Well, while I understand SOME of their anger, the guy bitching that Ice-Man is "kissing men" is missing the point entirely.
What people are mad about is Marvel took ALL of the heroes away we grew up with
at the same time (like mentioned) not that there are variant heroes all together. And the Sexual making of a character does not even fall into the same category for me on this point. Ice-Man being gay is not an issue for me, although they could have done a better job on making us readers transition to his awareness, at least it was not as forced as NorthStar's outing.
Jane Foster being Thor ... okay, that is stupid as hell, but not because it was a woman, I just wish they would have gone a different way and not taken a guys F'n NAME AWAY!!!! He IS Thor damn it!!!! Mjölnir is not the Dail "H" for Hero dialing device ... I mean come on!!!! When Beta Ray picked up the hammer he was still Beta Ray Bill. He just had the power of Thor. He didn't take his name.
The other stuff would have been fine, if not all at once. They just through all these heroes at us at one time. I know I had them all at once when I was a kid, but change is not something that you can push all at once sometimes. Sometimes, even in fiction, it needs to be paced ... at least here, I feel.