It happens regularly in comics. A character like Spider-Man has had 30 solid years of adventures. The superhero market supports this, because superheroes at their core are meant to feel comfortable, familiar and accessible to their readers. That mindset is the main enemy of real character growth and evolution, and it causes friction between fans who want to see their superheroes exactly as they remember them from the previous months and years, and those hoping for the characters to grow and change along with them. Fortunately for those of us who like to read about people growing up, it's not the only thing going on in the market.
Fads come and go, but they do provide a rationale for characters to change.
The Mutant Menace hysteria card played to death in the X-titles over the years has been reborn as a fear and blaming of teenagers for all our woes, neatly bringing together the two main themes of growing up and persecution into one singular theme, since each is now an integral part of the other. Which would be a happy thing on a creative level, were it not that the real world is tending the same way. Loki Carbis is a staff writer at PopImage. Discuss this article at the PopImage Forum .