My thought is that everybody who has read comics does this with at least one beloved character...

A character changes, is retconned or has had his/her origin tweaked to the point that you feel the current version is so significantly removed from the version you read and enjoyed that you simply don't accept the status quo for that character. You look at the latest issue of Captain Dinoball or whatever and you say "that's not the real Captain Dinoball" or "that's not my Captain Dinoball."

For me, it's the Mantlo/David and post-Mantlo/David versions of the Hulk. That's just not the real Hulk to me. The real Hulk was the guy who wasn't a schizophrenic psycho from childhood. The one who didn't try to blow up his high school Columbine-style and the one who didn't kill his own father. The one who didn't need a healing power because he was that damn tough. This was the character that I consider to be the definitive Hulk and even though Greg Pak is doing an outstanding job writing the Hulk these days, that character just isn't the same character to me.

You guys like that about any characters? And, please, if you respond... take a moment or two to delve into it a bit and don't just have one word posts that say things like "Iron Man" or "Blue Beetle."

The Spectre. Whille I Loved the send off Ostrander gave to Jim Corrigan, they have yet to find a suitable host to replace him. Hal Jordan was a huge misstep and thankfully they got rid of that. Then came Crispus Allen... while I liked the pre-Spectre version of the character, the whole killing his own son thin leaves a bad taste in my mouth and the goatee looks asinine on The Spectre regardless of the caliber of artist who illustrates him. If I were in charge, I would give him a new host and "punish" him for his abuse of power by limiting his abilities and sticking him in the JSA again for a few years, getting him back in touch with his human side, then letting his more godlike powers reemerge and spinning him off into his own series again.

Wonderman,Vision,and the Scarlet Witch.
Never cared for the characters after the Vision lost his emotions and Wonderman refused to restore them.

Pretty much the entire Marvel Universe is unrecognizable to me, now.

Spider-Man making deals with Mephisto, half of the FF no longer in the team, the supervillains in charge of things, Hank Pym gone insane.....I could go on and on. The characters I grew up with are no more, and seem to have been replaced with lookalikes who behave completely differently.

I hear that. Although I do have to like the overall message of everything post-Civil War... a message I consider to be "when you let government run major things for you, bad things happen."

Reed & Sue were gone for like 3 issues two years ago, and were back by the concluding chapter of that story arc.

I look at it more like "when the government outsources major things to corporatist bad guys, bad things happen."

Potatoe/potato.

And I am just hoping they get done with this particular set of stories sooner rather than later and move on to something different. If it weren't for the cosmic series that they have out now I would really be done with Marvel. But the back issues remain.

I liked the corporatist bad guys line.

On the bright side, the changes to Reed Richards that seemed unheroic seem to be coming into the able hands of Mr. Hickman. The Iron Fist series was turned into something quite different, to rave reviews.
Interesting to note some of the legacy characters struggling to take up the mantle and rediscover how to be more
like the characters you'd recognize, though they are not (Batman, Cap) to put a different twist into the thread.

I don't get comics like I did when they were seventy five cents and I was working for my parents all summer, so I'm a little slow with the answer you seek. I'll bet the "FrankenCastle" version of the Punisher would fit the description, though. If it weren't for IMWAN and CBR, I would have little clue what's happening anywhere much! I don't even take time and sit and read a stack of comics at Border's because I always feel like I need to stay busy making something new or researching...but the idea sounds tempting now! The good thing about Border's not carrying FF is that it will get me out of downtown to a comic book shop very soon!

I actually don't know where to even find some of them; I have no idea why Alpha Flight under John Byrne rang such a bell, I had so few and borrowed many from Holt....I borrowed Aurora and Sasquatch for a mean streets pastiche fic for Mr. Eh?'s birthday and put it on the writer thread, but I kept the classic versions in my head in regards to the complete story arc. That was a good writing exercise.

As I said - I'm out of touch with it all.

Marvel lost me, really, with the "Spider-Totem" thing.

The entire DCU since Infinite Crisis. No single explanation, just the whole thing has become an ugly, violent, incomprehensible mess. A few titles are exempt I'm sure; I'm just done with DC. They lost me there.

DC really is a mess. Were it up to me, I'd do a real reboot there, and start it all from scratch. No half ass measures. That said...I don't let single stories ruin characters for me. The Osbourne/Gwen thing? Just never mention that again thank you. I'm having a really hard time thinking of any character I don't recognize now though. Wendy maybe Hot Stuff too.

Elongated Man

Spider-Man

My favourite character probably since the early 1970's. I tried to stick with it, but Sins Past, The Other, Civil War, the unmasking and finally the deal with Mephisto broke me. I'm not a ranty fan boy about it, it's more that they managed to seperate me emotionally from the character to such an extent that even the good stuff that's been published since doesn't touch me. I absolutely loved the JMS run up to sins past, and didn't really mind the Spider Totem storyline, as it was more implied he was connected, rather than stated, and I liked Ezekiel as a reflection of what Peter could have been (both good and bad).

Again, I'm not the type to rant about the Marvel Universe and the dark place it's become, I just walk away from it (I still love Nova and the other "cosmic" books though. Abnet and Lanning are very good).

I don't like skeletal Deadman. I like him with the acrobatic physique that he died with.

As much as I love Green Lantern, he is in danger of becoming too cosmic. I would like for him to be brought down to Earth (literally) for about a six consecutive stories.

Don't even get me started with the Teen Titans. It seems like the goal of every Titans writer is "How fast can I age them out of the teenage years?" That's what killed one of the unique factors of the original Firestorm as well.

Flash = fun for me. I'm not having a lot of fun with Rebirth.

Superman hasn't been the same since he got married. No matter how many reboots, re-origins, re-imaginings, it's just not working for me.

I was thinking of this the other day - and I agree so much. It was as if David figured "I can have him all cut up and bleeding and heal from it - THAT will be cool." Like you, I liked Hulk as DAMN TOUGH!

Along those lines, I liked having a Batman who was usually smart enough not to get hurt over and over again.

Perhaps more accurately, Superman hasn't been the same since Clark told Lois that he was Superman.

IAWHJ

The way things are now, it's almost possible to believe that DC should've continued with the whole "Electric Superman" thing, and that Marvel should've let Ben Reilly live a bit longer.

Almost.....