"Don't worry. This happens all the time."

Question: When comic characters, quite understandably, take into account the fact that they tend to end up back at the status quo when looking at the "earth shattering changes" in their lives, does it cheapen the story's effectiveness?

I mean, look at all the crap that's happened to Spider-Man. How many times have things "never been the same again" shortly before becoming the same again? There was that time when he he was convinced he was a clone of Peter Parker. And the time he got weird spider totem mystical powers. The dozen times he burned his costume and swore never to be Spider-Man again. The other dozen times when foes and friends, from Norman Osborn and Doctor Octopus to Aunt May and his parents, have died and come back to life.¹ He always seems to end up at a comfortable status quo with the same basic supporting cast and the same basic rogues gallery. I'm not necessarily faulting the idea, I mean, that's what readers want to read about. What I'm saying is, when one of these "earth shattering" events take place, can we really blame Peter Parker for saying "That's a shock... but I'm not 100% convinced."

It's only natural, right? I'm something of a "past events should have a significant effect on the present," so I should be behind this. And yet... is it as entertaining? Say Harry Osborn dies. Is it going to be more dramatic for Peter to grieve and rage and whatever you do when a good friend dies, or would we prefer him to be paranoid about it? It makes sense, but every time something status quo-shaking happens, the only reaction is going to be reasoned paranoia. I mean... it's boring, right?

Perhaps its all in the writing style. Take Ed Brubaker's entertaining "Captain America" run, for instance. In the second issue, Cap finds out that the Red Skull has been murdered. He, having seen the man "die" in front of him at least two or three dozen times, is completely unconvinced. They DNA test the corpse and everything, but noooope. This all makes sense, is written well, and is entertaining. Of course, there's a difference between Nazi spymaster The Red Skull faking his death and Peter Parker's decrepit Aunt May faking hers, but whatevs.

Later, Captain America himself dies. This is handled very well; all the readers (and, going by logic, all the characters) know that when somebody dies, you'd better see a corpse or he'll be back up like a horror movie sequel. In this case, Cap took three bullets to the chest and bled out on the operating table. He was as mundanely dead as could be.³ Then Marvel let the death go on for two years, to great dramatic effect for the rest of the line. His allies felt his loss, his sidekick tried to fill the role, some really terrific stuff was written. Then, they brought him back to life in a good way that was intentionally foreshadowed well before his death.

Thus, when it's done in an intentional way (instead of by retroactive editorial mandate), this can be successful and compelling. I guess, either way you go, characters genre-savvy or dramatically convinced, there are no bad plots, only bad writers. That doesn't sound right, but you get me.

¹And occasionally died again^2
2And have occasionally come back to life again
³Another little detail I just loved about that story: the press covers the story all day and long into the night. I don't know why, but, just the fact that this would be a 24/7 media vigil seemed so... "solid" to me that I've remembered it years later.