This industry seems to have a history of being unconcerned with author's intent-- from the constantly changing histories of Batman/Superman, to the reimagining of the Flash, Hawkman, GL that launched the silver age, to the reboots of the 80's, and now the current Civil War/Spider-Totem/Crisis #9876043.

Readers just seem to pick whichever version of a character they like best and act as if it's the "true" version of the character. Fans who screamed "foul!" over Byrne's Superman relaunch b/c it didn't match the silver age didn't seem too concerned that Superman had stopped being the political crusader strip that Siegal and Shuster drew in the late 30's.

It struck me as odd that Batman, who was the "cool" character, seemed to have attracted fans who were far less anal (or far less informed) than Superman's fans.

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My theory behind that is that the Superman mythology had been fairly consistent since the Weisinger days. All of those elements were pretty much ingrained in people's heads (Jor-El with the headband and the sun on his shirt, the super-pets, and so on). Thus, when Man of Steel rebooted the character (and swept away many of those old barnacles), people were unaccustomed to the revised mythology.

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SER: These are good points. One thing I've noticed is that most of the creators at DC are apparently Silver Age junkies -- that's why we wind up with Kara Zor-El Supergirl and Kandor and the Fortress of Solitude and so on. I know there was some demand among fans for the restoration of the Barbara Gordon Batgirl but it paled to the demand for the Kara Zor-El Supergirl.

For many of these creators, Frank Miller provided the "backstory" Batman.

Tangentially, it's interesting to compare BATMAN BEGINS and SUPERMAN RETURNS. The former is heavily influenced by the Batman comics post-Miller (YEAR ONE, LONG HALLOWEEN, which itself was greatly influenced by Miller's work). SUPERMAN RETURNS, meanwhile, was mostly inspired by a thirty-year-old movie. It took very little from the post-Byrne SUPERMAN (JB's version of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor, for example).

SMALLVILLE, also, is very Silver Age in some ways.

Author's intent is a useful thing but I think that there are instances where a creation evolves into something better under a different writer, artist or both. She-Hulk would be my prime example; the original character, in her "Savage" incarnation, was pretty limited. It was only when Roger Stern and then JB picked her up and did new things with Jennifer Walters that she became more than a Hulk knockoff.

Of course, there are many, many counter-examples, where creators ignore what is fundamental to a character...