The ALTER command does not allow you to replace and * within an Elment Comment. Below is an example of what 

1) you can do 

ALTER ELEMENT ... 
    REPL DESC 'OLD DESC' WITH 'NEW DESC WITH * INSIDE' 

2) but then can not Change it back: 

ALTER ELEMENT ... 
  REPL DESC 'NEW DESC WITH * INSIDE' WITH 'OLD DESC' 

Error: C1BM4100: E118 INVALID "FROM" VALUE ON THE REPLACE CLAUSE 

Problem: in TO-VALUE * is allowed, but in FROM-VALUE it is not. 

Release:
Component: ENDBAS

To resolve the problem you need to apply Endevor APAR SO07919. This APAR introduces a new option  that is applicable to the Alter Description, Last Action CCID,  
Generate CCID and Retrieve CCID fields and allows for specifying a "from value" that includes place holder (%) or wildcard (*) characters to be matched and not treated as special charaters.                    
The exact match option is ignored for the other Alter actions:         
    Processor group, Signout Userid and User Data.                     
                                                                       
For example, with the option "exact match", you could alter:           
    LAST ACTION CCID  'LAST*%%*%**'  WITH                              
                      'LAST ACTION'                                    
                                                                       
Without this new option, the above would be a syntax error.