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An "imaginary story"

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and Generations are some good examples.

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I got plenty of complaints from readers who did not like Bruce Wayne Jr as Batman. No guarantee, is there, that the "next generation" of characters will be as good as what we already have. In fact, given the available talent. . .

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I was thinking the other day about how people see the current Foneboneman or whatever and say "That's not Foneboneman" because the character has changed too much. Perhaps it would be better if the current was NOT the original?

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Or perhaps it would be better if editors actually did their jobs.

Even if there was some kind of consistent "plan" -- virtually impossible given the egos involved -- how would the aging of characters be handled? Real time? Sliding scale? And how old would the characters become before they handed over the job to someone else?

Let's take Peter Parker. He aged for the first few years of his book, but then Stan put the brakes on when he realized Marvel really was going to stick around for a while this time. (The same thing happened to the X-Men and Johnny Storm.) Peter stayed "college age" for a long time -- but suppose he hadn't. Suppose he'd continued to age as he had in the first couple of years. Would readers want to pick up the adventures of a 40 years old Spider-Man? 50? 60? Assume children are introduced, would all readers be comfortable with Pete Jr. becoming Spider-Man when he hit sixteen (roughly the age Peter had been)?

Here we see the most basic problem with the whole concept: the same readers who demand "growth and change" are often the ones to squeal the loudest when that "growth and change" isn't of the kind they wanted.

Sometime around the Seventies, publishers took a giant bad step, when they began pandering to the more vocal readers, instead of doing what they had been doing for decades and accepting that there would always be some readers who would complain. Ah, but those readers were rapidly becoming the people who PRODUCED the books. So, of course, the pandering. Professional comics were on their way to becoming the expensive fanzines they are today. And the industry was on its way to dying.

SER: I think people love *Dick Grayson.* That's a difference.
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That's a Bingo!

JB's comment above is definitive for me. teen characters should not age, categorically. as shown repeatedly, when they are "grown up" by a creator, it creates massive problems-- how can you age robin to adulthood practically overnight and not have a gigantic effect on kid flash, speedy, wonder girl, et al? how can you get peter parker out of high school and into college and not begin to lose the "put upon kid" aspect that made him relatable?

no, kid characters should not age. there is no need for it to happen, no requirement, no force that demands they grow up. create "what if" stories if you please, wherein they imagine what it would be like when they're older, but do not make them older in reality. as DC has shown, that way lies madness.

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More "problematic" that a quartet of astronauts getting bombarded by "cosmic rays" and turning into superheroes? More "problematic" than a scientist getting caught on the edge of a nuclear blast and turning into a raging green monster? More "problematic" than a high school kid getting bitten by a radioactive spider and developing the spider's abilities?

"Problematic" is what we make it. Over think this stuff -- which is clearly what you're doing, and we end up with snarky remarks about "yellow Spandex".

Play the game by the rules, or don't play at all.