Comixfan Round Table #2 - Retcons

[John H]

The Retcon, Retroactive Continuity, love 'em or hate 'em they're a staple of modern superhero comic book storytelling. Retcons generally leave a bad taste, and we often roll our eyes at the latest change to long standing continuity now matter how minuscule.

Alister Hooke: Marvel, DC and other publishers will always need a device to get them out of dead-end plots that they have cornered themselves into. Retcons are a means of undoing bad or unwelcome plot points, like how do you bring back an apparent mass murderer like Jean Gray into the public domain without serious consequences? The answer according to Claremont: It wasn't really Jean, it was a Phoenix copy of her. Also, they are a way of explaining things that may have been acceptable to relatively unsophisticated comic book readers in the 50s and 60s, like why does no-one recognize that Clerk Kent is Superman? The answer according to Byrne: Superman vibrates his face at super speed in order to blur his image. I think that retcons are here to stay.

Clay Olsen: The most successful retcons are ones that believably add to the story rather than simply erase or rewrite a section of the past or ones that make logical sense out of a mass of otherwise senseless stories.

Marty P: Well, sometimes a rewriting actually works for the best, and evolves a character that would otherwise be hard to do; Magneto!

David Branson: I agree re Magneto (X-Men #150 was fantastic) -- before that, Magneto was often one-dimensional, almost a kind of "What if Dr. Doom were a mutant?" character, but giving him a Holocaust background suddenly threw everything into a different light, and allowed him to grow as a character over the next few years -- his story arc from X-Men #149 to #200, including God Loves, Man Kills, all showing him slowly seeing the value in Xavier's dream, and finally leading up to his world court trial and then being made headmaster of the school -- I mean, wow. This could be considered one of the X-Men's greatest victories, by not defeating but converting their greatest enemy. Indeed, one of the later changes that really bothered me was making him a villain again. And eventually, after going back and forth and back and forth, they did come up with the retcon that Magneto's personality was affected by Moira MacTaggart's tinkering around with him when he was reduced to infancy.

Marty: It did wonders for Magneto's character. Retcons can indeed be done well. Sure, I prefer retcons that only add and not re-write, but when it's done so damn well as Magneto, I am willing to look the other way.

Clay: That's true, there are some good re-writes out there. But for every good retcon like the relationship between Magneto and Xavier, there are a dozen that are things like the Draco, Sentry or Xorn that don't accomplish anything and actually make things far more of a mess.

Alister: I actually think the original 'Xorn was Magento all along' thing by Morrison was pretty decent. But Marvel's horrible attempt to retcon the whole thing by having us believe that Xorn wasn't Magneto after all was absolute drivel. It was almost spiteful - in the sense of "let's drop a large brick on Morrison's good idea" - and also ended up creating a dreadfully convoluted concept that has effectively ruined the character of Xorn forever.

This is the worst kind of retcon. The kind that neither entertains nor seeks to simplify history or continuity; it gets readers angry and turns them off.

David: I tend to be more okay with retcons that show villains as more complex and potentially redeemable (Magneto) than ones which shoehorn dark pasts into heroes (pretty much half the Marvel Universe over the last six years).

Clay: And the ones that thrust information into the past that don't fit or aren't believable for the situation. Like the Sentry and the recent reveal of his affair with Rogue. Captain Marvel sneaking off to sleep with Skrull Princess Anelle in the middle of the Kree-Skrull War is another.

William Keogh: The Sentry. This is a character that from day one didn't work. Jenkins created him as a Superman wannabe, and Bendis took him and installed him fully in the Marvel universe. Where before we could have ignored the Marvel Knights series as being out of continuity, it was impossible to ignore this particular retcon. All of a sudden here was this personality free mental patient who was being declared the most powerful being of all of them. And why? Not because he earned the position, but merely because Marvel said so. That's the hallmark of a bad retcon: when the people who make it can only justify it by saying, in effect, that this is the way things are now.

And it gets worse. We're also expected to believe that this retconned character who didn't exist beyond a decade ago is closely tied to so many people in the Marvel universe. The Fantastic Four counts him as a close friend. He's slept around with Crystal, and now it seems with Rogue. He's fought alongside every heavy hitter in the Marvel universe. Oh, and there's the whole premise that the Sentry is the Hulk's best pal, and the Sentry can calm him down. Please!

This is why I think the Sentry is the worst retcon in Marvel history, but it's certainly not the only one.

Marty: Sentry is one of the worst retcons imaginable. His ENTIRE history/past is one big retcon....ugh. Hard to 'top' that.

Now at DC, what Geoff Johns has done with the Green Lantern history/past (both Hal and the Corps) is in my book once again a retcon done right. It has enriched the series amazingly.

David: Yes, I hate Sentry but love the Green Lantern stuff. (Well, okay, the whole "emotions = colors" thing and centering it on Earth isn't my thing, plus the whole approach to death isn't either, but overall.)

A retcon which has been re-retconned back out again that I didn't care for was Hal as alcoholic in Emerald Dawn.

Another thing which drove me nuts after Hal became a bad guy was the way that then-new stories set in the past started trying to foreshadow it -- I seem to recall a Flash flashback story in which Wally was thinking about how Hal was really intense, and perhaps might snap someday.

Marty: Speaking of Flash, I haven't read Flash Rebirth (yet). Johns wrote it so I am sure he tweaked continuity here and there just like he did with Hal Jordan in Green Lantern Rebirth... but if he continues building on those retcons like he did in GL, I can't wait to see what he's got planned!

Alister: Agree with everyone here on the GL retcon = good, Sentry retcon = bad. Concerning the latter, it was a sad copycat move on Marvel's part in order to populate 616 with a Superman analogue. For me that just ignores the obvious supremacy of Thor (who could stand up to Superman imo), though thankfully Seige has corrected the Sentry problem with his not-before-time death. Hurray! Bendis gave Sentry a lot of air-time, but the fan love just wasn't there.

Much as I hate the Sentry retcon, my least favourite retcon is the Prof X one. The maligning of his character by Morrison then Brubaker stuck like a fishbone in my throat. First Xavier's homicidal act in the womb, and then his bad decision and subsequent cover up re Gabriel Summers and co. Ed Brubaker seemed particularly intent to portray him as cold and manipulative, a bit like how Keith Giffen is currently portraying Niles Caulder in Doom Patrol. (Coincidence?) To me these reinvented elements were badly out of synch with the Prof's idealism. He's a mentor and nurturer; not a devious manipulator. A good retcon doesn't violate the essence of characters whom we have known and loved for a long time; a bad retcon just goes for shock factor with no regard for consistency or continuity.

Marty: Deadly Genesis, that completely destroyed Xavier as the character he was known for.

Clay: Retcons are more of a writing tool. Like any tool it can be used to benefit a story by clearing up some inconsistencies or adding a previously unknown bit to a past story to connect to a future one, or shred it to pieces by rewriting a villian's (Nitro) powers so a certain character (Wolverine) could actually hurt him or altering a characters history or personality to justify a certain storyline.

Alister: Yeah, sometimes - although it would seem not as often - retcons can be clever and blow us away.

Clay: One of my favorites - The Avengers Forever mini that cleared up a bunch of contradicting and confusing Avengers history regarding Wanda and Vision (and others).

William: Avengers Forever explained away a lot of dangling threads, made sense of several paradoxes, and did so in a way that showed proper respect to the history of the Marvel universe.

Alister: Just like Bucky's return as the Winter Soldier.

William: Brubaker's take on Bucky's return from the dead is another example of a monumental shift in a series that still works very well.

Alister: Brubaker's revisionist take on WWII Bucky Barnes is one of my favourite retcons. The Golden Age Bucky would sock a few Nazis on the face with a wild punch or two, while Brubaker's re-imagined Bucky wouldn't hesitate to stab a bunch of Nazis with a big nasty hunting knife. What I like about the modern take is not the bloodthirsty element, but rather the edgy and realistic elements. Punching Nazis is just not going to do the job. War is insanely dirty business. Brubaker gets that and gives us a better depiction of Bucky in my estimation. It also perfectly fits with Bucky's Winter Soldier persona. The idea of Bucky becoming a brainwashed Soviet assassin makes more sense in light of the fact that he ruthlessly (or perhaps 'efficiently' is a better term) killed his enemies as an American soldier. So I'm all for the retcon when it's done as well as this.

David: There are some comics ideas which could in theory go on forever without any retcons at all; after all, outside of super-hero comics, Doonesbury (and others like Gasoline Alley) has lasted decades -- the characters age in real time, events have permanent consequences, popular characters may die and stay dead, new ones are born and grow up, and so on. There's no need, for instance, to revise a character's experiences in the Vietnam war to the first Iraq war.

Clay: The continual sliding timeline continuity retcon that Marvel uses has always bugged me a bit. Especially when they use it to justify radically altering the characters' original origins as Claremont did in his run with the Fantastic Four. I don't mind the tiny details of an origin changing (which war/country/year it was exactly that Tony got kidnapped and built his armor with professor Yin-sen, for example, isn't that important)... as the major details (the who was involved and the what happened) didn't change... But changing the FF's attempted spaceflight to the moon into the first "hyperdrive" experiment really annoyed me.

As a rule, I ignore all current date references in the books because in my mind its ~14-15 years after the FF launch (~1976) and I try to just ignore the periodic timeline retcons.

William: That's certainly another headache, Clay. The Punisher's history is another example. The further we get away from the Vietnam War, the less plausible he becomes.

David: I think a variant on DC's approach with their various Crises (yes, that's the plural of "crisis"), and their pre-Crisis Earth-One/Two approach has the most merit -- every so many years, just start off a fresh universe. Characters stay "current", people could follow the previous versions and enjoy them (a la Earth-Two, characters age, some die, a new generation comes forth), and the "new crop" can be as dark, or light, or just different as audience appeal and writers interest permits -- without having to come up with an in-story reason for Batman to change his whole approach from grim to almost insanely driven, or a time-travel story with Wonder Woman's mother, or various styles for Krypton.

Clay: One of my favorite retcon stories wasn't even really a retcon, Astro City #1/2. It just dealt with the idea of the retcons in story and how such things would effect the people in that universe.

William: Sometimes a retcon is merely a writer's way of proverbially jamming a square peg into a round hole. They have their idea, and damn the consequences of making it fit. In this case, definite lack of creativity. And that's when you get an even bigger mess than when you started.

David: [Addendum: Seems like a non sequitur here, but I wanted to mention this bit...] Retcons can also be a bit excessive. I mean, I love his stuff, but Roy Thomas once built an entire annual out of "why was Captain America's shield the wrong shape in one time-travel story from a few years prior?"

Clay: Sometimes a new simple explanation for something can make sense over a series of overly complicated story-arcs and confusing complex history. Take Vision's original story versus the Avengers Forever version for example. The simple addition of Immortus manipulating everything makes a series of contradictory and confusing stories make sense.

William: Some of the typical retcons have been used so much that they've become stereotypes of themselves.

Marty: Retcons can save/build a character just as easy as they can destroy them.

William: From time to time, retcons are the only thing that can clean up a horrible mess of continuity, or fix a storyline that isn't working. Retconning the Clone Saga so that Peter Parker turns out to be the original Peter Parker is an example of that.

Alister: We have lived with these characters for years and there is a legacy to be respected. Trample recklessly on that and you have angry fans. On the other hand, you can throw in something new and keep the whole thing fresh as long as it doesn't rip up the past beyond recognition. It's a question of balance. Overall, I want new twists on old tales that respect history.

David: I think retcons can be good but one has to take great care to make them work, and ideally they should be there to make better stories, not to change characters to fit whatever framework one has in mind. They can be a lack of creativity, and they can be a gimmick, but they don't have to be.

To be continued in part two on Thursday, where we discuss Spider-Man's numerous retcons, the Illuminati, Romulus and more!

The opinions expressed in The Round Table are solely those of the writers, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its staff in general.

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[Kevin Jones]

This is a great feature. I'll keep reading if the series of roundtable discussions continues.

I get pretty frustrated with the sliding timeline retcons as well. One non-comic book example of this is when the Simpsons retconned Homer and Marge to have been young in the 90's. It was surreal to see the show flashback to a decade it helped to shape.

There are a few ways of getting around it. You can start over every 15-20 years, like with the Ultimate line, or you can just not refer to events which are affected by the timeframe. It's funny how Iron Man's origin doesn't get mentioned much, isn't it? OR...we could come up with new characters and stop publishing stories about the old ones.

[William Keogh]

The series is indeed going to continue, Kevin....

[John H]

Originally Posted by Kevin Jones

There are a few ways of getting around it. You can start over every 15-20 years, like with the Ultimate line, or you can just not refer to events which are affected by the timeframe. It's funny how Iron Man's origin doesn't get mentioned much, isn't it? OR...we could come up with new characters and stop publishing stories about the old ones.

I think David touched on something similar to that -

every so many years, just start off a fresh universe. Characters stay "current", people could follow the previous versions and enjoy them (a la Earth-Two, characters age, some die, a new generation comes forth), and the "new crop" can be as dark, or light, or just different as audience appeal and writers interest permits --

Old and new characters' storylines could continue.

[Gary Fitzgerald]

Excellent stuff chaps. Superb.

Worst retcon for me was Uncanny #304 (one of the worst comics of all time) where Magneto's wonderfully well-written change in views from 150 to 200 had involved him stealing shiar gear, then attacking the funeral of one of his students.

the two Xorns one just said to me that Austen hadnt understood Morrisons story.

[John H]

Originally Posted by Gary Fitzgerald

Excellent stuff chaps. Superb.

William, Clay, Alister David and Marty really knocked this one out of the ballpark. Great job guys.

the two Xorns one just said to me that Austen hadnt understood Morrisons story.

That and the editors didn't bother to stop him and explain it. Sometimes you wonder what the editors are paid for.

[Marty P]

It's pretty clear the editors themselves didn't know what GM was doing.

[Alister Hooke]

There's a great New X-men article in the second issue (just out) of the Comic Heroes quarterly publication. It lays out the the sometimes complex underlying and overarching themes that ran through the whole of Morrison's run, some of which I noticed but some of which I didn't. It gave me a better appreciation of Morrison's sophistication and subtlety as a storyteller and his virtue of refusing to spoon-feed his audience. These themes clearly escaped the attention of Austen and the editors.