Previous Post ... Isn't it up to him? Maybe he feels he's outgrown the character and is ready for even grander things that will further advance and challenge his writing abilities. However, from my standpoint, I do think Hatman is a great character. It's great to have someone who can be hard as steel one minute and quickly morph into a bird or a cloud of gas or whatever just based on the hat he's wearing. Limitless storytelling potential in that regard. Reminds me of that videogame from the 80's ("The Blob" or something?) where you would feed a blob different flavored jellybeans and he would change into different items.

...because a person "outgrowing" a character can mean two things. It can mean the old characters have been outgrown, and a new stable of more up-to-date characters is imminent. Or it could mean the writer itself is saying he's outgrown the Parodyverse and wants out.

When I saw the original post, quite frankly I was more worried about the second part. Now there's nothing any of us can do if the writer is determined to bail out. But if the problem is the writer feels left out and feels that the character has become irrelevant, that we can fix.

If irrelevance is the problem I guess I can see the point. Hatman is a leader, but in a much more abstract way than he used to be- he's more of an inspiration for the Lair Legion now. The plus side is he's a fixture in that community. The minus is he lacks the freedom to action that someone like the Silver Aegis does, and maybe the writer misses that simplicity.

Or perhaps it's my fault. I've been posting stories with a few characters who are sort of heroes but are not decidedly so. They straddle the grey area, and that gives me more freedom as a writer - because the stories don't have to be black-and-white, good vs. evil, perfect foil setups for the hero. One example would be World Class: Keiko started out as a professional killer - the last person you could sympathize with. Only then you could. She gets into a very imperfect relationship, and somehow you see why she did. Keiko is decidedly not a classic hero, and doesn't have to be perfect or even right.

Anyway, just posting this in case it rings a bell with whoever brought up the original topic. I'm hoping shining some light on it might bring some inspiration, and then I can point out that Hatman's best feature is he can change, and so can the world around him. Killing off a character is admitting it can't be changed, and I think we're far from that point.