His faking his death led to problems with Jim Rhodes. And of course theres the problems of Civil War. Although the steps he took to get the SHRA passed have only really damaged him to the reading audience since they're mostly secret. Some of Stark's most extreme actions which led to him creating and leading Force Works have actually already been retconned out of existence.
Right now Marvel seems to be taking these histories and mixing them. He's currently the most important superhuman in the MU, but he's constantly being beaten by Thor, by the Hulk, embarrassed by the New Warriors, having his Illuminati idea be a massive failure that allowed the Skrull to invade; maybe even encouraged, he gets Captain America. In the end they don't finish him off for some reason or another and he goes back to his original position, tries to fix things up, and waits for his next humiliation. Quite simply Marvel has him at the top of the mountain, as a leader, and instead of writing his inevitable fall and his failure as leader they have him stumbling down and righting himself and maintaining his position. This allows them to continually write his fall without ever have craft his rise. In fact creating uplifting stories is something Marvel isn't doing much of these days.
Each of the Fantastic Four is trapped in this delimma to a degree. Reed Richards constantly more disconnected from people. Most writers use this to build to a point where he shows or rediscovers how much his family means to him. However this is usually at the end of the run and the next writer returns to the Reed is out of touch plot leaving his disconnected moments overwhelming his loves his family moments.
Ben suffers from a similar problem, with the writers. Each writer wants to tell their version of his story, so the writer that allows him to transform from Thing to Ben forms is overruled by the writer who wants to talk about how tortured he is to be trapped in that rocky body who is overruled by the writer who shows how well adjusted he is to this life.
Sue is constantly shown as a mother figure, but fortunately they often get to different aspects of that character. Plus I consider being a loving person who looks out for others a positive thing. At times we'll see her lose her temper as loved ones are threatened and get dangerous; at times we'll see her trying to get beyond people's problems, reaching out to them. Currently she's involved in a charity group with several other superheroines.
These days Johnny is often seen as immature. Previous attempts to mature him are simply ignored. While he'll sometime get a Reed/Ben moment and see him move beyond it other times we'll see him make a few immature statements early and then be limited to fight scenes. In an MU where people are supposed to be tormented by choices or the lack there of, I guess there isn't much to do with a good looking guy who thinks being a superhero is cool.
I won't list all the potential examples. There's to many. But there is one other big one. The public of the MU. After "hating and fearing" mutants for decades, it turns out there are some willing to kill mutants even after they're de-powered. Their remarkably short attention spans allows them to forget things like the Kang War, to focus on incidents like Stamford. And of course they're willing to place the blame on the people trying to stop the supervillains, instead of the supervillains themselves. Perhaps the government in the MU has been able to keep the infiltrations of the Red Skull secret, though it's hard to imagine things wouldn't be leaked as conspiracy theories, at least. So maybe it's not unthinkable they'd turn to the government to help. But it's hard to beleive they'd accept people like the Thunderbolts as heroes as opposed to Captain America. Over time the people of the MU have become so hateful it's hard to see how they deserve the protection of superheroes, many of whom are depicted as sacrificing greatness to help them.
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