from Cinema to Comic Strips

I treated myself to a movie tonight. I went to see Casino Royale, after reading a good recommendation from marinredwolf. His comment was that James Bond is a time lord. I know just enough to know that this is a Dr. Who. reference, but never having watched Dr. Who, I don't feel it at a particularly deep level.

I was surprised to find that I had a related thought, that did hit at a deep level. Some time ago, I was playing a character who was living in a world not his own. He was, for some reason I no longer recall, trying to explain Charlie Brown to a bunch of people with no referents. He was surprised to find himself describing good ol' Chuck as something of a folk hero and an unaging, existential philosopher. But there are rules to being Charlie Brown. Among other things, you can never really win.

Tonight, I realized that James Bond is another one of those characters that transcends the limitations of his character. Heck, he transcends continuity, too. There are rules to being James Bond. It doesn't matter a whit that I remember the current M meeting James Bond for the first time, and now she's talking about having hired him. It doesn't matter that his double-0 designation is newly minted, when we've seen him running around being a double-0 pain in the ass for decades. He is always charming, he has a macabre sense of humor, he drinks vodka martinis, and women around him have good odds of getting killed. The character is the same, no matter the actor, no matter the story. James Bond is not so much a person as a state of being.

Any of y'all got any other nominations for a character that somehow transcends the designation?