The Official Soundtrack of My Mid-Life Crisis

mattdic asked: There are writers who are good at telling stories but so terrible with continuity that their emotional thrusts feel false. Paul Jenkins is one. Then, it's not even "the last appearance of the Unicorn" but consistency of character issues, where I don't feel his takes on a character syncs up with who that character is from all other appearances, even if it serves the immediate story. I can take a little leeway, but not a lot. Does the character serve the story too? Should the character drive it?

brevoortformspring:

Part of what you’re talking about here is personal taste. You don’t care for Paul’s stories, others love them. So who is right?

Grant Morrison once described Animal Man in a story as nothing more than a generic blond super hero with good teeth. That’s an exaggeration for the point of the particular encounter he was writing, but there’s also a lot that’s true about it. These characters become invested with the traits that their creators express through them. And some of them stick, and some of them don’t, depending on how well the story works for the audience at large as well as for future creators who may work on that character. There’s a lot about, say, the Spider-Man of today that’s the same as the Spider-Man of 1966, but there’s also a lot that’s very different.

So yes, the character should drive the story. But your particular impression or interpretation of said character isn’t going to be 100% the same as the next poster whose question I answer, and neither of them will line up with the poster that follows precisely. So the writers and editors make their storytelling choices based on what they believe to be the truth, the essence, of the characters in question, and then you as a reader either like the story or don’t like teh story, and the characters grow and change accordingly.