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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 2612645" data-attributes="member: 11760">DC and Marvel will never have the guts to not have Batman be Bruce Wayne, Superman not be Clark Kent or Spider-Man not be Peter Parker. All of these have been considered at one time or another (the original fight with the Hobgoblin where it climaxes in an explosion under the river was supposed to kill off Spider-Man, too, for instance), but they wouldn't do it. (In fact, Marvel has gone so far as to restore most of Spider-Man's status quo over the last few years, going so far as to raise Aunt May from the dead.)Batman Beyond doesn't prove much, since Bruce Wayne was in it, and it was explicitly supposed to be about the successor and was released at a time when the "real" Batman was also available on TV.Major iconic characters like this won't ever have the dramatic permenant change so many readers demand. (I've been reading since 1973 or thereabouts and have made a little money around the periphery of the industry.) I would love it if my Superman -- my very first comic was an Action Comics followed closely by an issue of Amazing Spider-Man where Spidey was fighting Green Goblin II -- was allowed to age and the current Superman was his son. But it ain't happening, partially because "person has a REALLY bad day and becomes a vigilante superhero" is a lot more accessible than "person is a third generation superhero" to an off-the-street audience.When comics in the 1990s got more into continuity, it drove casual readers away. Readers need to be able to pick up one comic a year and see the character they enjoy from other media (where all the real money is nowadays) instead of being hopelessly baffled, like they were when the first X-Men movie came out.Having said that, the characters do evolve over time, especially via retcons. Superman's origin is no longer Action Comics #1, or even the Man of Steel miniseries, it's now the Birthright miniseries, which makes Clark more of a child of the modern day.And you left out what I think is the most plausible scenario for how Batman's stories would end: Giving into despair after being obsessed with his parents' death for decades and his hopeless attempt to single-handedly clean up Gotham, he kills himself with Joe Chill's gun. I was impressed that Batman Begins addressed the dead-end nature of the obsession, albeit with a light touch.</blockquote>

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