Tom Russell over at Monitor Duty (the comic book and geek culture web site) details what he calls the The Arthur Effect. This is where an intellectual property, such as a fictional character, has its distinctive characteristics smoothed out under the (invisible) pressure to make it more accessible (and marketable).

All the discussion of about Spider-Man and the shift from the Lee-Ditko Spider-Man to the Romita Spider-Man could equally be applied to the Jesus of the gospels, and the progression to a more palatable (and less disturbing) “Buddy Christ”.