I loved THE UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN (it's one of my favourite Bat-stories). YEAR ONE is something I really enjoy. Those were the last words. If I see an announcement for "Post-Rebirth, Year Dot: A Retelling Of The Dark Knight's Early Days", I won't be buying it!

Len Wein added to the character with developments, characters and plots working within the confines and tropes he was given. He didn't feel a need to add things in to Banner's backstory. 

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What backstory? Banner barely had one during the Wein years. We knew very little of his life before the gamma bomb went off. 

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Unlike Mantlo and David, he didn't make Bruce a victim of the abuse of an alcoholic / a wife beater / murderer, or any previous trauma. Len Wein played in the sandbox without feeling the need to dump sand in it that served no purpose.

I think (if I recall correctly) Miller and Romita Jr.'s later MAN WITHOUT FEAR did rewrite some established history, and I don't know if it's considered canon; I think readers and later writers (except for the TV show) tend to ignore it.

Likewise, I think Miller's BATMAN: YEAR ONE is highly regarded, but I don't think it's considered canon anymore (if anything at DC can be called "canon" these days)--he messed around too much with Gordon's life and made Selina a hooker.  Such far-reaching changes don't stick, and I think YEAR ONE is shuttled off to "Frank Miller World" with DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN.

In Miller's story, Batman arranges for a searing dish to explode into flames to herald his arrival. In the new, retold version, the writer has Batman admit in voice-over that the flash he created startled him so much, he wet himself...

Which is so cute and precious, you just want to pinch the cheeks of that precocious lil' scamp of a writer until they come right off...

Added: Just looked it up and the "bladder spasm" bit comes from Kevin Smith in 2010. While that is not as recent as I'd remembered, my other comments stand.

... And yet they still **** you to make their money. Because... why again? Sin City was rife with such figures of "take back the power" strength, clarity, and leather gear.

I believe that Mindy Newell's CATWOMAN mini-series not only presented a more realistic view of prostitution, but also established that Selina was just faking being a prostitute while she searched for her missing sister.

Comics are weird.

Well... professionals could. And largely did over the years. But no one writes in the present anymore. They write to encapsulate and expand upon the whole of the mythology. Playing the ball where it was left to lie by some other writer is a lost art, and quite frankly, beneath the dignity of whoever has been handed the reins most recently. Miller got to change stuff. Byrne did. David, too... Who is to say that I am any less than they are...? Don't believe me... Just read THIS...!!

And we do. And it's lousy. And superstar flavor-of-the-month struts off, his tail-feathers proudly spread, because no one really GOT what he was laying down there. He was just too cool for this room...

Focusing on the Hulk specifically, it is unfortunate that CHANGE has become the central theme of the character since David's time on the book. There is now nothing that is out-of-bounds with the Hulk because whatever you're doing, it now represents CHANGE. Banner has been made insane, stricken with leukemia*, shot in the head**... And each time, it gives the Hulk a NEW jumping-on-point for readers.

I'll commend Marvel at least for not rebooting the character from square one each time to accommodate these fits of authorial pique. At least the events occur "naturally" over the course of the character's life. We could be seeing the Gamma Bomb blowing up again and again and again to bring about these creative liberties.

* No one could get the number of Banner's doctor to Jane Foster in time? See also: Batman's broken back and Oracle.

** Just looked up the changes to the Hulk formula added by writers over the years... Gravage, Dark, Kluh, Scarred... omg... They can't help themselves, can they?

There’s plenty to love about those early issues. The original Hulk’s sunset trigger-mechanism is a nice tie to classic (vampires, werewolves) monster lore, and brought with it a clockwork regularity of transformations which would (and did, during David’s run) make for interesting story dynamics. 

The Hulk being under Rick Jones’ control in issues 3 and 4—as long as Rick was awake—was a fun idea, but it negated the central Banner/Hulk conflict of the series. I don’t think this brief iteration was intended to last, though. It seems to have been more of a transitional step to what came next.

The Hulk with Banner’s brain—but angry—is a version full of good story potential (with Banner always in danger of losing control and/or becoming an addict), and is also the version who co-founded the Avengers. David later retconned this version into basically the Gray Hulk persona influencing Banner’s personality while in his Hulk form. The major drawback to this version is that it was rather location-specific, since Banner needed to use the gamma ray projector to force the transformations. 

After those first six issues, we started to see the Hulk’s intelligence level drop. And, in TALES TO ASTONISH, we finally got the classic anger trigger-mechanism for the transformations, which opened up storytelling possibilities a great deal. Of course, the Hulk initially reverted back to Banner when HE got too excited, but this was quickly discarded in favor of the tranformation being triggered by his calming down, instead. This is the version which lasted for nearly 20 years in the comics, and is also essentially the version popularized by the TV show. By now, the transformation require no external stimuli, and the anger trigger-mechanism was a surefire source of drama and tension. And the TV show gave us the clsssic phrase, “Hulk-Out”, as a result.

I think people connect to this refined incarnation of the Hulk on a very visceral level. He’s a wonderful metaphor for repressed emotions going wild, and serves as the by-proxy catharsis of watching someone unleash their inner rage and smash stuff. It’s a perfect balance and an exploration of duality. Reason vs. rage. Intellect versus primitive emotions. Banner can’t get too emotional for fear of unleashing the Hulk, and the Hulk can’t find the peace he seeks without reverting back to Banner and ceasing to exist. 

I like several other incarnations of the character (and would love to have seen where JB would have taken the back-to-basics, “angry Banner” version he had in mind), but I totally get why the “Hulk smash!” version (as well as his mute TV counterpart) is the iconic version. Although I personally prefer Stern’s “Donald Duck” take to Wein’s “Goofy”. I like the Hulk to see everything though anger-tinted glasses (which would get in the way of complex/rational thought), rather that his merely being stupid. Child-like, yes, but not necessarily an idiot. Just primitive emotions run wild.