Character Derailment/Comic Books: Difference between revisions

**** The current situation is a result of [[Marvel]] desperately mashing the [[Reset Button]]: Tony Stark [[Empty Shell|erased all the memories in his brain]] so a villain wouldn't be able to [[Mind Rape|acquire the sensitive information Tony knew]], then [[Memory Gambit|uploaded a previous save file]] that was made [[Crazy Prepared|a few years before]] ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'' happened, so he woke up from his [[Convenient Coma|self-induced coma]] and had [[Missing Time|no idea what was going on]], so his [[Character Derailment]] technically never happened [[Amnesiac Dissonance|as far as his memories are concerned]], and Steve [[Let Us Never Speak of This Again|doesn't want to talk about it]].

**** Due to [[Executive Meddling]], pretty much everyone on the pro-reg side got this treatment retroactively as well, because when it was started, the pro- vs. anti- registration debate was supposed to be nuanced, with both sides having good and bad points, and therefore supporting pro-reg side wasn't ''that'' out of character for Stark et al. However, the pro-reg side soon was [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] by [[Running the Asylum|the writers]] to near-Nazi levels of evil, while its original supporters [[Idiot Plot|apparently became complete morons and didn't change their opinions when they realized things were going to crap.]] Stark got the worst of it, but others, including Hank Pym and Reed Richards, had their characters pretty badly shafted too, especially as the latter was responsible for once giving Congress of the best ''anti''-registration speeches ever delivered.

*** Too bad it didn't extend that to Magneto (Wanda and Pietro leave him 'cause he tries to nuke New York just out of annoyance for his latest plan having failed. Not that canon Mags doesn't go back and forth on just how villainous he is when in villain mode, but... it tasted kinda like Planet X.)

**** That's more a rehash of the 1964's ''Uncanny X-Men'' #4, where Magneto tries to nuke a small country after the X-Men run him off, much to the displeasure of Pietro, who defuses the bomb. Not every "Magneto is evil" story [[Mis Blamed|is linked to]] [[Grant Morrison]].

* Conversely, the switch of Batgirl III/Cassandra Cain from one of the better examples of Rising Above Her Past (raised from birth as an Assassin, but horrified enough by her first kill to become a [[Technical Pacifist]]) to a [[Unfortunate Implications|Stereotypical]] [[Evil Laugh|Cackling]] [[Dragon Lady]] [[Chessmaster|Mastermind]] was abrupt enough to induce whiplash. Nerfing her enough for Robin to force a stalemate was simply adding injury to insult. The efforts to retcon the whole mess as brainwashing by Deathstroke came off as more than a bit slapdash, and did nothing to explain the improved language skills (what was once a virtually illiterate dyslexic who rarely spoke a sentence more than five words long without the use of pausing, was now [[Monologuing]] and knew Navajo code, one of the hardest languages in the world).

** The latest mini series about her derailed her character even more. Her improved language skills were taught (she learned to read English, and speak and read Navajo) by Albert, off screen. And she became good with using a computer by herself. Her deep rooted refusal to kill anyone was removed in order for her to kill her dad and Deathstroke. Her body language (which was used by her to know that Batman was Bruce Wayne) was nerfed in order to let an old man lie to her right in front of her face. And if that wasn't enough, her past was changed from loving her father but escaping from him because her first kill was the first time she saw someone die which made her realize how wrong her life was, into hating her father during her entire life and actually having to watch him kill people right in front of her eyes without her caring at all. And on top of that, the series even managed to derail Rose Wilson, the daughter of Deathstroke.

** However, in a recent story, it was revealed that {{spoiler|this was a fake-out on Leslie's behalf, as Stephanie ''wasn't'' actually dead but smuggled out of the country. It's blatant [[Retcon]], of course, but given most people see it as an [[Author's Saving Throw]] on Leslie's characterisation, there are few complaints}}.

* [[The Punisher]] has had to brush with character derailment ever since he was created. Although his exact quirks and personality vary slightly from writer to writer, in his heyday in the early nineties he was generally portrayed as sincerely wanting to help people and keep them from going through the same things he did, would occasionally question his actions and show mercy if the situation warranted it. Even a few traditional heroes considered him a good man at heart. Other writers would instead portray him as a complete amoral psychopath who didn't care about anything except [[Knight Templar|killing criminals]], and never ever questioned his actions.

* The ''[[Amazons Attack|Amazons Attack!]]'' miniseries afflicts Wonder Woman and the entire Amazon people with character derailment by way of [[Idiot Plot]].

* ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'' saw Superboy Prime move from one of the guys who saved all of reality to a [[Knight Templar]] obsessed with finding the perfect Earth. Later stories moved him all the way into [[Omnicidal Maniac]] territory as he crushes entire planets because he happens to think they're lame.

*** To be fair his main motivation in ''Countdown'' (finding his home Earth) was consistent with previous characterisation and [[Omnicidal Maniac|he wanted to destroy all these 'wrong' earths]] even way back in [[Infinite Crisis]]. It's just that in ''Countdown'' he once succeeded.

* Okay, I know it's only a story about a possible future and, arguably, not in the main continuity but {{spoiler|Bruce Banner}} in the climax to the [[Wolverine]] story ''[[Old Man Logan]]'' who is revealed to have become a sociopathic, redneck cannibal who is now head of a family of in-bred {{spoiler|Hulklings}}. For added [[Squick]] it's revealed that this family resulted from {{spoiler|Bruce breeding with She-Hulk, his cousin}} - "The only woman out there who could take the damn ''pace''" (emphasis as original). There's also a strong implication this was not consensual. Ugh, just, ugh. Compare this with {{spoiler|Banner's}} actions in {{spoiler|Incredible Hulk 602}} which came out ''the same week'' to understand exactly what's wrong with this picture. Naturally this is another Mark Millar special.

* Owen Mercer, the second Captain Boomerang, was never a completely good person. At his best, he reached [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] status. But he was ''trying'' to move away from the family legacy, and ''trying'' to do good, and won himself friends like Nightwing and Supergirl in the process, then vanished from the comics for awhile. Then in [[Blackest Night]], he pops up as an unhinged psycho feeding children to his zombie father, and is promptly killed for it. {{spoiler|And then the white rings resurrect his father in his place.}} ...meh.

* Hank Hall in DC's ''Hawk and Dove'' was an impulsive [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]] in the Kesels' run, having been fleshed out significantly from the original Steve Ditko incarnation and his appearances in the original [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]]. However, once the identity of Monarch was leaked as Captain Atom in an advance spoiler for DC's mini "Armageddon 2001" (though there had been foreshadowing that this was the case to begin with), editorial had to scramble and find a new character to be Monarch to retain the "surprise" ending. Unfortunately, they picked the one character that was blatantly shown NOT to be Monarch and a perplexing plot twist followed, derailing Hank into a murderous extremist and suddenly advanced enough in intelligence and powers to control time (with yet another villainous name change as Extant). He then lingered on as a sort of [[Villain Sue]] until he was killed off in the pages of ''JSA'' {{spoiler|and then later [[Unexplained Recovery|brought back]] in [[Blackest Night]], though it remains to be seen how his characterization will fare.}}

* Superman in the [[The Dark Knight Strikes Again|Batman]] [[All Star Batman and Robin|stories]] written by [[Frank Miller]], is displayed as a dumb muscle who sold out his morals and is completely incapable of thinking strategically like the [[Canon Sue|oh so perfect Batman.]] [[Super Dickery|There is precedent, sort of, for Superman being a dick,]] but not an idiot.

** The worst part of this is that the derailment was within ''Miller's own continuity''. In The Dark Knight Returns, Superman was a sympathetic character who was naive and [[Lawful Stupid]], but barely qualified as even an [[Anti-Villain]]. By ''[[The Dark Knight Strikes Again]]'', he's suddenly a totally amoral angry god who carried off [[Wonder Woman]] as a prize (which actually isn't shown as a bad thing in-story, but that's a reflection of [[Author Appeal|Miller's views on women]], not the morality of the character) shouting out stuff like [[A God Am I|"I'm not a man, I'm SUPERMAN!"]] and then implies that he and Supergirl are going to [[The Evils of Free Will|keep a tighter reign on this violent, immoral planet.]] And this time, he was actually supposed to be ''more'' "right" than in DKR.