Jesus, am I ever so tired of talking about John Byrne and Kurt Busiek. But their careers are helpful because they illustrate what to do and what not to do as a comics writer. They're like a real-life Goofus and Gallant of the superhero comics world.
What Erik Larsen is talking about - retroactively inserting details and events that happened on camera to the detriment of the spirit of what has gone before, is a specialty of Captain Johnny Redbeard. He had Storm and Jean Grey meet each other before GIANT SIZE X-MEN #1 because "there was never anything to specifically indicate that they HADN'T met before." Augh! Of course there isn't, but there sure is a palpable intent there! Ditto for Byrne's singlehanded power inflation of Darkseid to unreasonable proportions; using the fact that as Kirby characterized Darkseid as a schemer and planner and never put the Lord of Apokalips in a fight, there was never any specific occasion that it was not stated that Darkseid was so powerful - so lo and behold, Cap'n Johnny comes in and makes Darkseid twice the match for Superman. This doesn't violate anything we know about Darkseid...well, except for Kirby's intent that Darkseid was a menacing, subtle plotter, not a superphysical type.
And I seek out work by creators that own their own characters and are the sole people to chronicle their lives - there are tons of terrific comics out there. And I enjoy the hell out of them. And I get caught up in their lives. And I drift away from the companies I grew up with and the characters I once loved.
I don't agree with this sentiment. Kurt Busiek's best work, at least for me, was AVENGERS and THUNDERBOLTS. Why them, why not his awesome ASTRO CITY?
The answer is that Kurt was working with characters that have an actual past, whose lives have been lived "on camera," and therefore there was a much more definite sense of who these characters were and where they had been, as opposed to ASTRO CITY, where he had to counterfeit the world's history from scratch. A greater degree of emotional investment is possible for AVENGERS and THUNDERBOLTS.
Busiek understands the fact that, while characters change over time, that does not mean that there is not something "objective" about characters that is required to be preserved, which trascends the boundaries of what Writer #345 wants to impose.
Writers have an obligation to maintain consistency both in worlds they create, and especially in worlds created by others.