But... but... if he remains in his late twenties (or early thirties) then where is the all-important "change" that pro-agers crave?  Won't he need to continue to age for this to be achieved?

I was going to write about how when I first "met" Peter Parker he was already in college, blah,blah,blah...but, my mind shifted back to when I was twelve, and I realized the problem is that back THEN the focus of the stories was in the FIGHTS, the POWERS, the ACTION. 

Every once in a while there would be a story that brought about "change" or "growth", like the death of Gwen Stacy, Elektra, Phoenix.  But that was not why we were reading comics.  

I enjoyed  reading comics because I liked to see a Neal Adams punch and a Gil Kane punch and Ross Andru's Spider-man hanging upside down, and Keith Pollard's awesome fights, and John Byrne was the guy who did the best speed lines and drew the best clenched fists. And Wolverine--alone? And the Kree-Skrull war was all about the Avengers trashing Mandroids and Ant-man evading really cool android anti-bodies.  And Green Lantern having to fight fisticuffs in the mining town, 'cause the ring won't protect him no more? Miller made Elektra dance the death dance with Bullseye and I can see in my mind's eye each panel of that fight.  What about when DD got caught in a bear-trap?  And Ben Urich got stabbed? (same issue!!!) I couldn't put down those comics!  I read that stuff over and over.  

Now, it's soap opera time and comics are supposed to sell based on "growth" and "change".  Let's see the illegitimate children of super-heroes?  The result is talking heads panels and CNN Screen panels and story decompression.    All this ties into the "not thinking visually discussion.To write this kind of stuff for super-heroes is to play against all the strengths of the medium.   

Kirby and Adams and Byrne and Miller share the ability to really immerse you in the world they create because they really take it seriously (too seriously in Kirby's solo work, it often seemed to me).  Nowadays, the characters are looked at from the outside. There's this academic stance, this cleverness, this distance from the characters. "Hot" creator aren't writing the characters, they seem to be  writing "about" the characters. 

I think it was JB who established that the older Superman becomes the slower he ages.  This is an idea that's being used for Invincible and his father as well. 

The inherent contradiction is apparently lost on some people!

So you think that a kid should learn that as an adult you should constantly place yourself and your loved ones in jeopardy while you shirk the real responsibilites of adulthood?

Lance Hill wrote: But what about growth an change?

I think that in an adult character you can add depth and maturity without aging him. In a teen thats more problematic.

a good exemple is Miller's DD in Born Again: Matt become more mature, but he doesn't ages.

That's too how I understand JB's "the FF didn't age a day during my run" when we clearly see a more adult Sue than ever before and a deeper Alicia. 

I don't say they aged I say that during John Byrne's run Sue became more mature, even if there was already some maturity added to the character by previous writers.

We see that she have lived if not aged since the Lee/Kirby run. (of course you could say it's because of the image and role of the woman in the society changed, but i think we can look at that like being maturity too)

And Johnny who was a teen became adult.