DC continuity changes you'd like to see erased/retconned

[Timothy Hunter]

Hawkman's convolution happened because DC chose to set Hawkworld in the then present day DCU instead of roughly 10-15 years back in the past. This is resulted in a continuity equivalent of a car crash pile up in which every subsequent writer attempted to explain who the Hawkman and Hawkgirl who were members of the JL were this whole time. Imagine if they said Batman Year One was taking place in the present day and then spent the next 10 years claiming Dick, Jason and Tim were all brainwashed clones made by Alfred who still had his Outsider powers and you get the picture.

I'm not a fan of Donna's Titans Seed origin. I think she should have remained as either a survivor of the Crisis who still remembered the past continuity or she was rescued by a different Amazon than Diana. To me her connection to Diana and Themscyra are way more important than her connection to the Titans of Myth. This would have been a better use of time traveling Hippolyta rather than turning Donna into a magical clone or whatever nonsense that Byrne put her through.

Oh man. Donna didn't deserve all this meddling with her backstory. Honestly the only solution at this point would be to go full meta and make every single Donna Troy origin canon simultaneously due to some Time Trapper/Dark Angel shenanigans. Face it head on and embrace Donna's convoluted history.

[married guy]

Wow. Where to start......

I'd immediately remove the dead mum retcon for Barry Allen.
Also, the whole 'Barry generates the Speed Force' is a bad memory.

The Hawkman/girl reincarnation retcon worked great. I would reinstate it and forget everything else.
I'd bring Superboy back into the Legion history (pick a Superboy from anywhere in the multiverse and go with it) and solve that mess as well.

[phonogram12]

How does that make everyone redundant? Supes wields Godlike power. Captain Marvel literally wields the power of Gods, a Titan, and various figures of Legend. Wonder Woman (the proper one) was designed by Gods and wields post divine power and Amazon training. But none of them can be everywhere at once. And there are villains with comparable or even greater powers. So other heroes still matter and still contribute, no?

While it is true that they each have different sources for their powers, if they're all on the same team, it kind of does make them redundant (at least IMO). They're all more or less flying bricks. Which is why I always liked the idea of WW's skills making her Superman's (or any man's equal, for that matter) equal. As far as heroes with superhuman strength are concerned, no one should know how to fight better than her. And that makes her stand out more, IMHO.

Also see my example of either version of the JL movie.

[phonogram12]

Not to derail the thread, but I have to disagree with this. This can easily derail a universe where there's only one hero. If your character is the very best (like no one ever was) at everything (or just most things), it makes his or her own supporting cast redundant. I don't want Superman to be dumb, but I think someone like Lois should be the better journailst for example (which implies she's smarter than him at least in some aspects).

Honestly, I generally don't see supporting casts that way. I more or less just see them as fun characters for the hero's to bounce off of.

[Timothy Hunter]

Wow. Where to start......

I'd immediately remove the dead mum retcon for Barry Allen.
Also, the whole 'Barry generates the Speed Force' is a bad memory.

The Hawkman/girl reincarnation retcon worked great. I would reinstate it and forget everything else.
I'd bring Superboy back into the Legion history (pick a Superboy from anywhere in the multiverse and go with it) and solve that mess as well.

They haven't reinstated Clark's history as Superboy yet?

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Feel free to simply list your picks or include some reasoning behind them.

Here are just a few of mine:

*Zero Hour: Dan Jurgens' original idea for the outcome of ZH would have been far superior to what we got: a new Earth-Two that would have become home to the pre-COIE Earth-2 characters.

* The awful treatment Superman's continuity received during the first eleven years of the new century.

*Identity Crisis.

*Infinite Crisis: Kal-L and Lois survive, Superboy isn't a villain, the aforementioned return to restored versions of their Earths, a new Multiverse exists based on the separation of the five Earths combined in COIE

*Post-IC Superman: Secret Origins is released first, followed by Up, Up, and Away, Escape From Bizarro World, Superman and the Legion of Superheroes, and Brainiac. Johns would stay on and write a much better version of the New Krypton story as well as the Sun-Eater story he references in Secret Origins. Releasing these stories in this order would have fully established the new status quo for Superman and would have helped Johns and Busieks' runs overall.

*Batman's evolution into "Asshole Batman," especially "Tower of Babel" and the OMAC nonsense.

* Damian Wayne surviving the events of "Batman and Son."

* Barry Allen returning and replacing Wally. Barry returning isn't the problem, it's his function that still doesn't work today.

*Flashpoint having anything to do with a reboot.

*The New 52.

*Jon Kent being aged up and used by DC and Tom Taylor as a virtue-signaling stunt.

*Clark revealing his secret identity. If anything, I wouldn't mind learning that Perry and Jimmy have known for years but have kept it secret because of their love for Clark and Lois.

*No Bendis on Superman and Legion. Give him The Question or someone else and keep him out of superhero stories.

* No Tom Kong on Batman and no Heroes In Crisis.

* Alfred's death.

Most of those aren't even continuity changes, they're story directions you didn't like.

[Jackalope89]

Most of those aren't even continuity changes, they're story directions you didn't like.

They're both.

[Thor-Ul]

Also, the whole 'Barry generates the Speed Force' is a bad memory.

Exactly. If somebody generates the Speedforce it is Wally.

[Stanlos]

I honestly forgot about Hera when I wrote all that. It's just that I prefer the god parent origin over the clay one.

What if she were the daughter of Athena instead of Zeus?

[Restingvoice]

What if she were the daughter of Athena instead of Zeus?

Magic baby with Hippolyta?

[Thor-Ul]

What if she were the daughter of Athena instead of Zeus?

Hardly, because Athena was an asexual goddess. Never had sex with anyone, male, or female.

[daredevil1]

Lex growing up in Smallville isn't a bad idea, and fans and creators who hold onto it don't "need to grow up". It played a role in how Maggin wrote Lex, and he wrote one of the better Luthors. And the spin on it in the Smallville series was well received. Alan Moore is a better writer than any post Crisis Superman writer, and he wrote his Lex stand-in from Supreme as having the Smallville connection, so he probably regards that as the "real" Luthor

Rebooting away the backstory in the first place was probably the bigger mistake, because it created the scenario that caused writers to have conflicting ideas on what continuity should be. Whereas it always would have been better to just organically move Lex in a different direction and a writer could simply ignore Smallville if they wanted. Its not like every writer is forced to reference every little thing about a character they work on at all times

I'm not sure how it disproves my point exactly when you cite Alan Moore writing an analogue of it. It doesn't work in any version of the character and is used just to give him a connection to Clark, when their feud is so much more potent when Luthor hates him for no reason/bitter jealousy. It makes the world too small and I cannot buy Lex as a midwestern hick; the problem wit it is that he has to go to Smallville, because Clark can't be moved to another location for his childhood. It's sloppy and silly and was made in the days when the writers didn't expect anyone to really remember it that much, not something that stayed in every version forever. If we're citing things then all the movies, the animated series, Lois & Clark, all seemed to do fine without this backstory. Lex is a villain, and he's scarier if he comes out of nowhere to bedevil Superman and his hate just manifests itself. People mainly like it because they're used to it from their childhoods, hence my remark.

[Digifiend]

They haven't reinstated Clark's history as Superboy yet?

At least, not his link to Legion. They're inspired by Jon now instead.

[bretmaverick2]

Changes I would have not gone with:

I would have kept earths 1 and 2 after Crisis. That would have saved a lot of continuity headaches.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'm not sure how it disproves my point exactly when you cite Alan Moore writing an analogue of it. It doesn't work in any version of the character and is used just to give him a connection to Clark, when their feud is so much more potent when Luthor hates him for no reason/bitter jealousy. It makes the world too small and I cannot buy Lex as a midwestern hick; the problem wit it is that he has to go to Smallville, because Clark can't be moved to another location for his childhood. It's sloppy and silly and was made in the days when the writers didn't expect anyone to really remember it that much, not something that stayed in every version forever. If we're citing things then all the movies, the animated series, Lois & Clark, all seemed to do fine without this backstory. Lex is a villain, and he's scarier if he comes out of nowhere to bedevil Superman and his hate just manifests itself. People mainly like it because they're used to it from their childhoods, hence my remark.

Lex didn't really fit in with the Smallville crowd while he lived there and considered himself as being destined for bigger and better things. So if you can't imagine him as a midwestern hick, you arrived to the point of his original characterization. Also? the bitter jealousy you say should be his motivation began when they were kids.

I think writers wrote it for people to remember it, considering it was referenced all throughout the Bronze age when continuity started to get more dense and referential, and made it into Maggin's novels where Lex's character has some interesting POV chapters. It also really doesn't make the world smaller. If every single major character from Superman's adult life lived in Smallville, you'd have a point. However, it's pretty much just Lex and Lana.

If we're citing things from the movies, the Snyder movies used the post-Crisis origin and Eisenberg's take was received as a disaster and not compared favorably to Rosenbaum from Smallville. So that pretty much tells us either origin can work or fail depending on the execution, and neither is inherently superior to the other.

As for your last point, I'd say people can also prefer the post-Crisis origin simply because it will be what they grew up with and they don't put much thought into it beyond that. I was born a few years after the Byrne reboot, so I grew up with stuff like STAS and Lois & Clark. Lex always bored me as a kid, just as the Superman IP did as a whole compared to Batman and Spider-Man, but researching pre-Crisis Lex made me realize that that version is one of DC's best villains.