Spider-Man Calls A Press Conference

they undid it later, it's a gimmick

There a million freakin' story-lines and alternate realities for Marvel to sift through for movie ideas. I haven't read anything about the civil war you talk about, but I doubt that anyone will contest what you're saying. I mean, if they do - all they have to do is go back and look at the Marvel Universe where everyone was a zombie, or maybe where Apocolypse actually won! Btw, Spidey makes a pretty wicked zombie. I just found out about that story line, and apparently it's already old news. You see what I mean? Movies like Spider Man and X-Men can only stick to a few premises that run the engine of the movie. Otherwise we'd wind up with movies titled Spider Man 45: Spidey vs Aunt May, or XXX (X-Men 30, you perverse people). Lord knows we don't need another XXX - do you hear me Vin?! The same goes for any superhero flick. These things are meant to span Generations, and beyond. So, if he unmasks himself to the public it's not really a gimic, it's just a sped timeline, I guess.

One might call spider-man giving up his identity as a gimmick, but those people probably havn't read the comics or are not familiar with the cival war storyline. Under the circumstances of the writing(which was top notch) it had more to do with propelling the character of parker and the spider-man series, but of course those unfamiliar will just say I am full of bullshit