Terrific stuff Elisi. And I loved the Batman/Superman analogy, and not just because comics have eaten my brain.

For me Riley was one of the host of characters who BtVS transformed from cartoon character into fully-fledged, complex, fascinating human being. That adding-in of pencil-strokes is one of the reasons I love that show so much - going from low-concept premises to real sophistication. And I think it's why I didn't like his later cameos, because they used the character just to make points about Buffy, and reduced him back to the shorthand he started out as.