Yesterday I was trying to explain to Katie the furor that erupted back when DC replaced Green Lantern Hal Jordan with Kyle Rayner. I came up with this analogy:

Imagine that a new Star Trek series begins with Captain Picard going insane, killing off the entire crew of the Enterprise, and destroying all of Starfleet except for one ship. That one ship gets handed to someone similar to Wesley Crusher, but who has never appeared before.