From the official solicitations for Amazing Spider-Man #581.
The Trouble with Harry" (or "Harry Osborn and the Chamber of Secrets")
It would sure help HARRY OSBORN if he could remember the completely logical, non-magical, and totally plausible way he came back from the dead. A skill like that could be useful, now that his ex-brother-in-law, THE MOLTEN MAN, is out to kill him!
Set your spider-sense to tingling as some of the most requested secrets from the time between ONE MORE DAY and BRAND NEW DAY are revealed. All this, and series regular, LIZ ALLEN returns to the pages of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, but is she here to help her ex-husband, or to throw more fuel on the fire? And in answer to more requests than you would believe: Little Normie!
Rated A ...$2.99
So, Marvel is finally going to sort out one of the big questions... "how did Harry get revived from the dead after his moving death in the classic J.M. DeMatteis story from Spectacular Spider-Man #200?" Hey that's great! Marvel have asked us to shut up and accept the Brand New Day changes, on the understanding that there really is an explanation behind it all, and we'll get to learn about it in good time.
"You're in safe hands," they say. "Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride," they say. "We know what' we're doing. We're the professionals and while it seems like we're just making change for the sake of change, rest assured that it's all part of a greater whole!" Or so they would have us believe.
Yep, Joe Q wants us to feel confident that this whole BND thing is something more than a "Push the Spider-Man Reset Button, dump the old fans and start again with the new generation of kids" exercise.
Nearly all the long-time Spidey collectors hate this idea of a "wave the magic wand and the last twenty years disappear". And while the explanations have been painfully slow in coming, some of us at least have been prepared to wait, trusting that Joe Q and the Spider-Man Brains Trust at least have something worthwhile planned. Something carefully considered. With solid depth and forethought. Surely?
Which is why postings like this one by an assistant editor Tom Brennan make most of us here at Spider-Fan very unhappy.
But I remember wondering what many of you have wondered (sometimes in profanity laced e-mails) — how did Harry Osborn come back to life?
...
To be honest, the Braintrust wasn't sure yet.
...
That's what made some of the early anger about "Brand New Day" so funny to me — most of the complaints were over story points we simply hadn't revealed yet. But yeah, in some cases we weren't sure.
This is a real kick in the guts, and shows just how far Marvel has become detached from their long-suffering Spider-Man fan base. We're all upset because of this massive reinvention of our beloved character. We're complaining because it seems to be arbitrary, unnecessary, and completely illogical.
And Marvel's response here is: "Why are you whining about an ill-considered and shoot-from-the hip flip-flopping reinvention? How can you moaners say it's a thoughtless knee-jerk, reactionary mistake? We at Marvel haven't even decided what on earth what's going on yet!"
Pardon my acronyms. But... Z-O-M-F-G.
This is our worst nightmare. They're just making this up as they go along. Bring major characters back to life and figure out the details later?
There is no big plan. There is no underlying explanation. It is just a "push the reset button and then we'll make something up when we get around to it.
Well, we've seen the Spider-Man reset. We've seen the BND issues of ASM in the 50c bins. We've seen the variant covers flooding the market. If you close your eyes and squint, it looks just like John Byrne, Howard Mackie, and the late 90's all over again.