Actually, James, I would even venture to go as far as saying, if the writer doesn't care for "his" characters he should move along and writing something else... He'll probably enjoy it more, and it's more respectful to the readers who might very well care.

Simply put and following one of JB's oft-quoted rules of thumb (originally handed him down from Stan Lee) about writing stories ABOUT specific characters rather than writing a story and throw the character into it, the writer needs to appreciate and care about the character at least to the degree that he/she can find and/or coax forth the stories that grow out of the characters. As opposed to pushing existing characters into STORIES that the WRITER wants to tell and leaving the readers wondering whatever happened to the character and what the heck that character is doing in that setting.

In that sense, I think the best occasions of "Everything You Know is a Lie" (I refuse the Deviant acronym) are made by good writers who care about the characters, as opposed to people who is just trying their damnedest to leave a "significant" mark.

My penny.

Andy wrote: ...Should he solve the Gay Alien Vampire Robot problem, or just assume that (a) almost nobody knows about that stuff, and more importantly (b) nobody cares?

What I see as mistakes, are mostly the opposite, like when a totally nonsense episode with the the Spider-Man Clone, was brought up again in a never-ending Saga that was supposed to be as impressive as The Death of Superman, and the truth is nobody cared about the clone. It's important to spot what's part of the character's mythology and what's not. That he lost his love interest Gwen Stacy is, but that he once changed his name to Peter Palmer is not or even met a clone in the 70's is not either, it's just a 70's funny comic.

But what's more important here, I have noticed, by writing some comics myself, is that the people who lied, for example in the story about Aunt May's death, are from now on just liars. They don't need a speech baloon anymore, to me they can just write LIES all over it. What's sad about Spider-Man and even Superman after Birtright is that the writers can themselves become such liars. Who cares about reading another first Superman confrontation with a new villain if the already have "met" in Smallville? Or who will believe it, if Aunt May or Mary Jane dies in the next issue of Spider-Man, raise a hand.

I don't see BIRTHRIGHT as a EYKIAL or a reboot (never cared about the whole "SUPERMAN 200 changed the continuity" story), but only as a way to relaunch the character re-telling his origin for a new generation of readers (a new generation who I don't see anywhere).

The one true EYKIAL was "Return to Krypton", which restored the classic Krypton for the post-Crisis continuity... But something didn't work, because one year later or so "Return to Krypton II" erased it all ("It's all Brainiac's fault!").