OT: Retcons you wish hadn't been retconned

[Len Ikari145]

Also Spider-Man/MJ. Will never forgive that one being written out. If anyone deserved their marriage, much less to a smoking hot redhead, it's Peter Parker.

Thankfully, his relationship, if not the marriage itself, has been restored in recent books

[Masonicon]

Can I post non-comic book examples of this?

[K7P5V]

Also Spider-Man/MJ. Will never forgive that one being written out. If anyone deserved their marriage, much less to a smoking hot redhead, it's Peter Parker.

To the utmost, I agree! I have yet to recover from the loss...

[Dark Soul # 7]

Also Spider-Man/MJ. Will never forgive that one being written out. If anyone deserved their marriage, much less to a smoking hot redhead, it's Peter Parker.

Oh yeah, that one still stings. If anybody deserved a kind, funny and responsible superhero for a husband, it's Mary Jane Watson.

Thankfully, his relationship, if not the marriage itself, has been restored in recent books

It's a good step in the right direction. But we'll see if they dare to undo the entire retcon.

[Nik Hasta]

It's a good step in the right direction. But we'll see if they dare to undo the entire retcon.

Marriage conceptually ages the character too much I think.

Especially with the gravitational pull of the cinematic universe having an impact on the comic universe to some extent. The most famous version of Spider-Man currently, is a school kid again. Modern comics Peter can't do that, without some kind of a crazy retcon, but they seem somewhat determined to keep him ambiguously "young" and accessible.

So I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Marriage conceptually ages the character too much I think.

Especially with the gravitational pull of the cinematic universe having an impact on the comic universe to some extent. The most famous version of Spider-Man currently, is a school kid again. Modern comics Peter can't do that, without some kind of a crazy retcon, but they seem somewhat determined to keep him ambiguously "young" and accessible.

So I wouldn't hold my breath.

Yeah, I'm aware of those aspects. And I always thought they were kind of weird. Mainly because when I got into Spider-man comics Peter was already nebulously adult, and in the 90s animated show he always looked like an adult rather than a teenager. So that was always the image I had of Spider-man before realising that he started out more as a solo teen hero. So Spider-man as a grown up was always more my jam than teenage Spider-man. But I realize that's a minority view of the character and that they'll likely never have him marry in the mainline comics again.

Which is ok. I have PS4 Spider-man who might be my favourite incarnation of the character. And I'm happy that MJ has in recent years been re-promoted to the main love interest in most non-comic media after being pushed aside following OMD.

[Powerboy]

Marriage conceptually ages the character too much I think.

Especially with the gravitational pull of the cinematic universe having an impact on the comic universe to some extent. The most famous version of Spider-Man currently, is a school kid again. Modern comics Peter can't do that, without some kind of a crazy retcon, but they seem somewhat determined to keep him ambiguously "young" and accessible.

So I wouldn't hold my breath.

I think it's unavoidable though for some characters. For instance, one of the things that killed the Chris Reeve Superman franchise for me was the Amnesia Kiss. Now, at the time, this was not because of it's moral implications which I didn't really see at the time but because it was essentially hitting the reset button. Nothing was going to progress.

The problem is it can only progress so far.

With DC, the scheme seems to be that a character can get married, even have children. No big deal because there will be a reboot every twenty-five years or even more often now.

I don't really follow current comics but I understand Marvel finally did a reboot? Or did that not last? With Marvel traditionally, the problem is you don't have reboots (and I prefer it that way) but you can only progress so far. Peter Parker gets married. Okay. Peter Parker had children. Okay. Children get older and Peter Parker is some vaguely defined number of years older but it doesn't seem to make any difference in his abilities. Okay. Maty Jane doesn't look any different. Okay. Kid is now a teenager, almost an adult, and calling herself Spider-Girl and Pete is too old to be Spider-Man anymore. Woe. Full stop. Alternate reality.

So the problem is you can only go so far and then there's no place to progress.

The Fantastic Four are a good example. Room for change. Reed and Sue quickly go from fiancees to marriage. Then a child. Child is a child. Child is a teenager albeit it took fifty years. Sooner or later, the changes have to stop or the FF has to retire.

True also that, in a shared universe, this causes discrepancies. I personally prefer to just suspend disbelief. The FF started in 1961. It's the same FF. Time just doesn't move the same in the comics as in reality nor does aging. These are the same characters I admired when I was a little boy, not soft reboot versions.

Or, the original canon characters stopped being written a long time ago and more resent stuff is an alternate reality I could care less about.

Edit: This whole issue is why I tend to prefer television show versions or movie versions where there is a finite continuity, usually seven years at the most for television. Or the older comics collections where the only real issue is at exactly what point is this really not the original character anymore, not so much because of the passage of time but because the character's personality has changed too much such as Tony Stark.

[Godzilla2099]

Pre-new52 Cassandra Cain pass for a Metahuman without powers

Completely Agreed. This gets my vote

[The Chou Lives]

DC tries to reboot to be dramatic in destroying and rebuilding everything.

The Marvel approach for a while was “ if a story does good enough but diversion from source? Make it in a AU.” And therefore a Marvel has the bigger multiverse.

The Second Secret Wars did way more damage and it was still being rebuilt as Reed/Franklin rebooting all that stuff or something?

Point is this is why manga is supreme to comics. In my opinion of this aspect.

[Odd Rödney]

The progression of time in and of itself doesn't make sense, either. It was already wonky when the original story was that the OG X-Men were captured and Xavier had the time to gallivant around the planet to recruit the Giant Size X-Men. Now the idea is that he did it *twice?* Seriously, the Giant Size X-Men should have come across the bare skeletons of Jean, Hank, Bobby, etc. by that point.

---

Speaking of the X-Men, I'm loving the wild ride that's Dawn of X, but my only problem is the retcon that everything since 1963 happened in the span of 10 years. The classic X-Men certainly act tougher and more determined than people in their 20s, but also that means every life-threatening, global, emotional, personal catastrophe happened at, like, a twice-weekly basis.

I know aging and relative comic book time are weird already, but the Fantastic Four handle this just a bit better -- they still had a couple years of adventures, and then the Richards gave birth to Franklin, and even without the five year post Secret Wars time jump, Franklin went from newborn to teenager in ~50 years. It takes the X-Men more time to experience 10 years than the Fantastic Four.

Time is a MESS in comics, it's completely ridiculous. But I love this new Krakoa stuff, it is the best X-Men have been in years IMHO.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Personally, I'm not really all that fond of what we found out about Wolverine's past.

I think that I'd have preferred if he was still an amnesiac whose claws had been implanted and might have been Sabretooth's son, rather than them bringing in stuff like bone claws, everything about being James Howlett, having repeatedly defeated the Angel of Death in order to heal from fatal wounds, and of course, Romulus. Just.... Romulus, as a concept, and everything associated with him.

[The Chou Lives]

Personally, I'm not really all that fond of what we found out about Wolverine's past.

I think that I'd have preferred if he was still an amnesiac whose claws had been implanted and might have been Sabretooth's son, rather than them bringing in stuff like bone claws, everything about being James Howlett, having repeatedly defeated the Angel of Death in order to heal from fatal wounds, and of course, Romulus. Just.... Romulus, as a concept, and everything associated with him.

Agreed. Sometimes less is more and no need to to solve mysteries involving characters.

[Klaxton]

Steve Rogers as The Captain, John Walker as Captain America.

I didn't mind the return, but I hated that Walker was reduced to a punching bag later. At first he was this guy who Cap had to give it all to barely win and could give Spider Man problem simply via stats. Then he became a whiny jobber

Personally, I'm not really all that fond of what we found out about Wolverine's past.

I think that I'd have preferred if he was still an amnesiac whose claws had been implanted and might have been Sabretooth's son, rather than them bringing in stuff like bone claws, everything about being James Howlett,

having repeatedly defeated the Angel of Death in order to heal from fatal wounds, and of course, Romulus. Just.... Romulus, as a concept, and everything associated with him.

I liked everything introduced except the last two. Those were bad
And Romulus, geez that was a steaming pile of garbage

[The Drunkard Kid]

Agreed. Sometimes less is more and no need to to solve mysteries involving characters.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind Wolvie getting his memories back if everything didn't end up coming off so cringe-inducing.

[Cody]

I hated that the Amazons were retconned back to what they originally were after they were first retconned to be more like what real life Amazon's were like just because a minority didn't like the fact that the Amazons were no longer portrayed as boringly "pure" xenophobes(for those who don't remember; the Amazon's were retconned into going around seducing/raping men at sea to get pregnant before killing them, then sending any sons they had away to be forgotten, which I found to be a fascinating take on the DC Amazon's that could have led to a great redemption arc for the Amazon's, but god forbid we have the Amazon's be that bad, so DC changed it).