A lot of readers would say a comic book character is whoever the writer chooses him to be. But every character has it's original writers, and the character simply can't stray too far from his or her origins without leaving the readers stratching their heads.

So what are some elements about your favorite comic book characters that just can't be messed with? I don't really want this thread to go into major debates, just in your personal opinion, what should define your favorite characters?

To me, it doesn't matter if Spiderman has organic webbing or web shooters. It doesn't matter to me if he's always down on his luck or everything in his life is going sweet, just as long as uncle Ben died and Peter feels guilty about it. But to me, Spiderman should always be shouting out zingers while in action. HE MUST HAVE ZINGERS! That's a problem I always had with the movies. He had like one joke for each flick.