History DependingOnTheWriter / ComicBooks

** How strong and physically capable is Harley? Above average for a gymnast or an outright BadassNormal with almost superhuman agility?

** 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 as a tragic figure who thinks only in extremes.

** 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.]] "Baby-eating psycho" isn't an exaggeration of how some writers view him. Here's Mark Waid's take on the character:
--->"The truism that Victor von Doom is, despite his villainy, a noble person is absolute crap. A man whose entire motivating force is jealousy is ridiculously ''petty'', not grandly noble. Yes, Doom is regal and yes, whenever possible, Doom likes to ''act'' as though he possesses great moral character because to him that's what great men have... [but Doom] would tear the head off a newborn baby and eat it like an apple while his mother watched if it would somehow prove he was smarter than Reed."

** 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's 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.

** 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. 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.

** 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.

* 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. 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 first half of his run; 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.

*** Dick's relationship with Bruce is very inconsistent. For decades DC has written them as being familial instead of just "Batman and his ward" but whether they're [[HappilyAdopted father and son]] or more like brothers varies. Part of this could be because they're closer in age nowadays.

* 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 tumor, which constantly shifts in size, meaning that the contents of his skull are being constantly kicked about.

** 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 beatnick, 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 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]].

** 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, well ... you know. 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.

** 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 super strength is no better than regular super strength 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.

** 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.]]

** 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.

*** 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's 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.

* 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.

** 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. 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 triton when he's previously survived wounds that make that seem like a papercut by comparison.

** 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.

** At one point during Claremont's run, Kitty Pryde discovered that she was slightly nearsighted, and was occasionally depicted wearing glasses, especially when working on computer hardware. Subsequent writers tend to ignore this limitation. Maybe she started wearing contacts?

** 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 is (or was at one time) 10 tons, but we've seen both much weaker and much stronger than that. No where 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 shouldn't be able to last five seconds in a fight, much less actually pose a serious threat. 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.

* 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.

*** Is Harley a psychologist or a psychiatrist? In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' she was a psychologist, but the comics have zigzagged between the two. It's possible the writers don't recognize they're two very different careers and mix them up. [[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.[[/note]] ''Why'' was Harley a psychologist/psychiatrist in the first place? Her original backstory from ''Mad Love'' depicted her as [[SextraCredit sleeping through college]] (implying she couldn't get through it herself) and had her only become a psychologist so she could become a television psychologist and make money. Other interpretations however portray her as genuinely being interested in the career and being a genuine psychologist/psychiatrist who was led astray by the Joker. If Harley did sleep with her teachers, was it because the schooling was too hard, was she too lazy, or was she perfectly capable of doing the work but found it easier to manipulate her grades? The New 52 reimagined that aspect as her simply blackmailing her teachers.

*** Is Harley a psychologist or a psychiatrist? In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' she was a psychologist, but the comics have zigzagged between the two. It's possible the writers don't recognize they're two very different careers and mix them up. ''Why'' was Harley a psychologist/psychiatrist in the first place? Her original backstory from ''Mad Love'' depicted her as [[SextraCredit sleeping through college]] (implying she couldn't get through it herself) and had her only become a psychologist so she could become a television psychologist and make money. Other interpretations however portray her as genuinely being interested in the career and being a genuine psychologist/psychiatrist who was led astray by the Joker. Did Harley sleep with her teachers because the schooling was too hard, was she too lazy, was she perfectly capable of doing the work but found it easier to manipulate her grades, or did she never sleep with her teachers at all? The New 52 reimagined that aspect as her simply blackmailing her teachers.

* 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.

** The Riddler... Nerdy milquetoast with a debilitating gimmick who is considering not even worth killing by other members of Batman's Rogue gallery... 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/{{Batman}} 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]]).

** Damian Wayne, the latest 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. 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 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 Neo 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.

* Poison Ivy'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.

*** 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/BatmanAndRobin'' took it even further, showing Two-Face repeatedly flipping the coin until he got the result he wanted.

** 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 is (or was at one time) 10 tons, but we've seen both much weaker and much stronger than that. No where 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 shouldn't be able to last five seconds in a fight, much less actually pose a serious threat. Occasionally, the writers have actually remembered this, like in ''Back in Black'', 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.

** 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 is (or was at one time) 10 tons, but we've seen both much weaker and much stronger than that. No where 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 shouldn't be able to last five seconds in a fight, much less actually pose a serious threat. Occasionally, the writers have actually remembered this, like in 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.

** 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 is (or was at one time) 10 tons, but we've seen both much weaker and much stronger than that.

** Comicbook/{{Mystique}} tends to be a pretty big victim of this especially whenever she is with her children Rogue and Nightcrawler. Is she a 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?]]

** How strong and physically capable is Harley? Above average for a gymnast or an outright BadassNormal with almost superhuman moveablity?

** 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. Likewise, his looks vary from completely monstrous to human with slight orthodontic issues.