In most fiction, / characters' lives are limited / to the individual work.

Readers may disagree / on the characteristics and traits of fictional figures, / and in drama / there is room for different interpretations of characters.

However, / it is less common / for characters in literary fiction / to reappear in subsequent works / than in genre fiction, / where series featuring the same central characters are common.

This is even more pronounced / in comics, / which are typically serialized / in newspaper strips or comic books.

Thus characters introduced in the 1930s, / like Superman and Batman, / may still enjoy new adventures / decades later.

During these characters' long histories, / they change in various ways / for a variety of reasons.

If a character is created / by a single author, / like Sherlock Holmes, / the character's core traits may change little / from story to story, / but readers learn more about him / with each successive story.

On the other hand, / if characters are the work of several hands / over decades, / they may change considerably.

While characters in most literary fiction / hardly ever feature in successive works, / those in genre fiction and comics / often do so, / and may undergo transformation in their traits / especially when written about / by different authors over time.