Ming: Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?
Klytus: An obscure body in the S-K system. The inhabitants refer to it as the planet...Earth.
Ming: How peaceful it looks...[Causes an earthquake.]
Klytus: Most effective, Your Majesty. Will you destroy this...ah...Earth?
Ming: Later. I like to play with things a while, before annihilation. - Flash Gordon (1980)
Since then, the “algebraic approach to comics” seems to be precisely what Marvel and DC have used on their titles, from Avengers Disassembled to Identity Crisis to Infinite Crisis to Civil War, it seems like Plot C has been determined, with Reason B being decided as the motivating factor, and so Character A will have to be changed however necessary to make the formula work.