evrlvnbluidthng asked:

Thanks again, just following up on Johnny Storm. Regarding Bart Simpson, did the Simpsons writers ever try to depict Bart dying and then coming back or try to tell any other story that, by rights, ought to irrevocably advance his character in some substantive way? I'm not a Simpsons aficianado, so I can't say with certainty. It just seems to me that if you're gonna go there, go there and give him a new role on the team or have him leave and join up with another team or something.

brevoortformspring answered:

In probably every third Simpsons episode, events occur that should irrevocably alter the characters and their relationships. But every subsequent episode, they’re pretty much back to ground neutral. Now, it’s a slightly different thing, it’s a comedy rather than a serialized drama, but the underlying point remains. Fans of every generation desperately want the characters to grow up with them, but from a publishing side, we also have a responsibility to the generations to come, the generations that will follow, to keep these characters alive and vibrant and in their best condition. That doesn’t mean never changing anything, but it does mean that changes like Spider-Man being married are probably not the smartest ones to make. The Human Torch being married was very much the same, and reversed a hell of a lot quicker.

[ungoliantschilde]

All characters that have an extensive back story have an incontinuity backstory that goes back 5-10 years from Today’s date. Bruce Wayne is in his Early 30s. Captain America got thawed within the last decade, and Aunt May is about 137 years old.