At the same time, DC turned Manhunter into a woman...which could have led to any number of sexist jokes--but they "fixed" that by making her a lesbian!

Sorry, my mistake!  DC did three new female vigilantes all at the same time--Manhunter, the Question, and Batwoman--and I knew two of them were lesbians and I mixed up Manhunter and the Question.

Of course, that brings us back to my point--"Manhunter" is a problematic name for a (straight) woman.  ("Oh, she really needs a man!")  My larger point is that Marvel and DC both have way too many new characters that are shoehorned into pre-existing names that often don't make sense for them!

And that takes us right back to the heart of this whole thread--poor Ditko!  They have taken all of his greatest creations and gutted them, leaving only the marketable, trademarked shell.  The Question became Renee Montoya, the Creeper has been twisted multiple ways the last 20 years, and Ted Kord was shot in the head and replaced by "an ethnically diverse" teen--was that DC's attempt to make BB a new Spider-Man?  (So, Spider-Man and BB have essentially switched places now?)  I think at least half of Spider-Man's appeal is his Peter Parker alter ego, and I think Ditko did a great job of also giving Jack Ryder, Vic Sage, and Ted Kord their own personalities during a time when many super-heroes' alter egos were cookie cutter.

I am so sick of "legacy" super-heroes!  DC lucked out with Hal Jordan and Barry Allen and used them as an excuse to replace 100 other heroes with "fresh" alter egos!  (And Marvel's not innocent of this either.)

Any revamp of a character should work on its own, could be sellable on its own, whether anybody was familiar with the previous iteration or not.  None of these latter-day legacy heroes would really work if pitched as a new project.  If somebody tried to sell DC on a bug-based teen super-hero (with a full-face mask with almond-shaped slanted eye lenses!), the editor would say "You're copying Spider-Man."  If I tried to sell them a female vigilante named "Manhunter" or "Judomaster," the editor would laugh and tell me those aren't good names for women characters.  And if I offered DC a choice between the original version of the Creeper (fun stories of the cool and charming Jack Ryder pretending to be a crazy, spooky guy with explainable and well-thought-out powers--actually pretty unique and original) or the latest (a Japanese demon possessing the body of a dead man?!?--a "hero" with a demon inside has been done to death!), I definitely wouldn't go for the latter!  (Or I would at least insist on the character LOOKING Japanese!  Oh geez--I just realized...don't make the most yellow character in comics Japanese!!!)

So, if the publishers wouldn't buy these ideas if they were brought to them fresh off the street, why should I as a reader buy it from THEM?