Man, that "Winter Soldier" nonsense pisses me off to no end...

QUOTE: I can't help wondering if that was also the same reason why Falcon's origin and past was retcon into him being a "street hustler"/criminal who was brainwashed by the Red Skull (using the Cosmic Cube) to be the perfect partner for Captain America.

No! Please tell me that's a joke - please tell me that never happened.

I think sometimes writers can complicate things, such as revealing that Harvey Dent having that particular mental condition contributed to him being Two-Face. And I really, really disliked that stuff that Peter David did with Bruce Banner. Somehow - and I can't put my finger on why - it ruined the Hulk mythos a little.

I do believe in simplicity most of the time. I'd hate it if, for example, it turned out that one of Superman's foes had destroyed Krypton or infiltrated Kryptonian society; I'd hate it if it were revealed that Thomas Wayne was in league with one of Batman's foes and that the killing wasn't a senseless murder; and I'd hate it if it were revealed that some mystical force had caused Tony Stark's accident.

Why can't The Falcon simply be heroic? Why can't Harvey Dent or Bruce Banner's origins simply have been allowed to retain their simplicity instead of all that psychobabble nonsense (apologies to anyone who agreed and liked all that stuff)? It can ruin characters. Imagine if it happened elsewhere, imagine if it were revaled the Klingons or Q had manipulated events and brainwashed Kirk into joining Starfleet.

Perhaps it's time, and this would probably be impractical, for there to be some sort of rule applied by comics, preventing certain changes to characters, something in writing. Mr. Byrne managed to write characters and create exciting stories without tampering with backgrounds or changing the characters. Perhaps there should be a rule against tampering with the Hulk's backstory or The Falcon's backstory.

The problems come when each new writer seems to think that they need to add soemthing new to a character that will define their run. This leads to massive amounts of over complication without thinking about what the longer term effects would be.

We are also seeing this in the movies as examplified by Tim Burton's Batman and Spider-Man 3. It's someone sat in a room going 'Wouldn't it be cool if ....' 'The Joker killed Batman's family' or 'Sandman killed Uncle Ben'

There needs to be someone else with the guts to say 'No, it wouldn't be cool. It would destroy what has been established and in any case, it's a bad idea, move on'.

Until someone has that guts, we will constantly be subjected to characters becoming less of who they were and more of who they aren't.

I'm perfectly OK with not refering to parts of a character's past or keeping the essence but altering the details if you really must (JB's Iron Man example is fine with me, the details may be altered but the specifics are vague so no probs with what has been previously published - Warren Ellis, although I liked Extremis, messed up by updating but then refering to a specific war which would mean a further update would be needed in a few years time).

What is really scary is where someone insists some absolute pile of pooh cannot be messed with when that pile of pooh messed with a far better story.

(Yes, that's a big ol' oops for Aurora, too. But at least her MPD was there from the start, not shoveled in by writers being "clever".)

I know you will hate me for this but I'm OK with PAD's version of the Hulk. I liked it. It addressed the different colours and personalities that had been written over the years and in all honesty, if someone wanted to ignore it all, all they had to do was just choose one Hulk to go with and ignore the rest.

MDP may well not exist but again, I'm still OK with that so long as it is used in a consistant manner.