All counters stay except for cosmic, or if it otherwise stated.

As far as I know the only counters that leave play are cosmic counters and other counters that specifically state it. Those counters that you mention stay on Venom.

Cosmic Spidey's effect protects all Spider-Friends attackers, including Cosmic Spidey. You have to be careful cause some effects say "All Other Attackers" Thus not capable of protecting the character that carries the effect.

I love the game too, and I have the same problem as you. So I took it to myself to teach the people around me to play. It's a great game indeed, quite possibly the best game I've played so far (I also play Pokemon, YGO and Naruto)

hey i have a question

wen you substitute someone in you ge rid of the other character and put the new one into it's place correct and then you may purchase other characters as normal correct.

Substitute is an effect. You don't pay Resource Points to put the character in play, so you can still put other characters by recruiting them.

All counters stay as long as a character doesn't change zones...that means that if a character is RFG or KO'ed or returned to your hand it loses its counters.

Also You can only have one cosmic counter on any given character, they don't stack.