History DependingOnTheWriter / ComicBooks

Comics as a medium are heavily subject to this trope, especially when they run for decades and necessarily have many different writers, some of whom are cavalier about consistency.
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* The comics made of the various {{Creator/Disney}} icons. Such as WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck.
** Scrooge himself: [[CorruptCorporateExecutive heartless bastard tormenting Donald for the sake of a few more cents, perfectly willing to exploit workers, destroy the environment and let his own family die in the name of profit?]] Franchise/IndianaJones-style treasure hunter? JerkWithAHeartOfGold who prides on having made his fortune "fair and square" and deeply cares about his family and his friends? Complete and utter badass? An eccentric old man who's not really good or evil?
** [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Scrooge's]] money bin may be a simple box made of stone or a blue and red dome; it may be his residence, or just the place where he keeps his cash while he actually lives in a mansion; the Beagle Boys may frequently hide out in an old trailer or a shack or under the very foundations of Duckburg; Flintheart Glomgold may live in South Africa or in Duckburg as a member of the Billionaires' Club (or alternatively, he may not exist at all, with John D. Rockerduck in his place); Donald may range from being an average chef to a LethalChef; Magica de Spell may be a real powerful sorceress or a normal person who dabbles in sorcery; Granma Duck may be Scrooge's sister or not related to him at all; Gladstone Gander may be really lucky because a Triple Distelfink sign was painted on the barn door on the day of his mother's birth or because the goddess of fortune is in love with him.... The list goes on.
** The Beagle Boys' competence (and numbers) also seem to flip-flop (from as few as three to as many as eleven). And do they use guns, or are they simply too poor to even afford those?
** Even Rockerduck himself, despite not even existing in most writers' minds, has flip-flopped between honorable businessman Scrooge likes to screw with for fun, slightly crooked bastard who enjoys spying, swindling and bribing to get his way, white-collar criminal, and murderous gang leader.
** For a while, European stories had what effectively amounted to an alternative continuity, with the largest change being Scrooge being American-born with Grandma Duck as his older sister and a younger brother named Gideon. An epic-length Italian story even detailed it in its last part. Nowadays this is completely ignored, with some products of that time (namely Paperinik with his comprimaries, Dickie Duck, Brigitta [=McBridge=], Jubal Pomp and Gideon) still around but included in the standard continuity (Gideon being Scrooge's brother is quietly ignored, [[WildMassGuessing with fans taking him as Scrooge's younger half-brother from his father's supposed second wife or mistress]]).
*** Even Paperinik's backstory as [[LegacyCharacter heir of Fantomius]], the GentlemanThief, has two different versions. The original version, shown through various details in Paperinik's stories, presents Fantomius as a GentlemanThief active in the Twenties, operating as "a gentleman masquerading as a thief" with his fiancee Dolly Paprika to humiliate the arrogant rich people of Duckburg and sometimes [[JustLikeRobinHood giving part of his loot to the poor]], before ''dying'' (as stated in Paperinik's debut story) at some point in the Thirties, with his manor becoming the property of the City of Duckburg and won by Gladstone in a lottery before being destroyed and the land ultimately ending as Scrooge's property. The Dutch series "The Legacy", however, shows Fantomius as still alive (he just retired and disappeared), having operated strictly by [[JustLikeRobinHood stealing to the riches to give to the poor]] with an accomplice named Ireyon, and the land of his manor still being Gladstone's property. The Italian series "The Amazing Adventures of Fantomius-Gentleman Thief", detailing Fantomius' adventures, completely ignores the Dutch version.
* The original ComicBook/PhantomLady, between cosmic reboots, has gone from a superspy goverment agent to a bored senator's daughter with a gimmick - and personality-wise from a delicate Ice Queen who's impossibly ace to a tough talking bruiser.
* In most ''Franchise/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' adaptations, Raphael is portrayed as a brooding loner who frequently breaks from the group and fights with his brothers -- particularly Leonardo, who has a much more commanding presence as a leader. In others, like the original Fred Wolf animated series, Raphael is a good-natured albeit sarcastic jokester while Leonardo seems more toned down and unofficial in his leadership role. Michaelangelo and Donatello remain constant for the most part.
* Portrayals of ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' vary from writer to writer, to the point where it's not consistent whether they're the Wildstorm Universe's greatest force for good or a bunch of sociopathic fascists. Also doesn't help that they get used as punching bags in series other than their own.
* John Constantine in ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'' suffers from this trope. Is he just an ordinary blue-collar bloke who happens to attract a lot of supernatural attention and who learned some magic in order to deal with this, or a master sorcerer who can casually bend the laws of time and space at will? A more or less decent guy at heart who struggles with his conscience like anyone else would in his situation, or an utter and unrepentant bastard who'd throw anybody under the bus without a second thought? Is he in fact sane, or isn't he? Some of his writers have tried to explain away the changes they make to his personality (like externalizing all his guilt into a demon infant and tossing it off a cliff) and some haven't.
* The team formerly known as the ComicBook/{{Micronauts|MarvelComics}} has kept reappearing occasionally since 1996 revealed that Arcturus Rann, Mari, and Bug were somehow still alive. They've appeared in Cable, Captain Marvel, Earth X, Realm of Kings, Son of Hulk, and Alpha Flight. Rann and Mari have had different personalities in each. In the Cable appearance, Rann was rather genial and avuncular, Mari was taciturn and humorless (along with sporting a lesbian look). In following appearances, they've ranged from having no personality other than a sci-fi plot device (Mari technobabbles like a Star Trek episode), to Realm of Kings, where Mari acts like a ditzy motormouth amazon and Rann acts bored. Admittedly, since Bug is no longer part of the team, the comic relief falls of the shoulders of Mari and her android sidekick Carl.
* ''[[ComicBook/SpirouAndFantasio Spirou]]'' changed writers many times over the years. Aside from being very visible, the storylines vary, too. ''Rob-Vel'' started Spirou being an actual bellboy, ''Franquin'' turned him into an journalist adventurer, ''Fournier'' made him run into more surreal stuff, various other writers had their own stint before ''Tome'' and ''Janry'' made the series return to the ''Franquin'' era, with the stories getting progressively DarkerAndEdgier, while starting a SpinOff about Spirou in his youth, and, after a commercially failed attempt at a (sort of) realistic story, ''Morvan'' and ''Munuera'' took a more Manga-style take at it, the stories no longer stuck to the present day. The current team, ''Yoann'' and ''Vehlmann'', have been leaning heavily on surreal sci-fi elements.
** While Spirou usually remains a NiceGuy who is either clueless with women, ObliviousToLove or simply not interested, Fantasio alternates between being a ChickMagnet, ChivalrousPervert, CasanovaWannabe, and a [[HoYay closet gay in love with Spirou]].

** How much does [[BigEater Jughead]] eat? Does he really hate girls, or does he have secret crushes? [[spoiler: Or is he gay? Wait, best not answer that.]] Then Chip Zdarsky and Ryan North added ''another'' new interpretation by running with an explicitly [[UsefulNotes/{{asexual}} Jughead.

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** In [[ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel the original Marvel Comics' series]], most of the stories were written by either Bob Budiansky or Simon Furman, who often had sharply different depictions of key characters. To pick but one example, Grimlock was a vain and power-mad DesignatedHero under Budiansky, whereas Furman writes him as a NobleSavage of a ProudWarriorRace.
** In general, the Marvel comic, the toy bios, and the cartoon tended to have somewhat variable takes on the characters, which are usually thought of as simply different versions, but many writers have ended up tug-of-warring back between different "iconic" takes. A particular example is Soundwave: he spoke normally in the comics, but used a stiff RoboSpeak tone in the cartoon. This can lead to Soundwave using complete sentences under one writer and going "LASERBEAK: EJECT. OPERATION: DESTRUCTION" under another.
** Blaster is particularly noticeable for shifting under different writers, since his cartoon and comics takes were very different: the cartoon one being a goofy, music-loving party animal working in communications, the comic one being a haunted, introverted rebel. Because of this, in general, if Blaster is a major player in the story, he'll be the latter; if he isn't, he'll be the former (though there may be some attempts to marry the two).
** The large number of writers working on ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMegaseries'' caused a lot of characters to shift heavily. Soundwave (again) hops between a conniving, treacherous bastard (Furman) to a cartoon-inspired emotionless robot ([=McCarthy=]) to a soulful, empathic AntiVillain (Barber), with the wiki jokingly describing him as an "untrustworthy loyal silent verbose villainous hero." Drift in particular changes almost completely depending on whether he's being written by Shane [=McCarthy=] or James Roberts, with the latter being almost a parody of the former.
** Caminus's portrayal in ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'' (as a reasonably prosperous place that can afford to focus on social and performing arts and has at times played host to Cybertronian renegades) is very different from the resource-starved theocracy of ''ComicBook/TheTransformersWindblade''.

** How much does [[BigEater Jughead]] eat? Does he really hate girls, or does he have secret crushes? [[spoiler: Or is he gay? Wait, best not answer that.]] Then Chip Zdarsky and Ryan North added ''another'' new interpretation by running with an explicitly [[UsefulNotes/{{Asexuality}} asexual]] Jughead.

** The large number of writers working on ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMegaseries'' caused a lot of characters to shift heavily. Soundwave (again) hops between a conniving, treacherous bastard (Furman) to a cartoon-inspired emotionless robot ([=McCarthy=]) to a soulful, empathic AntiVillain (Barber). Drift in particular changes almost completely depending on whether he's being written by Shane [=McCarthy=] or James Roberts, with the latter being almost a parody of the former.

* The team formerly known as the ComicBook/{{Micronauts}} has kept reappearing occasionally since 1996 revealed that Arcturus Rann, Mari, and Bug were somehow still alive. They've appeared in Cable, Captain Marvel, Earth X, Realm of Kings, Son of Hulk, and Alpha Flight. Rann and Mari have had different personalities in each. In the Cable appearance, Rann was rather genial and avuncular, Mari was taciturn and humorless (along with sporting a lesbian look). In following appearances, they've ranged from having no personality other than a sci-fi plot device (Mari technobabbles like a Star Trek episode), to Realm of Kings, where Mari acts like a ditzy motormouth amazon and Rann acts bored. Admittedly, since Bug is no longer part of the team, the comic relief falls of the shoulders of Mari and her android sidekick Carl.

** In [[ComicBook/TheTransformers the original Marvel Comics' series]], most of the stories were written by either Bob Budiansky or Simon Furman, who often had sharply different depictions of key characters. To pick but one example, Grimlock was a vain and power-mad DesignatedHero under Budiansky, whereas Furman writes him as a NobleSavage of a ProudWarriorRace.

** How much does [[BigEater Jughead]] eat? Does he really hate girls, or does he have secret crushes? [[spoiler: Or is he gay? Wait, best not answer that.]] Then Chip Zdarsky and Ryan North added ''another'' new interpretation by running with an explicitly [[{{Asexuality}} asexual]] Jughead.

!!!DC
* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' books are full of this.
** First there's the caped crusader himself. He's had so many writers that he's barely the same character in some appearances. And that's just in the main DCU, and not going into ''ComicBook/AllStarBatmanAndRobinTheBoyWonder'', the movies, and various TV shows based on him. To list all the different ways he's been portrayed (is he a really good detective or not? Is he admirable or a JerkAss? Is he the craziest or the OnlySaneMan of the Franchise/{{Justice League|Of America}}?) would take up way too much space. This is perhaps best represented in the [[http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/batman-alignment.jpg Batman alignment chart]]
** Young Bruce Wayne following the night his parents were gunned down. Option A is that young Bruce reacted as any kid would and spent some of the following years traumatized before deciding to travel the world to train and become Batman. Option B is that everything that made Bruce Wayne Bruce Wayne died with his parents and what was left was a CreepyChild with TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior.
** Former sidekick ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} arguably gets it worse. While DC will usually run with one interpretation of Batman in all the books and then shift to another, Nightwing gets to be a relatively happy and well-adjusted leader of men in the bat-books, but shifts into a dark and broody Batman 2.0 in team books. Maybe they are both correct. He's grim and broody, but compared to Batman he looks cheery and well-adjusted!
** Barbara's biological relationship to her father Jim varies. In the 1980s, Jim's age was lowered and as a result Barbara became his niece who he adopted as his daughter. At other times she's biologically his daughter.
** Don't even get started on the Joker...
*** From the earliest comics to ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' to the various animated series, he's been portrayed as a HarmlessVillain, MagnificentBastard, TheMadHatter, AffablyEvil, FauxAffablyEvil, BoredWithInsanity, etc... listing everything he's been would warrant [[ComicBook/TheJoker its own section!]] It's probable that ''all'' of these are true. A text story by Creator/GrantMorrison in ''Batman and Son'', leading to the Joker's role in ''Batman RIP'', has him ''deciding'' it's time for a new persona and considering various options.
*** Another aspect also in flux is the Joker's fighting ability. Sometimes he's got a glass jaw and has to hide behind his schemes, sometimes he can hold off Batman or even take him on toe-to-toe, or even take on [[VideoGame/MortalKombatvsDCUniverse monsters, gods and the greatest martial artists in the world]].
*** The comic book mini-series ''ComicBook/BatmanThreeJokers'' explores this trope by suggesting that there have been multiple Jokers - "The Criminal", who is portrayed as a criminal mastermind; "The Clown", who plays deadly pranks on his victims and possibly the Joker that killed Jason Todd in ''ComicBook/ADeathInTheFamily''; and "The Comedian", who believes the world is one big joke and may have been the one to cripple Barbara Gordon in ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke''.
** ComicBook/TheRiddler... Nerdy milquetoast with a debilitating gimmick who is considered not even worth killing by other members of Batman's RoguesGallery... or a suave, calculating and MagnificentBastard with an intellect possibly comparable to the Dark Knight himself? There's also the fact that some interpretations have him as hyperactive and rather reminiscent of the Joker (think [[Series/Batman1966 Frank Gorshin]] and [[Film/BatmanForever Jim Carrey]]), while others portray him as more of a smooth-talking, calm intellectual (think [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries John Glover]] and [[WesternAnimation/TheBatman Robert Englund]]). There's also the question of why he sends Batman riddles that contain clues about his crimes. In some stories he's trying to prove he's smarter than Batman by coming up with a riddle too hard for Batman to solve. In some stories he's driven by an involuntary psychological compulsion and doesn't ''want'' to send Batman riddles. In some stories he just enjoys his duels of wits with Batman and doesn't feel bothered when Batman solves the riddles, while in others he gets angry or disappointed whenever Batman solves them.
** Killer Croc gets altered ''constantly'' both in [[DependingOnTheArtist appearance]] and character. Is his intelligence below average, is he retarded, is he an animal? Is he just a thug, a thug with a cannibalistic MO, or just a savage monster who wants to eat everyone in the room? The only thing writers seem to agree on is that he's not very bright and has some sort of skin condition. Croc gets it worse than most examples here in that they can't even keep his ''race'' consistent. Is he a white old-time gangster film heavy? A black inner city thug? Or is he just a big green reptile? None of these interpretations are even remotely in line with the pre-Crisis version of Croc, who was a rather intelligent (not super-genius or anything, but still at least average) gang leader that just happened to have a skin condition. He wasn't even green. Early on, there was even some debate as to the character's proper ''name'', and he would variously be King Croc, Killer Croc, or simply, as he was listed in Who's Who, Croc. And this same Who's Who profile claimed that Croc had no actual powers; he just had leathery skin and was abnormally, not superhumanly, strong. Compare most modern versions and you'll see the obvious discrepancy here. Some of this has been explained, albeit through {{Retcon}}; Chuck Dixon's ''Batman'' run said Croc was in a process of mutation that started out as a skin condition and gradually led to him becoming more reptilian. Why he's now ''more'' human than he was when Dixon left him is another story...
** The ''ComicBook/{{Planetary}}'' / ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' CrossOver "Night on Earth" is essentially an issue-long LampshadeHanging of this trope as it pertains to Batman; it involves reality 'shifting' around Crime Alley in Gotham City, with the Planetary team meeting variations of Batman ranging from Adam West to Frank Miller to Neal Adams and more besides in their varying universes. However, the actions of the issue still play out exactly the same and perfectly in character for each version of Batman, the point being that for all the different interpretations they're all nevertheless the same essential character.
** Damian Wayne, the fifth Comicbook/{{Robin}}, gets this too. With his creator, Grant Morrison, he tends to be written as a SociopathicHero who is excellent at everything. Other writers tend to downplay his skills in combat. With some writers he's still the unrepentant {{Jerkass}} he was introduced as despite years of character development. With other writers (i.e. Peter J. Tomasi), he's actually much kinder than he lets on and struggles to express his genuinely positive feelings for others due to his upbringing.
** The Mad Hatter. Sometimes he's a somewhat sympathetic Carrol-obsessed loony, who truly seems to think of his mind-controlled henchmen as his friends, however delusionally. Other times he's a murderer and a child molester... with a thing for blonde girls.
** ComicBook/TwoFace's "schtick" tends to ping-pong between a genuine split personality, with the Harvey and "Two-Face" personas engaging in discussions (and, in ''No Man's Land'', a courtroom debate) with disputes between them being resolved by the coin, to a single personality with a violently extreme case of bipolar disorder and obsession with duality. [[TakeAThirdOption Or a mixture]]. Also, his appearance changes drastically between each adaptation.
*** How Two-Face handles his coin flips is also highly variable. Sometimes it's something Harvey does on purpose because he knows his evil side will obey the coin (like it or not), other times it's a psychological compulsion, and still other times it comes off as nothing more than a villainous CharacterTic. This also coincides with how likely he is to keep his promises; sometimes he's a man of his word, and other times he'll use ExactWords and other loopholes to get around them. ''Film/BatmanForever'' took it even further, showing Two-Face repeatedly flipping the coin until he got the result he wanted.
** Jason Todd/Robin II/Red Hood. In the years after being brought back from the dead his personality was all over the place. Creator/JuddWinick, who resurrected him in ''Under The Red Hood'', wrote him as a well-intentioned but unstable AntiVillain. In ''ComicBook/{{Nightwing}}'', he was AxCrazy but ''trying'' to be good. In ''ComicBook/CountdownToFinalCrisis'' he was completely rational, and merely a KnightInSourArmor type of AntiHero. Then in ''Battle For the Cowl'', and as written by Creator/GrantMorrison in ''Batman and Robin'', he was a full-on villainous [[AxCrazy homicidal maniac]]. Since the New 52 reboot his personality has become much more consistent, settling into the UnscrupulousHero role.
*** Jason's varying personality goes all the way back to his days as Robin. Post-Crisis, Mike W Barr in ''Detective Comics'' wrote him with much the same innocent easygoing personality as his pre-Crisis counterpart, while Max Allan Collins and Jim Starlin in ''Batman'' made him much more stubborn and rougher-edged to fit his new troubled backstory. And after his death, Jason was painted as having been much more wilful and unstable by later writers such as Alan Grant and Chuck Dixon.
** Depending on who's in control, Solomon Grundy can be incapable of saying anything more than "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday" or perfectly capable of rational speech. The differences can get quite jarring at times. Surprisingly, there's actually an explanation for this. Every time he dies he comes back with a different personality, and it's very hard to stop him without killing him. A recent miniseries is focused on him returning with his mortal personality and trying to break this cycle. The first arc of Brad Meltzer's Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}} run began with, surprisingly, Solomon Grundy as the Big Bad and actually the ''brains'' behind the whole scheme (which was to steal Red Tornado's new robot/android/cyborg body and place his soul in it so he'd stop dying). It was extremely odd seeing Grundy looking like a buff, albino gangster.
*** His Strength Level. He ranges from getting a beatdown from Batman up to solely curbstomping the whole Justice League, including Superman.
** ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily'': The ''Batman'' franchise started in 1939, so this trope had to happen, and this storyline is no exception to the rule. For instance, Catwoman's personality and perhaps intelligence are portrayed quite differently between Creator/JuddWinick and Creator/AnnNocenti.
** ComicBook/HarleyQuinn is not quite as bad as ComicBook/TheJoker, but just like him, she's been quite up for interpretation:
*** Is Harley a psychologist or a psychiatrist? In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' she was a psychologist, but the comics have zigzagged between the two. Granted, this one is most likely because ''most people'' don't know that these are separate professions. [[note]]Psychologists are individuals trained in various behavioral disciplines and treat patients through therapy sessions, while psychiatrists are medical doctors trained to diagnose and treat mental disorders medicinally. To put it simply: a psychologist tells you sit on a chaise longue and talk to them once a week, while a psychiatrist tells you to take some pills and call them in a month.[[/note]] There's also the question of why she studied psychology in the first place, and how she got through school. Her original backstory from ''Mad Love'' depicted her as [[SextraCredit sleeping through college]] and only saw psychology as a way to make money as a talk show host. A later origin portrays her as being genuinely interested in the field and being more than capable of the work, but also being a BrilliantButLazy student who preferred blackmailing her teachers to boost her grades.
*** It's almost always agreed upon that Harley is [[ObfuscatingStupidity smarter than she lets on]] but just ''how'' much and how sensible she can be varies greatly from story to story. She can be a DumbBlonde or a GeniusDitz, her [[StepfordSmiler entire personality can be a facade]] [[BeneathTheMask that she changes depending on the situation]], or she could be anything in-between. Similarly, is she clinically insane or does she understand her actions?
*** Whether Harley has AntiVillain traits or not fluctuates.
*** How strong and physically capable is Harley? She is just an above average gymnast or an outright BadassNormal with almost superhuman agility?
** How long Alfred's been a part of Bruce's life ComicBook/PostCrisis and subsequent adaptations. Some depicted him joining Thomas and Martha's employ when Bruce was a child, other show him working for the Waynes before Bruce was even born[[note]]Pre-Crisis, Bruce was raised by his uncle Philip after the parents' murder, and was already an adult, taken on the identity of Batman, and taken Dick under his wing when Alfred came to work for him[[/note]].
** Minor Catwoman opponent Cyber-Cat has appeared only a few times, but nobody can seem to agree on her motivation or whether she's actually evil or just arrogant. Is she simply trying to ensure her own technical skills are good enough? Is she a MadDoctor, or does she want to sell things to terrorists? Who knows?
* Is ComicBook/BlackCanary a genuine, butt-kicking, ActionGirl? Or is she a FauxActionGirl who, as ComicBook/GreenArrow's love interest, needs Green Arrow to get her out of trouble? Depends on who's writing her, and what comic it is. If it's ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey, expect the former. If it's anything with "Green Arrow" in the title (or if Judd Winick is at the helm), expect the latter. Strangely enough, if it's Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}} where she would be more likely to find herself out of her depth, she, like Batman, kicks all kinds of ass, probably for the same reason Batman does, because writers always feel the need to justify the BadassNormal and low power characters on the team.
* Is ComicBook/CaptainAtom a god, as much more powerful than, say, Superman, as Superman is compared to a normal human, or is he of mid-level power by the standards of the DCU? Does he like having power over other people, even to a pathological extent, or does he see leadership as a burden that he'll take up only because he's the only one who can? Does he have problems with authority, or is he a stereotypical military man who will salute and say yes sir? Is he stuck as Captain Atom, losing his connection to humanity, or is he able to transform back and forth at will, facing him with the dilemma that he can always just walk away from being a superhero? Much of this is down to the fact that in the 80s, his solo series established that he would act like a flag-saluting soldier boy despite having mixed-at-best feelings about his job, which led to his appearances in team books taking the cover persona at face value.
* Kimiyo Hoshi, the female [[AffirmativeActionLegacy Doctor Light]], was initially written as an AlphaBitch. When she joined the [[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational JLE]], her personality was softened and it was explained that her earlier behavior was the result of drinking too much soda (no, really). Later writers ignored this development and brought her back to said AlphaBitch personality, with Kimiyo fluctuating between these characterizations ever since. Creator/JuddWinick had Kimiyo lose her powers. Creator/GailSimone (possibly erroneously) then had her using her powers when she guest-starred in ''Comicbook/BirdsOfPrey''. Creator/{{Dwayne McDuffie}} ended up splitting the difference via a retcon establishing that her powers had returned, but were now wildly unstable.
* ComicBook/GreenArrow suffered from this a fair bit in the 21st century. Creator/KevinSmith wrote Oliver Queen as a sadder but wiser version of Dennis O'Neil's wise-cracking swashbuckling GeniusBruiser. In the first half of his Green Arrow run, Creator/JuddWinick wrote him as an unrepentant dirty old man who could barely tie his shoes unaided and was only good at shooting arrows. In the [[GrowingTheBeard far superior]] second half of Winick's run Ollie became a hypercompetent mayor and Arrow-family leader who only had eyes for Black Canary. Creator/MarkWaid and Creator/JoeKelly were little better, with the former making references to Ollie chasing after teenage girls in ''ComicBook/TheBraveAndTheBold'' and the later depicting Ollie having an affair with the wife of Manitou Raven. Most of this characterization of Ollie as a womanizer seems to have been based on the portrayal of the character in flashbacks written by Creator/ChuckDixon, where Ollie talked about all the women he slept with in the early days of his hero career and on misinterpretation of the Creator/MikeGrell run of ''ComicBook/GreenArrow'' where Ollie [[DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale unknowingly fathered a child with the assassin Shado]]. This is doubly vexing for fans of the classic Green Arrow, as Oliver Queen was usually depicted as being overprotective and jealous of his girlfriend ComicBook/BlackCanary and was once depicted as being so devoted to Dinah Lance that his love and willpower allowed him to overcome both Zatanna's magic and Poison Ivy's pheromones.
** In general, much of this owes to the fact that Oliver has two "classic" interpretations: his iconic Bronze Age reworking at the hands of Denny O'Neal and Neal Adams, where he was a wisecracking adventurer with a strong liberal bent who hung out with the Justice League, and his acclaimed second retool under Mike Grell, where he was a more somber and withdrawn huntsman with few superhero trappings. This creates writers attempting to seesaw between the two, usually without success.
** The disagreement about whether or not Oliver Queen was a cheating jackass became so great, in fact, that it caused a RetCon during ComicBook/BlackestNight where Black Lantern Ollie claimed that his rape at the hands of the assassin Shado during the Creator/MikeGrell run wasn't really a rape, so that all of his previous out-of-character womanizing could be justified.
** Ollie hasn't fared much better in The ComicBook/{{New 52}}. His creative team changed three times in the first year, with the first two teams writing him as a generic action hero with none of the personality of the classic Oliver Queen. Creator/AnnNocenti wrote him as a womanizing beatnik, who spouted free-verse poetry while wandering the rooftops. Creator/JeffLemire improved things somewhat, making Ollie a competent hero if not a particularly memorable one. And a fill-in arc by Series/{{Arrow}} Executive Producer Andrew Kreisberg and writer Ben Sokolowski - portrayed Green Arrow like Oliver Queen on the TV series. Eventually, Benjamin Percy and ComicBook/DCRebirth came along and did a good job of merging Ollie's disparate characterizations.
* The second female Hawk of ''Hawk and Dove'' named Holly Granger was a case of this in her tenure in the comics. Was she a bad-tempered [[BrattyTeenageDaughter bratty younger sister]] with a punk edge? Or was she more of a promiscuous seductress? Did she speak in a phony British accent with slang or not? And was she Dawn's younger or older sister (the latter which would technically make her a case of ChristmasCake when she slept with Power Boy in that {{Squick}}-inducing scene, [[SarcasmMode thank you very much, Judd Winick.]]). [[spoiler:Is it any wonder she became Blackest Night cannon fodder?]]
** Sister Dawn doesn't fare much better, either being portrayed as younger naive sheltered college girl who is introverted and can't hold her liquor when around the more popular seasoned heroines or is she more of a proper peer and experienced heroine who has lots of living behind her. Hell, Whether or not she is romantically interested in Hank goes back and forth depending on the writer.
* The ComicBook/NewGods. Oh '''boy''', the New Gods. You have some names and some basic relationships. Nothing else will stay consistent between writers or even in different appearances by the same writer. This falls broadly into two camps: people who never actually read the thing and people who ''did'' but changed things they didn't particularly care for. Examples: the nature of the [[CompellingVoice Anti]]-[[BrownNote Life]] [[EldritchAbomination Equation]], the nature of the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien New]] [[PhysicalGod Gods]] themselves, whether New Genesis and Apokolips were somewhere in space or [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths another dimension entirely]], and [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever what their actual size is]].
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' is probably worse, considering he is the TropeCodifier of the FlyingBrick. That was the main thing that made ''Film/SupermanII'' fail for the fans, because he was given [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands random powers that had never appeared before]]. When handled at his most popular, his powers are fairly straightforward: [[IBelieveICanFly Flight]], [[NighInvulnerable Invulnerability]], [[EyeBeams Heat Vision]], [[SuperBreath Ice Breath]], and the super abilities of SuperSenses, SuperSpeed and SuperStrength. PowerCreepPowerSeep aside, writers would give him the most bizarre super-"whatever" power (including super-marble playing and the "S" saran wrap shield). This is probably what gave fan Jerry ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' his thoughts about him having "super humor." One strip has him use super-puppeteering to put on a play for Lois, and super-memory to learn the script quickly. Superman's powers were never really set in stone during the Golden and Silver Ages. Superman was rife with NewPowersAsThePlotDemands up until John Byrne's post-crisis revamp gave a definite set of powers for Superman, removing some like freezing breath, forgetting others like "Super Ventriloquism" and "Super Elastic Facial Muscles" (this is not a joke), and limiting others like his super strength and speed. (Seriously, how else could a mook like the Toyman be even kind of a threat?) Other writers have since crept his power up and down, with freeze breath eventually showing up again and various applications of other powers being used.
** At the Superman rollercoaster at Six Flags Great Adventure, there are giant plaques hung up that you can read while advancing through the line. Superman's plaque lists one of his powers as "Super-Intelligence". Now, we ''are'' talking about a guy who, canonically, built functional android duplicates of himself realistic (and powerful) enough to take his place if he's indisposed. He actually is supposed to be scary smart. But plenty of comics characters are just as smart without it being a superpower. His weaknesses suffer this too. Kryptonite is often shown to have him on the ground in pain in seconds just from waving it in front of his face while red sunlight shuts his powers off instantly. Then he'll turn around and fly through a Kryptonite asteroid belt (he is the TropeNamer for FightOffTheKryptonite) and a red star and still somehow survive a crash landing on a planet before his powers completely fade.
*** Though some of this is genuine retconning. Red sunlight was changed to cause rapid power depletion instead of instant powerlessness for a couple of decades before it went back to being his off switch.
** His vulnerability to magic can be even more confusing. Do you have a pencil that's magically enchanted to write what you say? You can stab Superman with that even though nothing about the magic actually makes it a better weapon. On the other hand, some writers have him able to square off with Thor and Captain Marvel, who should be able to tear him apart if the above was true. His weakness to magic was originally supposed to be lack of resistance to spells that violate the laws of nature so he can be turned into a frog as easily as the next guy, but magic superstrength is no better than regular superstrength against him.
** Another issue is his mortality; the pre-New 52 modern comics (as well as Smallville) basically said that he'll live forever as long as no one kills him. However, this is certainly not true in the Silver Age: for instance the Earth-2 Superman is obviously in late middle-age.
** His character in the comics tends to vary as well, from being completely content identifying as a human to being all too aware of his status as an outsider. Among other heroes he's generally optimistic and upbeat but still serious whereas his solo titles tend to show him brooding and angsting over his role, whether or not he's doing enough, balancing his heroic and personal life (at least since UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}}), and so forth. Its possible that he outwardly projects optimism and confidence to fulfill his role as a leader while keeping his doubts to himself.
** Then there's the role of Clark Kent. Some writers take the view that Clark Kent is more or less just a disguise for him that lets him live a normal existence and ground himself, while others take the view that he considers Clark Kent to be his "true" identity and the person he's been his whole life. Quite a few comics, like ''ComicBook/SupermanBirthright'', seemingly TakeAThirdOption in suggesting that neither Superman nor Clark Kent are "the real one", with both being exaggerated personas to some degree, and the closest thing to "the real one" is how he acts when around people who know his identity, like his parents or Lois Lane. And how Clark Kent himself acts fluctuates quite a bit; in some comics, he's TheAce who's respected by everyone and more or less acts like Superman if he didn't have powers and was a reporter, while in others, he's a borderline DitzyGenius who baffles people in his ability to uncover massive corporate conspiracies, [[TheKlutz then trip over his shoelaces.]]
** Even his eating habits are subject to this. Some writers have claimed he's a vegetarian, with the justification that his SuperSenses make it hard for him to enjoy eating any kind of farmed meat. Other writers show him having no problem with meat, and his canonical favorite food is beef bourguignon.
** Superman's [[RealityWarper reality warping]] enemy, Mr. Mxyzptlk, flips back and forth between sociopathic pest and StealthMentor. In ComicBook/WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow, he explained that he gets bored and switches personas every so often.
** Much of this owes to something of an ArmedWithCanon debate, with some writers preferring the pre-Crisis Superman, others preferring the John Byrne reboot, and constantly tug-of-warring between the two. He's usually somewhere in the middle-ish.
** This was a major issue with the ComicBook/New52 Superman, and likely a major reason for why the guy didn't take. Grant Morrison wrote him as an arrogant, inexperienced hothead in the past, but going through CharacterDevelopment into a well-rounded IdealHero with an aggressive and anti-authoritarian streak [[OlderAndWiser by the modern day.]] Thing was, a lot of writers, including George Perez and Scott Lobdell, didn't get the memo on the second half, and wrote the modern Superman as a straight-up self-righteous JerkAss who punched people for no good reason. And then you had writers like Scott Snyder, who basically ignored both approaches and just wrote him like his pre-New 52 counterpart...
** Is ComicBook/LexLuthor a CardCarryingVillain, a NobleDemon, or a WellIntentionedExtremist? Considering he started as a MadScientist and was rectonned into being a CorruptCorporateExecutive, he has legitimately fallen into more than one of these categories but even within his incarnations, writers have different takes on just how much Lex really wants to help mankind (to the exclusion of aliens) and how much he's in it for himself or at least his pride. His hatred of Superman is consistent but the motivations for that hatred have varied considerably. His scientific abilities fluctuate from writer to writer as well. Sometimes a businessman is all that he is, sometimes he's also the most brilliant scientist alive. He's also either an eccentric DeadpanSnarker InsufferableGenius or a PerpetualFrowner who is almost completely humorless. More often than not though, this discrepancy is because he's partnered up with ComicBook/TheJoker and the writer wants to present a nice contrast between the two villains.
** Do Kryptonians use {{Uterine Replicator}}s or have standard pregnancies?
* Franchise/WonderWoman might as well be the patron saint of this trope. Every writer since the death of her creator in the [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 '40s]] has wanted to tweak her, changing everything from her powerset to her origin. She was re-created in the [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1987 1980s]] to stabilize the character, but every writer since has wanted to put their own stamp on her to the point where they flat out ignore what the previous writer has done with the character. Her revolving supporting cast and extraordinarily minor RoguesGallery are testaments to this.
** Post-''[[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths Crisis]]'', the biggest element to swing back and forth with her is whether she's going to be the man-hating StrawFeminist that makes a little more sense when she first leaves Themyscira, or the more mature, rounded character who actually has a sense of humor and good relationships with several male characters.
*** Pretty bad in the ComicBook/{{New 52}}: Azzarello's Wonder Woman in her own book is a completely different person from Geoff Johns' Wonder Woman in ''Justice League''. This gets lampshaded and justified when Greg Rucka returns to her in ''ComicBook/DCRebirth'', with Diana realizing the contradictions in her life, and setting out to discover the truth of herself.
*** One of the other big differences is her attitude regarding killing. In some portrayals she's as much or more ThouShaltNotKill as Batman or Superman (with those two characters on their own sliding scale). In others where she's seen more as a warrior hero, she feels no guilt over killing her enemies when she feels it necessary, to a degree that can shock the other two members of the Trinity. Basically, if she's carrying a sword, it's not good to be a bad guy facing her.
** Cassandra Sandsmark (the second ComicBook/WonderGirl): Is she a confident CuteBruiser? Is she filled with Wangst and ill-tempered at the level of the AlphaBitch? Has she gotten over her boyfriend's (temporary) death or not? And is she the Tomboy or TheChick? Such writing inconsistencies have derailed her character since she became a Teen Titan, though she originally started out as TheScrappy when written by John Byrne. It took Peter David to deliver the first "fix" on her character, though Byrne decried it, along with the very idea that Cassie would ever join a superhero team. According to Byrne, she was not supposed to be "unique". Byrne would later become incensed by the revelation that Cassie's father was Zeus, as well as the idea that she would lose her virginity to ComicBook/{{Superboy}}.
** Does Hippolyta encourage her daughter to go to Man's World or is she (sometimes violently) opposed to it?
* Characters' dietary habits are rarely kept consistent. Franchise/WonderWoman and ComicBook/{{Zatanna}} have been written as vegetarian but often aren't.
* ComicBook/PoisonIvy's eating habits are not set in stone. Despite fanon, it's never been implied that Ivy doesn't need to eat due to her plant hybrid nature. One comic depicts her as near always having an empty plate, but an issue of the comic clearly shows her eating soup. Sometimes Poison Ivy is a vegan but sometimes she refuses to eat plants because she considers it murder. And other times, Ivy is depicted as a "fruitarian," and having a diet solely consisting of fruits, berries, and nuts.
* ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'':
** How evil is Cheshire, and more specifically, how much does she care about [[DatingCatwoman her former lover, Roy]], and their daughter, Lian? Sometimes they're a case of MoralityPet or EvenEvilHasLovedOnes, but other writers go out of their way to portray her as not giving a damn about them.
** Is ComicBook/{{Deathstroke}} an honorable AntiVillain bordering on AntiHero who keeps to a strict code and would be a good guy if not for terrible circumstances? Or is he a complete scumbag whose claims of hard circumstances are [[NeverMyFault just blaming other people for things he caused]], and who has no problem committing monstrous acts in the name of payment or fun as long as he keeps to his code? Notably, even his creators disagreed; Marv Wolfman saw him as the former, George Perez saw him as the latter, which resulted in Deathstroke suddenly becoming much more of a good guy whenever Wolfman was writing him solo. This has also led to some very different takes over the years on, for instance, his relationship with Terra--either Terra was far worse than him, and Deathstroke's responses to her were horror at what she did and what she convinced him to do, or he was the one corrupting and manipulating ''her'', and while she was hardly a good person, sleeping with an emotionally-disturbed teenager isn't something an honorable person does.
* ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'s personality in comparison to Billy. Traditionally, Shazam is an older, wiser alter ego of Billy Batson thanks to the wisdom of Solomon. However, many incarnations put emphasis on the fact Billy is actually a kid by having Shazam act like a ManChild.

!!!Marvel
* John Byrne's ComicBook/AlphaFlight were (his protests to the contrary) well-{{Rounded Character}}s with depth and interest. After he quit, they rapidly went to being whiny losers and have never been portrayed consistently since, until they all died [[TheWorfEffect to show how powerful a random villain was]] (and pave the way for Omega Flight).
* ComicBook/CaptainAmerica foe Batroc the Leaper was a borderline IneffectualSympatheticVillain who considered himself lucky to get in a hit on the good Captain on his first appearance, and a WorthyOpponent who gave Cap a very close match in a spectacular fight scene in his very next appearance. Ever since then, he's sort of sine-waved between HarmlessVillain and BadassNormal. In general, if he's in a serious story, expect him to be treated as among the best martial artists in the world, [[OvershadowedByAwesome held back only by the fact that he's fighting]] [[OneManArmy Captain America]]; if he's in a more comedic story, expect him to be a goofy PunchClockVillain who gets lucky on the days when he isn't laid out in one punch. Some writers have also claimed that his MauriceChevalierAccent is affected as part of his swashbuckler image, others have him even ''thinking'' in a thick FunetikAksent.
** It's [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] in ''ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool,'' where Batroc is depicted as the BadassNormal TeamDad. When Gwen realizes that her book is almost cancelled, she tells Batroc that, once the book is over, his characterization will be up to the whims of different writers. She tearfully says good-bye to her friend, knowing that writers will likely never use this version of his characterization again.
* Gwenpool herself has oscillated on how dumb, competent and loony she is depending on where she is. ''Gwenpool Strikes Again'' pushes this on a ridiculously meta level by having Gwen [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJ0L0hOWsAM1TlB?format=jpg&name=large pull her past selves from other titles]], each one with peculiar art and quirks.
* A common criticism of ''ComicBook/CivilWar'' was that the Superhero Registration Act was this. Writers of pro-registration books tended to treat it as being like a driver's license - give your name, pass a few tests, and the government'll leave you alone from now on unless you're looking for protection or want to do your part. Anti-registration books, on the other hand, approached it like a forcible draft, with even teenagers, mutants born with minor powers or conscientious objectors being pulled in and trained to kill, with resistance being punishable by imprisonment without trial in a hellish alternate dimension. In particular, the ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}} Initiative was either a legitimate attempt to help compliant and registered supervillains redeem themselves, or a gang of PsychosForHire being used as attack dogs against people guilty of no crime beyond wanting to be left alone. This left a good chunk of readers confused as to what on Earth Marvel was implying by claiming the pro-registration side were the good guys.
** This is also a problem with ''ComicBook/CivilWarII''. One of the main problems is the characterization of ComicBook/CarolDanvers. Sometimes she's portrayed as a heroine who, despite the moral ambiguity of using a precog to stop potential crimes, is conflicted on if she's doing the right thing and relying on other heroes to help guide her in her path, not wanting to have anything like [[spoiler:the death of War Machine]] happen again. Other times, she's depicted as an authoritarian JerkAss who'd happily detain anyone and everyone who even idly dreams of a crime, making her conflict with [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] seem less like a conflict of morals and more of a morality-based dick-measuring contest.
* The relative goodness of ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} varies. Sometimes he's depicted as heavily mentally unstable, even AxCrazy covered up by a facade of goofiness, whereas at other times, he's a CrazyAwesome anti-hero who would NeverHurtAnInnocent. The ''WesternAnimation/HulkVs'' series kind of splits the difference, having an amusing Deadpool who is also completely malevolent. Possibly justified given the nature of his condition (well, usually): his healing factor is lodged within a brain tumour, which constantly shifts in size, meaning that the contents of his skull are being constantly kicked about.
* ''ComicBook/FantasticFour'':
** Johnny Storm has alternated between self-obsessed prima donna and self-obsessed whiny asshat, while Susan Storm has switched between defenseless butterfly to empowered female. Additionally, every new writer of the book seems to like to take a socially well-adjusted Ben Grimm and throw on the angst about his condition so they can take him out again. Whether Ben has YiddishAsASecondLanguage or not also varies (it tends to show up when he's written by Dan Slott or Marv Wolfman). Some FF writers, most notably Tom [=DeFalco=], have tried to upgrade Johnny to at least being savvy about his powers and status. Later ones felt the need to make him dumb and dumber both. Also, a character who can end up spending months away from Earth aiding his team and family is frequently taken to task for not going to college. Some courses are crazy, and require you to show up for class.
** Reed Richards in particular can completely change from writer to writer; he's the iconic ScienceHero of the Marvel Universe, and his intelligence is rarely anything less than "the smartest man in the world", but how he approaches that intelligence and scientific acumen is what varies. He can be redoubtably heroic or borderline amoral, he can be a man rushing to the frontlines of adventure or a borderline NonActionGuy, he can be reasonably social and friendly while tending to get wrapped in his work or suffering from AmbiguousDisorder so severe it's a wonder he ever leaves the Baxter building. He was also canonically a Korean War veteran before the SlidingTimescale kicked in, and whether or not writers treat him as a veteran ranges heavily. In general, if he appears in another hero's book or a crossover, the chances of him being a full-on MadScientist caricature start ticking up.
** None of this compares to [[ComicBook/DoctorDoom Victor Von Doom]]. Dr. Doom is swung back and forth from being a baby-eating psycho, to practically being an AntiVillain more noble and courageous then Reed Richards, and everything in between. In particular, the way he runs his country comes under fire from this -- does he make it a complete utopia with happy, contented citizens, or is it just a facade the citizens put on because Doom will kill anyone who disagrees, and Doom himself only cares for them as a master would care for his pet? [[ArmedWithCanon Writers almost always wind up disagreeing with one another about Doom's correct portrayal and declare stories they don't approve of to have been Doombots instead.]] Mark Waid [[Quotes/DoctorDoom doesn't believe]] that Doom has any nobility to him while Creator/WarrenEllis, Creator/RogerStern, David Michelinie, Creator/JimShooter, Creator/JonathanHickman among others believe he ''is'' genuinely noble and can be genuinely heroic in some situations, someone who believes that since he should take over the world and rule it, it is also his obligation to protect it. Creator/JackKirby, Doom's co-creator believes that Dr. Doom is a tragic figure who thinks only in extremes.
*** Dr. Doom gets an additional layer about running his own country. Does he truly care about his citizens? Does he act the monarch just for arrogant sense of self-entitlement, and to gain access to the resources of a nation and diplomatic immunity? Are the people of Latveria genuinely happy under his rule? Is Latveria a police state where no public display of malcontent is allowed?
* Fin Fang Foom's size, intelligence, backstory, and alignment vary wildly between appearances, as discussed [[http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2007/08/09/365-reasons-to-love-comics-221/ here.]]
* The Comicbook/IncredibleHulk has numerous factors of his character that vary between writers; Whether he's a dumb brute that can only speak in HulkSpeak, a completely mindless monster who can't talk at all, or someone with a fairly average intellect with a somewhat odd speech pattern. Also depending on the writer is the Hulk's power level; while it is in a state of flux depending on his emotional state, some writers have him being knocked out by an average python choking him for less than a minute, and dying from being impaled by a trident when he's previously survived wounds that make that seem like a papercut by comparison. Another significantly variable thing is how goodnatured the Hulk is; he can be basically heroic but bad-tempered, amoral and mostly wanting to be left alone, or a monster ruled by pure id who has done far worse than kill people. Greg Pak's Hulk, for a particular outlier, is a flat-out TechnicalPacifist who subconsciously avoids killing people even in the midst of a rampage. This is somewhat justified by Banner having multiple personality syndrome and there being thousands of Hulks in his mind, but many of these traits have been ascribed to the iconic "Savage" Hulk personality alone.
* Namor the ComicBook/SubMariner has had this non-stop since he was first published in the late thirties. He's either a violent and bitter anti-hero with an unjust grudge against humanity, a noble leader who is only seeking the best for his people, a stalwart [[TheLancer pragmatist]] whose loyalty to his comrades is without question, or some combination thereof. In fact, his writing varies so much that Marvel eventually canonized it: he has a disorder caused by his amphibious physiology that manifests in that way.
* How about Comicbook/ThePunisher? Generally a good man who's committed to trying to make sure his family's deaths weren't in vain and others don't suffer the same fate? Psychopathic monster who'll kill people for littering or being junkies? A man on a mission with a singular purpose and great at planning? Barely rational gun-toting lunatic?
** Creator/GarthEnnis' take, as a sadistic torturer who enjoys killing for its own sake. [[''ComicBook/ThePunisherWelcomeBackFrank'' Tricking a crime boss]] into following him into a polar bear enclosure and riling them up to attack her because he is unarmed? Okay, proactive self defense. Kicking same crime boss, who was an elderly woman and is now a quadruple amputee, into a house fire? Well...
** Then came ''Born'' from the [[Comicbook/ThePunisherMAX MAX imprint]], which puts a stunning twist on his origin: Not only was it was never about vengeance for his family, he (unwittingly) ''caused'' their murders. What happened was that in Vietnam, he'd grown to love war, both because he was a master of killing and he liked being able to punish wrongdoers. He made a deal with a mysterious unseen entity (the Grim Reaper, according to the author's notes) that once the Vietnam War ended, he could have his own war which would never end...for an unspecified price. It was only after he returned that he learned that the price was his family.
** The the last four [[Comicbook/ThePunisherMAX Max]] arcs (Kingpin, Bullseye, Frank, and Homeless) muddle things even further. It turns out that the aforementioned deal with Death was just a possibility, and that avenging his family was still on the table (although that too was only a possibility). Then in Frank, Frank himself denies both explanations and gives the "punishing himself" rationale given by ''previous'' authors (which at the time was mostly an attempt to keep the moral guardians at bay). Bullseye himself lampshades this, spending several ''days'' just pondering the possible origins.
** His relationship with the rest of the Marvel heroes. In some stories, he respects characters like ComicBook/CaptainAmerica and ComicBook/SpiderMan deeply, but believe they lack the conviction to do what’s necessary to really change things; other times he has nothing but contempt for their ThouShaltNotKill methods and considers them weak and naive. Meanwhile, sometimes the other heroes have sympathy for his lost family and feel he is a good man who has let his pain drive him down a bad path, some writers have even implied that other heroes secretly approve of his killings and have decided to allow him free reign over street-level crime while they handle larger threats; however, other times he is viewed with universal loathing by the entire superhero community, with many considering him little better than a supervillain.
* ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'': The portrayal of Chase Stein has always swung between JerkJock and CuteButTroubled, but Terry Moore seems to have taken the "Idiot Jock" interpretation and run with it, giving Chase a very immature personality. And Chase wasn't the only one, virtually all the characters were heavily derailed by Terry Moore. Nico went from a leader to a megalomaniac, Molly went from playing naive and innocent to throw people off to actually thinking "we could build a fort!" is an appropriate response to an emergency, Victor stopped being funny, Xavin became too funny, and Klara lost anything resembling a personality. The closest thing to a consistent character is Karolina, who still seems to have lost her backbone.
* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' 's [[DaEditor J. Jonah Jameson]], editor-in-chief of the Daily Bugle, gets this treatment when it comes to the reasoning behind his newspaper's anti-Spidey reporting: to some, it's because he's [[GreenEyedMonster jealous of the fact the Spider-Man is more heroic than he could ever be]]; to others, it's just a case of JJ being an [[JerkAss asshole]]. Still others give him a motive that is, on the face of it, reasonable. Even more inconsistent is his personality beyond the Spidey-hate; is he a JerkWithAHeartOfGold to his employeees and a decent newspaperman with one unfortunate blind-spot, or is he a BadBoss and a headline-chasing scaremongerer? What's also often is the indecisiveness of how far his hate for Spider-Man goes. Is it exclusive only for Spidey, or does Jameson have a hatred for the entire superhero community in general? One moment he'd be very hesitant to start going after the likes of the Fantastic Four, and the next he's calling Galactus's first appearance a hoax.
** How strong is the wall-crawler himself? The 'proportional strength of a spider' goes from "a lot of work to lift a car" to "easily hoisted up a tank and slammed it against the ground, crushing it." The official stat nowadays is 25 tons, up from 10 as it was for a long time, but we've seen both much weaker and much stronger than that. Nowhere is this inconsistency so obvious as when Spider-Man goes up against the Kingpin: most of the time, Wilson Fisk is portrayed as being physically stronger than the wall-crawler, despite the fact that he's nothing but a BadassNormal who logically shouldn't be able to last five seconds in a fight, much less actually pose a serious threat directly. Occasionally, the writers have actually remembered this, like in ''Back in Black'' (the arc right before ''ComicBook/OneMoreDay''), when Parker broke into the Kingpin's prison and [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beat him within an inch of his life]] in retaliation for Aunt May getting shot by one of Kingpin's assassins. Nowadays, the justification is that he's [[WillfullyWeak holding back most of his might]] so as to not kill his enemies.
* ''Comicbook/XMen'' example:
** ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} tends to go from badass leader, to whiny emo-kid, to punchable asshat who treats his women like shit due to his constant infidelity.
*** How powerful his EyeBeams are also varies wildly from book to book, as indicated by their varying effects on Wolverine, who has probably absorbed more full-power optic blasts than anyone alive. They range from as weak as a firm shove, to reducing him to a smoking wreck only saved by his HealingFactor.
** ComicBook/{{Wolverine}} is even worse, as he can be a murder-happy asshole, honorable warrior, fatherly mentor, and the gruff veteran super-hero whose violent nature is a source of conflict within him. His personality being all over the place is par for the course, but combine that with his tendency to be [[WolverinePublicity everywhere at once in various different costumes]]. And his powers aren't even consistent. He goes from taking a gunshot to the stomach and taking a few days to heal to standing right next to Nitro when he goes off and regenerating from only his skeleton in seconds.
** Both Wolverine and Colossus have an actual physical problem in this area: writers can't seem to decide once and for all whether adamantium and organic steel are ''magnetic''... which is ''kind of important'' given who the X-Men's most frequent recurring big bad is. Hell, a major plot point in Wolverine's character arc was having his adamantium ripped out of him by Magneto, leaving him with with a regular skeleton for years (real time), which means any writer who makes it non-magnetic is asking the readers to forget that whole thing happened.
** A minor one for Wolverine is whether or not he can swim. Often he's shown swimming with ease (especially in earlier comics), while other times, it's pointed out that his skeleton would make him ''completely'' unable to swim since his skeleton would make him far too dense to do much in the water other than sink. The reason this is important is because drowning is one of the few surefire ways to kill him, so it's a question of exactly how susceptible to drowning is he?
** One of the worse examples in the X-Men has to be Polaris and Havok. Either they are insane with rage at the treatment of mutantkind, running screaming into the hills to try and live normal lives (their original default personalities BTW), or are being written as the brainwashed pawns of the villain of the week. A controversial moment in ''Comicbook/UncannyAvengers'' had Havok declaring to the public that he despises the "m-word" and wished to be treated just like everyone else. A number of people online pointed out that a statement such as this was ''extremely'' out of character for Havok, who in the past had been shown to be very proud of his mutant heritage.
** In one old X-Men comic, Colossus is shown to be especially weak to Storm's lightning because he's made of metal, the tiniest spark sending him into bouts of pain. Only a few issues later, he takes one of Storm's normal lightning bolts with a smile on his face. Maybe he just became a masochist.
** ComicBook/{{Nightcrawler}}, another member of the X-Men, falls prey to this trope as well. In his initial appearances, he was a [[TheWoobie woobie]] and a case of IJustWantToBeNormal. The next writer turned him into FunPersonified. Later writers have gone with one portrayal, the other, or [[SadClown a combination of the two]]. It also happens with his religion, initially he didn't talk about it much and said it was just a matter between him and God, but some writers make him more devotedly religious, even to the point where he trained to become a priest.
** A storyline from late in Creator/ChrisClaremont's classic run has the team killed and resurrected, which renders the lineup at the time, which included Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine[[note]]As well as Psylocke, Havok, Colossus, Dazzler, and Longshot[[/note]] invisible to cameras, a fact referenced and exploited frequently throughout the rest of his run. This is ''completely'' forgotten by the next writer, and since then, whenever one of the eight shows up, they turn up on camera ''unless'' it's written by Chris himself, who makes references to this trait well into the noughties.
** Another is the use of the word "human" by sympathetic characters -- certain villains draw a bright line, but whether aliens feel the need to specify "humans and mutants" or whether the X-Men themselves refer to "humans" or "non-mutant humans" depends far more on the writer than the characters. Justified since the terms aren't being used scientifically; mutants are a ''subspecies'' of human rather than a separate species. All mutants are humans, but not all humans are mutants.[[note]]Some writers have referred to them as separate species, but if two populations can and do interbreed regularly, as is the case here, they are the same species.[[/note]]
** The portrayal of ComicBook/{{Sabretooth}} is all over the place. He can go from animalistic berserker to calm criminal mastermind ''within the same storyline'', and not in a Jekyll-and-Hyde way. Similarly, his evil tends to vary. Sometimes he's a feared & depraved serial killer that has performed almost every evil act known to man. Other times, he's a edgy bad boy. And in some [[{{Flanderization}} extreme cases]], he's a juvenile frat-boy type that people find annoying.
** Many comic-book villains alternate between NobleDemon and baby-eating psycho depending on who's writing them (Dr. Doom and Magneto being the most obvious). It's very strange to see ComicBook/{{Magneto}} go between being Creator/ChrisClaremont's WellIntentionedExtremist Magneto and Creator/GrantMorrison's parody [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] drug addict Magneto. Which is why Grant Morrison's Mags [[{{Retcon}} officially wasn't him]]. And afterward Magneto (written by Chris Claremont) commented "Why would anyone think I was capable of that?"
** Comicbook/{{Mystique}} tends to be a pretty big victim of this especially whenever she is with her children Rogue and Nightcrawler. Is she an AntiVillain who has a genuine, if twisted, love for her children and is a dark MamaBear? Or is she a complete sociopath who cares nothing for them and only [[AbusiveParents uses them when necessary]] before ultimately discarding them sometimes [[OffingTheOffspring lethally?]]
** James Proudstar, AKA Warpath, has an interesting case of this regarding his powers. Sometimes, he's a nigh-invulnerable Colossus-type fighter who can stand up to the Juggernaut for several minutes. Sometimes he's weaker, but still growing stronger. He tends to always have superhuman senses, but sometimes he's on the level of a feral mutant like Wolverine, and sometimes he's at Superman levels where he tracks down snipers by the sound of their heartbeats. He also tends to have superhuman speed, but he's varied between Spider-Man levels of speed and reflexes and flat-out being faster than the speed of sound. Sometimes he can fly, sometimes he can't. And recently he gained a Wolverine-level healing factor, though he might not have that anymore. Poor Warpath has NewPowersAsThePlotDemands but it is ''never'' beneficial for him.
* The teen Vision from ''Comicbook/YoungAvengers'' had the memories of the original Vision, but the writers were unsure how far to take this. ''Young Avengers'' made it clear that the new Vision had his own distinct personality and was [[LegacyCharacter for all intents and purposes a new character]], while ''Comicbook/NewAvengers'' and ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' seemed to indicate [[TheNthDoctor he was essentially the original Vision in a new body]].
** The ''Avengers Assemble'' annual {{Lampshaded}} this by having Comicbook/IronMan and [[ComicBook/AntMan Hank Pym]] state that they left the original Vision in storage because [[Comicbook/TheAvengers the team]] assumed the new Vision was just the classic version with an upgraded appearance.
* [[WretchedHive Madripoor.]] Whoever is in charge of the island nation can vary as quickly as whoever is writing the story. One moment, Tiger Tyger is in control and pushing through reforms to transform it into a respectable nation. The very next it's right back into a haven for human and drug trafficking and other organized crime under the control of the likes of Viper or Sabretooth, with no explanation of how the regime changed. It's even happened across issues of two different series ''released in the same month''. While it could be handwaved since Madripoor is often fractious, and divided into territories controlled by different individuals with differing goals, (so Tyger's part of the city is a progressive mecca of legitimate business, while Daken's territory makes [[Film/StarWarsANewHope Mos Eisley]] seem quaint) the books rarely actually utilize this, (at least until the gang warring becomes a plot point itself) and applies the current situation across the whole island.
* How stable is ComicBook/BlackPanther's kingdom, Wakanda? Under some writers it's a country full of tribal rivalries and ambitious usurpers, resulting in lots of civil wars and coups. Under other writers it's a strong, internally stable country that just gets attacked by outsiders a lot. Don [=McGregor=] and Christopher Priest's runs tend to favour the former, while Reginald Hudlin's run and most of the country's appearances in other heroes' books, Avengers stories, and [[CrisisCrossover event comics]] favour the latter.
* ''ComicBook/{{Thanos}}'' is a quite odd example of this. Jim Starlin portrays him as a great intellect with professorial dialogue who is greatly aware of the real workings of the universe and intended to make Thanos give up being a villain after Infinity Gauntlet, going from a cosmic destroyer obsessed with Death and mystical macguffins to a morally grey cosmic pilgrim; Ron Marz and Keith Giffen try to stay in line with his post-Infinity Gauntlet characterisation, writing him as a neutral force who acts out of curiosity and self-preservation; Jason Aaron's Thanos Rising, at the other end of the scale, suggests that he's simply a very powerful Serial Killer and even that his initial visions of death [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane were ambiguously hallucinations rather than the real thing]]. Most other writers simply use him as a scary and [[AdaptationalDumbass brutish]] and [[TheBrute thuggish]] cosmic villain.
* ComicBook/UltimateMarvel
** ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'': Just how much of a ManipulativeBastard [[Comicbook/UltimateMarvel Ultimate]] Comicbook/NickFury is varies on who is writing him. His characterization can jump around anywhere from that of a GoodIsNotSoft CynicalMentor, to a WellIntentionedExtremist.
** ComicBook/MilesMorales originates in the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel line of books. After the Peter Parker of Earth-1610 died heroically, Miles takes up the Spider-Man mantle to protect New York. However, as the sales figures for Ultimate Marvel continued to drop, it became clear that Miles was the only Ultimate Marvel hero that people were interested in. The solution was to [[{{Transplant}} move Miles and his supporting cast to the main Marvel Universe]] through the cosmic reshuffling of the ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'' CrisisCrossover. However, since that point, Miles' relationship with his home dimension has been pretty confusing. Sometimes it's treated as though he has no memories of the Ultimate Universe, or [[AmnesiacResonance traces of memories]], or he knows exactly how he came to be in Earth-616 and [[AngstWhatAngst doesn't find it all that relevant]]. One story even claimed that it was a different person altogether who suffered the DeathByOriginStory. Sometimes his sudden existence is treated as suspicious, other times people act as though Miles [[CosmicRetcon has always lived in the Marvel Universe]]. Nowadays, in his [[ComicBook/MilesMoralesSpiderMan current run of comics]] by Creator/SaladinAhmed, the official answer appears to be that Miles ''did'' come from the Ultimate Universe, but only has limited memories of it, while in ComicBook/NickSpencersSpiderMan he remembers Ultimate Peter Parker and Ultimate Norman Osbourne in full detail.[[note]]Seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #48[[/note]] Note that ComicBook/TheMaker and ComicBook/JimmyHudson, other canon immigrants, have no such ambiguity and are openly acknowledged as coming from another dimension.
** ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen''
*** Colossus fluency with English. Mark Millar wrote him as being just as fluent as anyone else. Later writers had him speak in a more formal, stilted "hasn't quite got the hang of it" fashion.
*** Magneto is eloquent and charismatic and may give a good speech to justify himself, but if that fails, he uses his powers to force things to go his way. However, when he tried to recruit Firestar in ''ComicBook/UltimateSpiderMan'' and failed, he calmly left.
* ComicBook/{{MODOK}}’s exact threat factor depends on who’s writing his story. At times, he can be a very big threat to foes, while other times, the fact that he’s a giant head makes him a joke.

** Blaster is particularly noticeable for shifting under different writers, since his cartoon and comics takes were very different: the cartoon one being a goofy, music-loving party animal working in communications, the comic one being a haunted, introverted rebel. Because of this, in general, if Blaster is a major player in the story, he'll be the latter; if he isn't, he'll be the former.

* While the Franchise/{{Transformers}} franchise as a whole is prone to this, it is particularly noticeable in [[ComicBook/TheTransformers the original Marvel Comics' series]] -- most of the stories were written by either Bob Budiansky or Simon Furman, who often had sharply different depictions of key characters. To pick but one example, Grimlock was a vain and power-mad DesignatedHero under Budiansky, whereas Furman writes him as a NobleSavage of a ProudWarriorRace.
** The two biggest examples, though, are Fortress Maximus and Scorponok. Divergences include: are they the BigGood and BigBad, or merely high on the chain of command? Are they taller than most guys, or the size of an entire armored base? They're (usually) Headmasters, but how does that work - are they organic beings bonded to intelligent robots, organic beings piloting lifeless robots, or robotic beings piloting lifeless robots? And who's bonded/piloting them? Spike? Cerebros? Fortress? Zarak? Dante? And that's not even getting into their personalities - is Fortress Maximus a TechnicalPacifist, an InvincibleHero, or a BrokenBird? Is Scorponok an EvilOverlord, a MadScientist, or a NobleDemon? Even the wiki's summary of their characters basically amounts to "they're big, they're highly-ranked, and they don't like each other, everything else is up for debate."

** [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Scrooge's]] money bin may be a simple box made of stone or a blue and red dome; it may be his residence, or just the place where he keeps his cash while he actually lives in a mansion; the Beagle Boys may frequently hide out in an old trailer or a shack or under the very foundations of Duckburg; Flintheart Glomgold may live in South Africa or in Duckburg as a member of the Billionaires' Club (or alternatively, he may not exist at all, with John D. Rockerduck in his place); Donald may range from being an average chef to a LethalChef; Magica de Spell may be a real powerful sorceress or a normal person who dabbles in sorcery; Granma Duck may be Scrooge's sister or not related to him at all; Gladstone Gander may be really lucky because a Triple Distelfink sign was painted on the barn door on the day of [[InTheBlood his mother's birth]] or because the goddess of fortune is in love with him.... The list goes on.

** Creator/GarthEnnis' take, as a sadistic torturer who enjoys killing for its own sake. [[Comicbook/WelcomeBackFrank Tricking a crime boss]] into following him into a polar bear enclosure and riling them up to attack her because he is unarmed? Okay, proactive self defense. Kicking same crime boss, who was an elderly woman and is now a quadruple amputee, into a house fire? Well...

** ComicBook/TheRiddler... Nerdy milquetoast with a debilitating gimmick who is considered not even worth killing by other members of Batman's RoguesGallery... or a suave, calculating and MagnificentBastard with an intellect possibly comparable to the Dark Knight himself? There's also the fact that some interpretations have him as hyperactive and rather reminiscent of the Joker (think [[Series/Batman1966 Frank Gorshin]] and [[Film/BatmanForever Jim Carrey]]), while others portray him as more of a smooth-talking, calm intellectual (think [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries John Glover]] and [[WesternAnimation/TheBatman Robert Englund]]).

** Is ComicBook/{{Deathstroke}} an honorable AntiVillain bordering on AntiHero who keeps to a strict code and would be a good guy if not for terrible circumstances? Or is he a complete scumbag whose claims of hard circumstances are [[NeverMyFault just blaming other people for things he caused]], and who has no problem committing monstrous acts in the name of payment or fun as long as he keeps to his code? Notably, even his creators disagreed; Marv Wolfman saw him as the former, George Perez saw him as the latter, which resulted in Deathstroke suddenly becoming much more of a good guy whenever Wolfman wasn't working with Perez. This has also led to some very different takes over the years on, for instance, his relationship with Terra--either Terra was far worse than him, and Deathstroke's responses to her were horror at what she did and what she convinced him to do, or he was the one corrupting and manipulating ''her'', and while she was hardly a good person, sleeping with an emotionally-disturbed teenager isn't something an honorable person does.

** Johnny Storm has alternated between self-obsessed prima donna and self-obsessed whiny asshat, while Susan Storm has switched between defenseless butterfly to empowered female. Additionally, every new writer of the book seems to like to take a socially well-adjusted Ben Grimm and throw on the angst about his condition so they can take him out again. Whether Ben has YiddishAsASecondLanguage or not also varies (it tends to show up when he's written by Dan Slott or Marv Wolfman). Reed Richards? Always a dork, but it's not quite clear how many shades of BadassBookworm he has, and tends to be either a socially ignorant genius who's more interested in his work than his family, to a guy who really does care about his family. Some FF writers, most notably Tom [=DeFalco=], have tried to upgrade Johnny to at least being savvy about his powers and status. Later ones felt the need to make him dumb and dumber both. Also, a character who can end up spending months away from Earth aiding his team and family is frequently taken to task for not going to college. Some courses are crazy, and require you to show up for class.

* The Comicbook/IncredibleHulk has numerous factors of his character that vary between writers; Whether he's a dumb brute that can only speak in HulkSpeak, a completely mindless monster who can't talk at all, or someone with a fairly average intellect with a somewhat odd speech pattern. This is somewhat justified by Banner having multiple personality syndrome and there being thousands of Hulks in his mind. Also depending on the writer is the Hulk's power level; while it is in a state of flux depending on his emotional state, some writers have him being knocked out by an average python choking him for less than a minute, and dying from being impaled by a trident when he's previously survived wounds that make that seem like a papercut by comparison.
** One telling comparison is to look at a few recent depictions of the Hulk by two very different writers. Greg Pak has been the main writer on the Hulk for about five years now and has gone into great lengths to give the Hulk, rather than Bruce Banner, some in-depth character development through such storylines as ''ComicBook/PlanetHulk'', ''ComicBook/WorldWarHulk'', and ''ComicBook/FallOfTheHulks'', which paint a complex and sympathetic picture of the Jade Giant. Then there's Mark Millar's run on ''ComicBook/TheUltimates'' and the ''ComicBook/OldManLogan'' mini series. The former shows Banner as weak willed and insecure (not completely unjustified given it's meant to be early on in the character's history) and the Hulk as, among other things, an active cannibal. The latter shows Banner/Hulk as an insane redneck who leads a gang of his inbred mutant children (sired with his cousin, ComicBook/SheHulk, suggested to have been by rape) and rules over the ruins of the west coast. Granted, Millar's versions are an [[UltimateUniverse alternate universe]] and BadFuture, respectively, but one gets the idea that he doesn't think highly of the character.

* Is ComicBook/CaptainAtom a god, as much more powerful than, say, Superman, as Superman is compared to a normal human, or is he of mid-level power by the standards of the DCU? Does he like having power over other people, even to a pathological extent, or does he see leadership as a burden that he'll take up only because he's the only one who can? Does he have problems with authority, or is he a stereotypical military man who will salute and say yes sir? Is he stuck as Captain Atom, losing his connection to humanity, or is he able to transform back and forth at will, facing him with the dilemma that he can always just walk away from being a superhero?

* How evil is ''Comicbook/TeenTitans'' villain Cheshire, and more specifically, how much does she care about [[DatingCatwoman her former lover, Roy]], and their daughter, Lian? Sometimes they're a case of MoralityPet or EvenEvilHasLovedOnes, but other writers go out of their way to portray her as not giving a damn about them.

** ComicBook/MilesMorales originates in the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel line of books. After the Peter Parker of Earth-1610 died heroically, Miles takes up the Spider-Man mantle to protect New York. However, as the sales figures for Ultimate Marvel continued to drop, it became clear that Miles was the only Ultimate Marvel hero that people were interested in. The solution was to [[{{Transplant}} move Miles and his supporting cast to the main Marvel Universe]] through the cosmic reshuffling of the ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'' CrisisCrossover. However, since that point, Miles' relationship with his home dimension has been pretty confusing. Sometimes it's treated as though he has no memories of the Ultimate Universe, or [[AmnesiacResonance traces of memories]], or he knows exactly how he came to be in Earth-616 and [[AngstWhatAngst doesn't find it all that relevant]]. One story even claimed that it was a different person altogether who suffered the DeathByOriginStory. Sometimes his sudden existence is treated as suspicious, other times people act as though Miles [[CosmicRetcon has always lived in the Marvel Universe]]. Nowadays, in his [[ComicBook/MilesMoralesSpiderMan current run of comics]] by Creator/SaladinAhmed, the official answer appears to be that Miles ''did'' come from the Ultimate Universe, but only has limited memories of it, while in ComicBook/NickSpencersSpiderMan he remembers Ultimate Peter Parker and Ultimate Norman Osbourne in full detail.[[note]]Seen in "The Amazing Spider-Man" #48[[/note]] Note that ComicBook/TheMaker and Jimmy Hudson, other canon immigrants, have no such ambiguity and are openly acknowledged as coming from another dimension.
** ''ComicBook/UltimateXMen'': Colossus fluency with English. Mark Millar wrote him as being just as fluent as anyone else. Later writers had him speak in a more formal, stilted "hasn't quite got the hang of it" fashion.

* Just how much of a ManipulativeBastard [[Comicbook/UltimateMarvel Ultimate]] Comicbook/NickFury is varies on who is writing him. His characterization can jump around anywhere from that of a GoodIsNotSoft CynicalMentor, to a WellIntentionedExtremist, to an outright VillainProtagonist. To give you an example, when Peter Parker died, Creator/BrianBendis had Fury break down in tears and genuinely blame himself, while Creator/MarkMillar seemed to imply that Fury might have ''intentionally caused Peter's death'' as part of a XanatosGambit.

* ComicBook/MilesMorales originates in the ComicBook/UltimateMarvel line of books. After the Peter Parker of Earth-1610 died heroically, Miles takes up the Spider-Man mantle to protect New York. However, as the sales figures for Ultimate Marvel continued to drop, it became clear that Miles was the only Ultimate Marvel hero that people were interested in. The solution was to [[{{Transplant}} move Miles and his supporting cast to the main Marvel Universe]] through the cosmic reshuffling of the ''ComicBook/SecretWars2015'' CrisisCrossover. However, since that point, Miles' relationship with his home dimension has been pretty confusing. Sometimes it's treated as though he has no memories of the Ultimate Universe, or [[AmnesiacResonance traces of memories]], or he knows exactly how he came to be in Earth-616 and [[AngstWhatAngst doesn't find it all that relevant]]. One story even claimed that it was a different person altogether who suffered the DeathByOriginStory. Sometimes his sudden existence is treated as suspicious, other times people act as though Miles [[CosmicRetcon has always lived in the Marvel Universe]]. In his [[ComicBook/MilesMoralesSpiderMan current run of comics]] by Creator/SaladinAhmed, the official answer appears to be that Miles ''did'' come from the Ultimate Universe, but only has limited memories of it and mostly just proceeds as a regular Earth-616 hero.

* Is ComicBook/BlackCanary a genuine, butt-kicking, ActionGirl? Or is she a FauxActionGirl who, as ComicBook/GreenArrow's DesignatedLoveInterest, needs Green Arrow to get her out of trouble? Depends on who's writing her, and what comic it is. If it's ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey, expect the former. If it's anything with "Green Arrow" in the title (or if Judd Winick is at the helm), expect the latter. Strangely enough, if it's Franchise/{{Justice League|of America}} where she would be more likely to find herself out of her depth, she, like Batman, kicks all kinds of ass, probably for the same reason Batman does, because writers always feel the need to justify the BadassNormal and low power characters on the team.

* The ''Franchise/ArchieComics'' are famous for this:

** This was a major issue with the ComicBook/New52 Superman, and likely a major reason for why the guy didn't take. Grant Morrison wrote him as an arrogant, callous hothead in the past, but going through CharacterDevelopment into a well-rounded IdealHero with an aggressive and anti-authoritarian streak [[OlderAndWiser by the modern day.]] Thing was, a lot of writers, including George Perez and Scott Lobdell, didn't get the memo on the second half, and wrote the modern Superman as a straight-up self-righteous JerkAss who punched people for no good reason. And then you had writers like Scott Snyder, who basically ignored both approaches and just wrote him like his pre-New 52 counterpart...