What retcons do you least like?

[Restingvoice]

According to the pre flashpoint chronology Selina was iirc 19 in Year One (with Bruce being 25 or 26) which also already odd. Especially since Selina comes of as much older during that story line.

Another one I also don't like:

Increasing the starting ages for Dick and Jason to ~16 with the new 52. That changes imo completely their dynamic with Batman, and it makes imo Jasons death far less impact full when he was almost an adult opposed to barely in his teens when he is killed (in the original comics Jason never reached the age of 16 as Robin). They apparently changed it back for Dick, but it is sofar not clear if they did it also for Jason.
I could get behind the higher starting if they would say we are going for a more grounded approach, and want therefore the Robins (and all the other sidekicks) to start older. But not if they have a 10-year-old as the current Robin.

Okay, yeah 19 for Selina Year One is too young. She feels and looks the same age as Bruce, well, maybe 3-4 years younger. I can buy the justification that she feels older because she lives in a world that forces her to be older, but I don't know early Post Crisis Selina beyond Year One and Long Halloween.

Jason's still older in Rebirth.

[Fromper]

My point is that Crisis created MANY more problems than it fixed. And every reboot/retcon event since then has been DC trying to clean up the resulting mess.

[Agent Z]

-Ice no longer a nordic God but just a regular metahuman. Way to make someone less interesting.

-Too much to list from the New 52

When was she ever a nordic God? She was more like a homo-magi with ice powers.

[Agent Z]

Identity Crisis

Diana as Zeus' kid

My point is that Crisis created MANY more problems than it fixed. And every reboot/retcon event since then has been DC trying to clean up the resulting mess.

I don't think Crisis itself created any problems but the need to bring back pre-crisis rather than move forward or at least try to more properly integrate it.

[Dr. Ellingham]

My point is that Crisis created MANY more problems than it fixed.

Perhaps. But the business case for Crisis wasn't purely continuity.

DC held a meeting in either 1979 or 1980 to talk about revamping their line to compete better with Marvel. They were being outsold 3 to 1.

Like the continuity resets of the 90s and beyond, continuity was a chief rationale for Crisis, but not the business reason. The goal was to jettison what was no longer considered marketable to the target fans - teenage Marvel fanboys.

[Koriand'r]

I agree, Wonder Woman as Zeus' daughter flies in the face of everything she was designed to represent. That's the worst part, but it also makes her less unique by giving her so many siblings. It's just so lazy and uninspired.

[Agent Z]

Agreed.

I don't like, but don't loathe it. I dislike the attitude that prostitutes or former prostitutes are more immoral/unforgivable than thieves or former thieves (just look at the number of admirable, lovable leading lady former thieves who get happily ever after v. former prostitutes). But the execution was ghastly. And the dominatrix aspect worse. Plus, I can't see Selina staying with such a gig very long. She's a character that should have too much ambition/skill for it. Lot more money in the big thievery jobs she plays off. I'm actually more upset by having Bruce rescue her as their first interaction. She, on the whole, should not need to be rescued by him. I have lots of issues with Year One.

I dislike that one a lot, too. It made her junior Batman and Superman, etc. when I think she needs to be on equal footing with them.

It's not like she's treated as being equal to them even when she's a founder.

[Agent Z]

I agree, but was never that happy even with Donna's original origin (well, original after she became Donna and not younger Diana) told in Teen Titans #22 didn't really time out well enough to make me happy. Wonder Woman didn't premiere until after Robin, so not long enough ago for Donna to be that young. Donna's had a lot of origins, and in truth, none of them work for me. If Diana had been working longer, this would, but I like her premiering at roughly the same time as Batman and Superman, and Robin no more than 3 years later, if possible. I really like him only 1 year after Batman, but I couldn't use that in my personal timeline/headcanon because I needed Batman (and Ollie) already working when Arrowette's mom tried heroing.

Just because Diana premiered after Robin in real time doesn't mean her in universe debut would be the same. Diana was immortal or at least aged slower than normal humans.

[Tzigone]

Just because Diana premiered after Robin in real time doesn't mean her in universe debut would be the same. Diana was immortal or at least aged slower than normal humans.

It does to me. I mean, if you don't toss away all the golden age stuff as no longer existing (and I don't). She didn't leave paradise island off-screen and first appear as an already active hero. We saw her origin, her first time in man's world. And it was directly tied to WWII, nazis, etc. So at the time, it wasn't intended to be long ago.

Mind you, I always liked that Robin appeared right after Batman and pre-dates so many older heroes.

And, too, I still kinda like the idea of Superman as first hero which is weird thing with GA heroes coming and going and being relegated to a separate earth (then merged in), but oh well.

[Icefan]

When was she ever a nordic God? She was more like a homo-magi with ice powers.

Her people self identified as gods, and Tora often referred to herself as a goddess. She's not one to boast, so she no doubt believes it to be true. Most likely her people are the descendants of humans and Jötnar ("Frost Giants"), so technically demi-gods.

[SiegePerilous02]

I don't think Crisis itself created any problems but the need to bring back pre-crisis rather than move forward or at least try to more properly integrate it.

The thing is, they didn't have to get rid of pre-Crisis or change continuities to move forward. Anything they didn't want to use anymore they could have moved on from and stopped referencing and do shake ups another way. With an inter connected shared universe, rebooting/overhauling parts of it while leaving other stuff the same is going to have an obvious impact on the internal history, and the lack of foresight created many problems. Stuff that used to be pretty straight forward no longer was so. If you establish a trend of screwing around with things for a short term sales/attention grab, it's impossible to put the cat back in the bag and future creators are either going to be preoccupied with untangling the mess you created (to varying degrees of necessity and success) or ditch the whole thing/parts of it and start fresh like you did. And they would feel just as justified even if nobody really is.

The periodic seismic shifts the X-Men franchise has gone through since the Silver Age (Giant Size #1, Jim Lee X-Men #1, Age of Apocalypse, Morrison's New X-Men and now Hickman's House of X/Powers of X) is a better model for these kinds of things. Create a shake up, an accessible jumping on point that utilizes the best history without focusing on the excess stuff not important to the current story (but also not drawing attention to it by removing it altogether, and leaving an option for future creators to use it. It's only polite). Superman could have benefited immensely from this, as a lot of the stuff they wanted to get rid of or change was already in the process of being done anyway (aside from the Kents being alive). And it wouldn't have had a domino effect on the shared history with the Legion or Supergirl (she was dead; making it so she never existed was excessive, pointless and pretty mean spirited).

[DrNewGod]

This brings me to my #1 retcon I didn't like: Crisis on Infinite Earths. The whole damn thing. It was an excellent story, but WHY??? Whose idea was it to wipe out the multiverse, kill off 90% of the characters DC owned at the time, and completely mess up the origin stories and timelines of pretty much every character that survived?

At the time, I was super-excited by the Post-Crisis world (even tho I didn't much like bumping Superman and Wonder Woman out of their iconic roles in the DCU), and Byrne's and several of the Superman runs between Crisis and Return of Superman are among my favorites.

Over time, however, I've came to feel that it was a colossal error. I suppose the mess made of Hawkman and Wonder Girl are what began to turn me around, along with a realization of how Perez' transformation of the Amazons from a sophisticated civilization to a time-frozen tribe of divine pawns contrasted with some of WW's original core themes. It stripped DC of some of its heritage and grandeur, and it was something of a surrender. As others have said, it was a desperate effort to chase Marvel, rather than just hire the talent that they did, and be their own thing.

To your point tho, I'll say two things in DC's defense:

1. They were facing a problem of having handcuffed their characters to a specific point in time (the JSA and All-Star's WWII history), and just how old that made everybody was getting hard to explain.
2. The vast majority of what DC jettisoned in Crisis were properties they couldn't really do anything with at the time (i.e. Ra-man).

I think if I had an opportunity to voice an opinion at the critical moment, I'd suggest they take one of two options.

• Leave it alone, and just don't let anybody write anything you don't want as part of your continuity.
• Keep your multiverse, and launch a new Earth-0 continuity, from scratch, and start treating Earth-1 the way you initially treated Earth-2, as a place where the adventures are largely in the past.

My point is that Crisis created MANY more problems than it fixed. And every reboot/retcon event since then has been DC trying to clean up the resulting mess.

I don't think Crisis itself created any problems but the need to bring back pre-crisis rather than move forward or at least try to more properly integrate it.

Hawkman and Donna Troy would like a word...

[Agent Z]

At the time, I was super-excited by the Post-Crisis world (even tho I didn't much like bumping Superman and Wonder Woman out of their iconic roles in the DCU), and Byrne's and several of the Superman runs between Crisis and Return of Superman are among my favorites.

Over time, however, I've came to feel that it was a colossal error. I suppose the mess made of Hawkman and Wonder Girl are what began to turn me around, along with a realization of how Perez' transformation of the Amazons from a sophisticated civilization to a time-frozen tribe of divine pawns contrasted with some of WW's original core themes. It stripped DC of some of its heritage and grandeur, and it was something of a surrender. As others have said, it was a desperate effort to chase Marvel, rather than just hire the talent that they did, and be their own thing.

To your point tho, I'll say two things in DC's defense:

1. They were facing a problem of having handcuffed their characters to a specific point in time (the JSA and All-Star's WWII history), and just how old that made everybody was getting hard to explain.
2. The vast majority of what DC jettisoned in Crisis were properties they couldn't really do anything with at the time (i.e. Ra-man).

I think if I had an opportunity to voice an opinion at the critical moment, I'd suggest they take one of two options.

• Leave it alone, and just don't let anybody write anything you don't want as part of your continuity.
• Keep your multiverse, and launch a new Earth-0 continuity, from scratch, and start treating Earth-1 the way you initially treated Earth-2, as a place where the adventures are largely in the past.

Hawkman and Donna Troy would like a word...

I'd say those two are strong examples of what I mean.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'd say those two are strong examples of what I mean.

Their problems are a direct result of COIE happening though. They were fine and didn't need to be messed around with before hand. Donna in particular.

They are strong examples of why it was an overall bad idea.

[EsotericFailures]

The Identity Crisis rape retcon is one of the worst things DC's published in the modern era and shows a lot of bad thinking about modern comics.

The early post-Crisis rewriting of history was often pretty dumb. Superman not being the first superhero, the weird founding team of the Justice League etc. All pretty dumb and thankfully gone.

The original plan to make Wally West into a 12 year old racial stereotype left a lot to be desired but now that's gone.

The back and forth retcons about everything Wonder Woman make the character hard to get into for new readers.

Making Damian age faster than usual was one annoying casualty of the New 52 accelerated timeline. Has this been explored since?