No, you actually can replace Peter Parker with Patty Parker -- you just can't replace him with her and then expect everyone to immediately transfer their love of Peter Parker to Patty Parker and like her as much as they liked Peter and call them sexist if they don't.

The real problem here, I think, is that Thor fans care about Thor the character, not Thor as a title -- and Thor fans don't really see Thor as a title either, but rather as an actual name.

Let's talk about Miles Morales for a minute. I have a complete run of Ultimate Spider-Man, and I continue to collect it. When I first started reading Ultimate Spider-Man I brought a lot of my existing love for Spider-Man to the comic, and was excited to see a new spin on things. But it also had to be good. And it was better than good, it was possibly the best comic ever published. The first 100 issues of Ultimate Spider-Man are definitely better written than the first 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man, if less original (since they are mostly reimaginings of the stories told in Amazing).

So then it was announced that Peter Parker was going to die. I remember when I heard that my stomach turned into a knot. The issues leading up to it were amazing. When Peter actually dies, it was...it was the perfect death for Peter Parker. And not for one moment did the death of Ultimate Peter Parker feel like a cheap ploy to get Peter off-stage and replace him. It felt real and meaningful and a natural end to the story.

Then the story introduced Miles Morales, showed his origin, showed how he was very different than Peter, how he didn't have anyone telling him "with great power..." And then it showed how the death of Peter Parker affected him, how it changed his perspective. And it showed the long, slow road to becoming a hero.

And perhaps most importantly, it hung a lampshade on what was happening by making a running gag out of people commenting on how it demonstrated incredibly poor taste for Miles to run around being Spider-Man. Bendis did an amazing job of showing how emotionally difficult it was for Miles to become Spider-Man, how he struggled with the question of "Am I honoring what Peter did, or am I pissing all over his legend?"

And here's the thing: Peter Parker isn't coming back. Not in the Ultimate Universe. It would shit all over that amazing death, and the whole established tone of the comic, to bring him back. It's Miles' story now.

It's so different than this Thor nonsense, where Thor is casually brushed aside, and a new female Thor is brought in -- but we don't know who she is, or why were supposed to care about her. It's just "Thor is a girl now. Embrace the new Thor. Failure to conform will result in shaming."