Wolverine never had all that much nuance, even under Claremont; he character is very simply overrated, has always been.

Cove West: I wonder what epiphany you saw in any of the Giffen/DeMatteis JL characters. They actually destroyed a couple, treating Booster Gold as the complete oposite of what the character was in his own solo series (a failed man fighting his own greed and other character weaknesses).

Also, I don't know that Cage, Falcon and John Stewart were all that well treated. Englehart did such a fine job with Falcon in the mid-1970s that it would be hard NOT to regress him, actually; in my book only Jim Owsley (now known as Christopher Priest) ever came close to write as good a Falcon as Englehart did. Cage had a lot of growth, but seems to have regressed on occasion (what was his MAX series like?) and John Stewart was shown in a fairly bad light in Action Comics Weekly (by Priest IIRC, which I guess helps in explaining it).

The 5% disagreement? Dick Grayson. Actually, more of a diverging subagreement (or something). I'm a Dixon fanboy, so I'm probably way too biased, but I think he had a TRUE Epiphany with his NIGHTWING run. Rather than trying to get Dick out from the shadow of the Bat, Dixon basically said to us, "Look, he'll NEVER escape, not completely, and we all know it. So I'm not going to try. But DICK can try, and we can read along as he charts his own path through the Bat-Maze." Dick wasn't emo about it, and he had surprising success at carving a non-Bruce life in Bludhaven, but he still got pissed every time Bats looked over his shoulder. NOT getting out from the shadow was the whole point of the series. And then Devin Grayson comes along, methodically destroys everything non-Bat about the title and then has Dick complain that Batman is controlling his life--of course he was, Dick didn't have his OWN life anymore!

In that vein, I'd add another category: LOST EPIPHANY characters. Characters that at one point actually had a solid, sustainable epiphany, but had it taken away, not because the next writer was looking for an epiphany but because the next writer didn't know there was one. Other examples: post-Claremont Wolverine (writers just saw the berserker and not the nuance), post-Giffen/DeMatteis JLA (not the property but the characters, who all subsequently lost their heart and became all-joke), and post-Impulse Bart Allen (writers apparently thought Bart's fun was immaturity and not his personality).

1. re-used "epiphany" where the character experiences a personality change that he has experienced before.

I think that every lasting character, in every lasting company, is guilty of this. I believe that the problem is that sometimes a writer comes on board with a character who he and/or the editer really doesn't know. So, he decides to "breathe life" into the character, by doing something that was done years before.

While I do think that sometimes this is done intentionally ("Yes, Byrne did it, but that was 15 years ago, and I think I can do it better.") I think that this is usually done out of ignorance. Writer X doesn't know that Stan Lee had Spider-Man lose to Doc Oc and instantly re-examine whether or not he has what it takes to continue as a super hero, so Writer X has Spider-Man lose to Electro and instantly re-examine whether or not he has what it takes to continue as a super hero (for example).

Another example: how many times have we seen Johnny Storm give up his powers because someone was horribly and/or fatally burned, only to re-discover his ability to continue to use such a destructive power for good?

2. intentionally taking a B-rated hero and create a story that will catapult the character, and by extension the writer, to A status.

I've seen this a number of times with Dick Greyson, both as Robin and Nightwing. There were several attempts to do this with Wolverine before he finally caught on as an A character through no real fault of the actual stories.

I would also add Thing, Hawkeye, Deathstroke, Guy Gardner, Booster Gold, Rick Jones, Supergirl, Nova, Rogue, Huntress, Plastic Man, and most of the supporting cast of Avengers or JLA since 1994.

I'd also add a third category:
3. suddenlly re-booting a character to whatever the status quo was before the character's most recent appearance and evolution in a different title or under a different creative team.

I'm talking about how Aquaman and Hulk re-booted without changing continuity after Peter David left their books. Or, how the first Power Pack one shot returned the team to the status of the first year of their title.

In the 80s and early 90s, I got the impression that creative teams actually read the history of the books and characters they used. When Spider-Man and Captain America interacted in the pages of Avengers, they had the same dynamic they shared when either of them guest starred in each other's titles.

Since around 1994-96, I haven't gotten that impression. I'm not confident that the current writer on Teen Titans read the old Young Justice series. I'm not confident that the current writer on Iron Man read Armor Wars. I'm not confident that the current writer on Heroes For Hire read Black Cat's partnership with Spider-Man (I get the impression he read old issues of Catwoman and figured that was close enough.)

When I look for continuity in a comic book company, I'm not asking for Robin to appear in Batman and the Outsiders and remember how to put down Psimon based on battling him two years ago in the pages of Teen Titans (although that was cool at the time.) I'm asking for Robin to act like Robin in the pages of Batman, Detective, Robin, Teen Titans, and whereever else he appears; and for "significant events" with "lasting changes" to actually be significant and actually affect the character even after the creative team changes. Sometimes I wonder if I'm asking too much.

Theno

These comic book terms seem to be awfully negative. Someone needs to think of a positive term.

I can't soeak for T., but I tried hard in defining Grace Notes to emphasize that the term itself was neutral, and gave a couple of positive examples of their use.

Black Adam is a hilariously charicatured guy now, and I don't get Johns' hardon for seriously regressing him. How is this the same guy that wrote him in his first JSA run? How does the guy who wrote a damn decent Wally West (kind of bogged down with lame ass XXTREME ROUGES GALLERY) end up writing these Hal Jordan fellatio fan fiction stories?

I'd nominate Hal Jordan as someone who used to be a false epiphany character from Green Arrow/Green Lantern until Geoff Johns wrote for him. The character kept going through personal crisis after crisis (the Parallax thing was only the worst of it) and would reassert himself only to fall into the same funk again. At least Johns finally has him moving forward. I wish Johns could do something for Nightwing.

Once they're grown up, then you get Johnny trying to be an actor (Ugh) or Iceman just sort of being there. Interestingly enough, both Iceman and Cannonball who others mentioned, are just sort of in the background because they don't really have internal arcs to be told.

1. The False Epiphany Character - character who constantly makes the same breakthrough. This doesn't just apply to B level characters, I mean hell, how many times has Peter Parker decided that he's "Spider-Man no more" before he wisens up and realizes that with great power comes great responsibility?

2. The Definitive Run Character - character who writers are determined to make their name on by having a groundbreaking run on the book like Morrison had on Animal Man, etc. A good example of this is the horrifically bad current Moon Knight book with Khonshu suddenly becoming "zombie Bushman the evil split personality"

Oh, and Johnny Storm had a particularly bad reversion under Waid's run. To me, Mark Waid not only made him immature again, he really overdid it and had him acting borderline retarded. Even under early Lee/Kirby adventures, he was impetuous, hotheaded and a little shallow, but never actually a stupid moron like Waid depicted.

Other examples might include…

Dr. Fate (now he’s a guy and a girl. Now he’s a dude TO THE EXTREME. Etc.)

Captain Atom. Sometimes misspelled “B-R-E-A-C-H” or “M-O-N-A-R-C-H”

and of course, the Legion of Super-Heroes (now THIS is the real version, no, wait, let’s start over. Okay THIS is the real version. Don’t like that one…how about we go back to the old one…THAT was the real version…no, wait…)

Okay, these things are just constant reinventions/reboots, which probably deserves an entry all its own. Hawkman fell under this category too for a while. What I was talking about is when a character is submitted to the same single breakthrough over and over again, but each time its treated like some novel, lasting development. Hank and Jan Pym are another good example, they make the exact same breakthrough over and over again, where they make peace over the one time he hit her and get a fresh start...until the break up again over the fact that he once hit her.

McDuffie seems to be doing okay so far, that said.

Dr. Fate (now he's a guy and a girl. Now he's a dude TO THE EXTREME. Etc.)

Captain Atom. Sometimes misspelled "B-R-E-A-C-H" or "M-O-N-A-R-C-H"

and of course, the Legion of Super-Heroes (now THIS is the real version, no, wait, let's start over. Okay THIS is the real version. Don't like that one...how about we go back to the old one...THAT was the real version...no, wait...)