But it *has* to be. If I'm going to say that the platonic Batman is the real Batman, that no matter how shitty the Miller/Moore heir post-Crisis Bruce gets, it's always OOC and always wrong and the real guy is the Bronze Age/DCAU one...
... then I also have to say that the real Wonder Woman is the pre-Crisis boy-chasing weirdly sexist clusterfuck whose powers don't work when a man binds her wrists. I have to say the real Supergirl is the abhorrent thing Loeb dropped in our lap when she was introduced, no matter how much work they put into fixing her and no matter how golden she may one day become. I have to say the real Black Canary is the useless captivity-prone limp fish she was before Birds.
If I permit enough persistent and consistent writing and characterization to change my perception of a character for the better, I cannot forbid enough persistent and consistent writing and characterization from changing my perception of a character for the worse. Either how a character is presented matters, or it doesn't.
Like with a bible, or frickin' editorial vision or something.
I dunno, isn't current editorial vision kind of the *opposite* of "who that character is," at both companies? "Who that character was when I bought comics" or "what event can we jam this big name into" are the best you're going to get from the IIC EIC types these days.