Person-specific properties
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While using Genderizer (great app, btw) coming across this topic, and many of the heroes in the DC universe triggered the thought that there needs to be a distinction between a mantle, and the individual who takes up that mantle.
For example, currently in the Marvel Universe, the mantle of Black Panther is currently going to be transferred to another person because T'Challa is incapacitated.
Once that happens, things that pertain to an individual, and not necessarily a mantle, change.
The same can be said about Green Lantern (Alan Scott, Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rainer, John Stewart, hell, the whole Green Lantern corps).
The same situation applies to Batman (there is precedence for this in the past, and in the current storylines).
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That's an interesting modelling case because most superheroes are themselves. If we were to break up, for instance, Batman, into the Mantle of Batman and Bruce Wayne, then how would that topic exist elsewhere as a TV Character, Film Character etc?
Would it be reasonable for the primary identity to be the same topic as the regular non-superhero character, and then have something like "Alternate Mantles" that could be portrayed by different characters? I might argue that when a mantle is taken over by another character, that is usually distinct to that universe... is that a reasonable generalization?
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I know this has been talked about before (here and here). Not sure that there has been any more movement on the subject.
Some characters (like Superman and Invincible) don't really suffer from this problem, but for characters like casperone's examples (and others like Blue Beetle and The Flash), there is no one person in a continuity that can be identified as the "true" identity. I do think that a Mantle type should be made, perhaps with a "Primary Bearer" property to identify the person that is most identified with it, like Bruce Wayne for Batman. This wouldn't have to be for all costumed characters, just the ones with this unique problem.
As for cross-media character, they usually correspond to a certain "bearer" (Bruce Wayne for Batman, John Henry Irons for Steel), and should probably be tied to that topic.
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