Characterization Marches On/Comic Books

Examples of in Comic Books include:

DC

 * In his earliest appearances, while Batman wasn't any more particularly kill-happy than any other heroes, it's kind of shocking to see the archetypal Technical Pacifist clearly killing off criminals, often using guns.
 * Case in point: "Death...to Doctor Death!"
 * He also displayed a fondness for puns and cracked jokes during fights, not unlike what Spider-man would do later. IE, "Have a seat", while smacking villains with a chair, or, while beating the Joker "You may be the JOKER, but I am the KING OF CLUBS!" or "You played your last hand!". Now,
 * And, on more than one occasion, he referred to himself as "Poppa", in the third person, as in "Quiet, or Poppa spank!" or "Right into Poppas arms!".
 * The Joker was originally a sneering, humorless criminal mastermind instead of the cackling lunatic we know today. He was named after the Joker in playing cards, seeing as how he never told a single joke, and never laughed in his initial appearance (though he did smile, rather terrifyingly). The Man Who Laughs later rewrote the Joker's first story with the current portrayal of the Joker.


 * Similar to the Batman example above, Superman was an outlaw hero not above dispensing rough justice in his earliest appearances. It is a little shocking for modern readers to see the character who would later become 'the Big Blue Boyscout' seize a torturer and fling him to his death.
 * DC later retconned these early out-of-character moments as being the Superman and Batman from Earth-2, so they're technically separate characters from the "main" Superman and Batman. Shows that they were aware just how much characterization had marched on in all those years.
 * John Byrne acknowledged this in Superman and Batman Generations as part of the characters' evolution over time. In 1939, Bat-Man takes one of the Ultra-Humanite's goons on top of a giant planet model to interrogate him and lets him fall when the mook doesn't give any useful information. When he's caught by Superman, Bat-Man remarks "If I'd known you were there to catch him, I wouldn't have let him fall", and Superman response "If I'd known you'd let him fall, I wouldn't have caught him." They resume the interrogation and, when the mook still refuses to talk, Superman makes as if to throw him off the sphere once more, at which point he finally sings.
 * See also Superman Is A Dick.
 * The New 52 has also characterized young Superman similarly as his early incarnation.


 * It's kind of a shock to see how Guy Gardner of the Green Lantern Corps was originally a pretty mellow character before (in a convoluted series of events) he received brain damage that manifested itself in the form of the arrogant, violent, unstable, and often childish personality that the character is best known for. Likewise, those who are most familiar with the DCAU version of John Stewart may be surprised at how, well, funky he is in his early comics appearances.
 * DC has since tried to sweep this under the rug by retconning the brain damage thing altogether. More recent flashbacks imply that Guy has always been, as he puts it, "the crazy one."


 * Renee Montoya's sexuality is a defining character trait for her under Greg Rucka, but when she was originally created for Batman: The Animated Series the plan (According to background info in the series bible) was that she was intended to be driven in her own fight on crime by the memory of her dead husband. It was not until Gotham Central that she was outed as a lesbian, which would become an integral part of an award-winning arc of that series and several follow up comics. The same source also says that she would butt heads with Batman over his methods, whereas in almost all her appearances Renee admires him and understands why he acts outside the law.


 * In the original comics, Plastic Man was no less serious than any other superhero at the time - he was the Only Sane Man of his world, which was filled with wacky, cartoony characters. In fact, even his powers were amusing, which made for an enormous contrast with his early, Comically Serious personality. Over the years, Plas received a much more light-hearted, jokester disposition, being mostly comic relief and Fun Personified in his modern portrayals, such as the one in Batman the Brave And The Bold.


 * In The Silver Age of Comic Books, Sinestro was very generic and banal in his evil; his conquest of his planet (seen in flashback) involved him sitting on a throne, demanding tribute in the form of money and jewels in exchange for his services as protector and killing anyone who called out on what a selfish lout he was. It wasn't until 1991's Emerald Dawn II, that Sinestro's past was completely reworked to make him a Adolf Hitler-esque control-freak who conquered his homeworld "to protect it" as the driving force behind the evil he did.

Marvel

 * Gwen Stacy from Spider-Man was much different initially than later portrayed. Her characterization changes are quite startling when you consider it, from a college-aged Alpha Bitch to the Veronica and then the Betty in the ongoing Love Triangle before winding up Spider-Man's very sweet girlfriend, and then, well, you know...
 * Another example from Spider-Man--in his earliest appearances the Green Goblin was a Smug Snake who kept getting away after his plans failed and whose face we never saw. Then he was unmasked as Norman Osborn shortly after successfully learning Spider-Man's own identity, spent some time as a Jekyll and Hyde, Killed Gwen Stacy, got posthumously upgraded into the Big Bad, and was turned into a Magnificent Bastard upon his resurrection, where he has more or less stayed, with the occasional foray into Complete Monster, ever since. In short, a major change due to being a Breakout Villain.
 * Aunt May is another example. In the beginning, she was a sweet, extremely old and extremely frail old lady but, er, somewhat senile and detached from reality. That she allowed herself to be charmed by Doctor Octopus and unshakingly saw Mary Jane Watson as a suitable partner and future wife for Peter was portrayed as evidence for this. Then in the late 1970s she became more involved in the real world, e. g. joining the Gray Panthers, a bypass operation removed her recurrent health problems, and by all appearances she actually became younger. During Roger Stern's run her reasons for continuing matchmaking also was revealed as much more canny than previously imagined; she commented to Peter that he and MJ had more in common than he knew (foreshadowing the origin story Stern and his then-wife had cooked up, but which was mostly revealed by Tom DeFalco later on). This change of Aunt May from a passive character who constantly needed to be saved or aided by Peter and others was very much appreciated by the fans.


 * In the first two or so issues of X-Men, Beast essentially sexually harassed Jean Grey and was basically a big dumb oaf, but as early as the third issue, he became a self-described bookworm who used a much more impressive vocabulary and was far kinder to people around him, and it was treated as if he had always been so.
 * Interestingly, in a much later arc, the Beast, now blue and furry (which is also this trope, as some don't know he wasn't always this way), has his appearance restored to his original human form, but at the cost of his intelligence dwindling as he uses his powers. He eventually talks much like his day-one self.
 * Apocalypse's first appearances had him as a crime boss, and then a Magneto-esque mutant supremacist, giving the same sort of speeches with more Bold Inflation during a time when Magneto was trying to play nice. The "survival of the fittest" aspect of his philosophy emerged soon afterward and those other characterizations quickly fell by the wayside.
 * The original plan for the X-Factor comic (where Apocalypse was first introduced) was that the shadowy mastermind that X-Factor had been fighting against was planned to be minor Daredevil and Spider-Man villain the Owl. When a new writer came in, they decided to create an entirely new villain.
 * Magneto himself is a good example of this. The Stan Lee / Jack Kirby version of the character was just a straightforward villain with essentially no character depth. Chris Claremont gave Magneto a sympathetic backstory and changed him into a Well-Intentioned Extremist, and these changes have more or less stuck over the intervening decades. Unfortunately, post-Clarement writers and editors re-cardboardified Magneto to some considerable extent.
 * Rogue got her start as a villainous henchwoman working for Mystique, taking on and nearly single-handedly defeating the entire team of The Avengers with a bravado that would be out of place on the troubled young girl she was soon developed into.
 * Wolverine started out as a thug with a bad temper whose main contribution to fights was rushing in recklessly and getting swatted aside to prove that the villain couldn't be beaten without teamwork. During the Dark Phoenix Saga, he Took a Level In Badass and never looked back.
 * It's also surprising (considering how important it is to his modern characterization) how long it is between his first appearance and the first explicit mention his Healing Factor (he says that he heals fast a little earlier, but it's in more of a "don't fuss over me just because I got my ass kicked" context than an "I have a superhuman ability to heal" one).
 * Wolverine's original origin was intended to be that he was actually a wolverine mutated into human form, and his claws were originally intended to be build into his gloves (one suspects he was also supposed to have superhuman strength at some point, as his first appearance saw him fighting the Hulk to a draw while not yet exhibiting any of the powers he would later have). Those ideas never saw print, but several hints toward them were made before the ideas were dropped, and, obviously, it wasn't until after they scrapped the "evolved animal" backstory that any of the character's current backstory came about.
 * And how about Charles Xavier himself? In the first twenty or so issues, he used his powers a lot more, reading minds whenever he pleased, communicating telepathically even to people in the same room, harboring a secret crush on Jean Grey, and mind-wiping several of the X-Men's foes in order to get them out of the way for good. While some later writers would portray Xavier as a Jerkass, it never reached this level.


 * In the early "Man of Iron" story in the Marvel UK Transformers Generation 1 comic, Optimus Prime orders that the Man of Iron and his navigator and ship be destroyed to prevent the Decepticons getting their hands on them. This is the same Optimus Prime who generally goes out of his way to save noncombatants.

Others

 * Seems to have occurred with many Disney characters over decades of comic book appearances. Some examples:
 * Mickey Mouse. In "Mr. Slicker and the Egg Robbers" (1930), Mickey seems to be losing Minnie Mouse to Smug Snake Mr. Slicker (Montmorency Rodent). He even overhears a conversation where Minnie silently lets Slicker believe Mickey is just her "little brother". Mickey's reaction? He concludes "She doesn't care for me anymore - what is there to live for! Without Minnie, I might as well end it all". ... "I can't get Minnie off my mind! I just can't go on without her!" ... "Without Minnie, all my dreams have become nightmares" ... "Goodbye, Minnie! Goodbye, cruel word!". Only after four failed suicide attempts does he snap out of it. This is the same Mickey who would make an art of ditching Minnie to attend to his next mystery investigation/reporting/adventuring around the world. Later stories have made a running joke of the Mouse couple hardly spending any time together.
 * Phantom Blot. In "Mickey Outwits the Phantom Blot" (1939), the Blot is a rather scary opponent who easily overcomes Mickey on several occasions. With only one weakness. In his words "My cursed soft heart! I never could bear to SEE anything die! I'm just too tender for such things". So he sets elaborate death traps instead, leaving them to take care of Mickey. Mickey typically escapes with minimal injuries. The Blot remains highly efficient in most of his incarnations. But the soft heart is mostly forgotten about and he takes a more direct approach. For example in "The Hooded Eagle" (1994), the Blot has no problem attacking Mickey with an axe. After taking elaborate efforts to lure him to an isolated location of the Arctic, indicating he was planning about it for some time.
 * The Phantom Blot was in his early appearances portrayed as a master thief, and was actually unmasked at the end of his first appearances. Later he went from a thief into a full-blown super villain, and the fact he even had a face under the hood was pretty much forgotten (in one comic in particular Mickey meets the Blot's brother, who for some reason is also wearing a hood, and comments that he finds it hard to think of the Blot as a regular person with a family, instead of some kind of supernatural monster). In more recent comics he's started appearring unmasked from time to time, and has gone back to stealing things instead of trying to take over the world or whatever (altough he still has access to various high-tech devices, usually stolen prototypes, that he uses to commit crimes).
 * And in Epic Mickey, this goes Up to Eleven as the Phantom Blot has become something else altogether.


 * Speaking of Disney, Scrooge McDuck. In the his earlier appearances, Carl Barks depicted Scrooge as quite an immoral individual-there was the infamous robber baron flashback in "Voodoo Hoodoo", and in "The Magic Hourglass", another early Scrooge story, Scrooge sics a bad of hired thugs on Donald and is willing to leave his nephews to die of thirst in the desert to attain his goals. When Barks began to use Scrooge as a hero in his own right, he began depicting Scrooge as a greedy, tightfisted old miser, but one who followed his own code of honor. This is the depiction most fans remember, and the one that shows up in DuckTales and the works of Don Rosa.
 * Speaking of "Voodoo Hoodoo", Don Rosa managed to explain it in terms of Scrooge's new characterization near the end of The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Rather than being indicative of how Scrooge normally is, it's written as his biggest mistake, and the reason he starts out the present day as an embittered old duck, estranged from his family.
 * The Retcon still doesn't quite work in relation to the original story, though: in "Voodoo Hoodoo" Scrooge doesn't express a hint of regret, and finds the entire zombie debacle rather amusing. And no-one so much as suggests that the old Voodoo priest Foola Zoola should be given his stolen, sacred lands back.
 * In all fairness, he was originally inspired by Ebenezer Scrooge...


 * In the original issues of Mandrake the Magician, Lothar was more or less Mandrake's negro manservant, never speaking, showing up whenever baggage needed to be carried or enemies needed to be beaten up, and vanishing between scenes when he wasn't needed. Once this became socially unacceptable, Lothar was rewritten as Mandrake's good friend, as well as a good deal smarter and proactive.
 * On the other hand, Mandrake went from being a full-fledged wizard (kind of like a male Zatanna) to only being capable of using illusion magic.


 * Tintin, in his earlier adventures, tended to defeat his enemies by beating them up. His condescension to the natives and cruelty to animals in Tintin in the Congo are a jarring contrast to his humane attitude in the later adventures.
 * In Tintin/Recap/The Crab With the Golden Claws, Captain Haddock was a weak-willed alcoholic who was almost assured to mess up anything and get himself and Tintin in trouble. Later stories make him more competent and heroic (when not drunk), and relegate his screw-ups to comedy relief.