What are some character storylines or retcons that you just found...unnecessary?

[Aahz]

OTOH, changing Alan Scott's sexuality (as opposed to others that have been altered which I feel are credible) is an example of an unnecessary recon, IMO, based on GL's publication history.

It was based on the "Earth 2" Version I think.

But it seems allready kind of gimmiky and unnecessary since Alan is barely appearing anywhere.

[Triniking1234]

The only Justice Society member getting use is Jay over in The Flash.

[witchboy]

This is my main gripe. That and the 'Barry generates the Speed Force' bit.
Also not a fan of Tim being bi. One, it came out of nowhere, and two it really was not handled well. Another writer could have sold it a whole lot better than Fitzmartin.
Black Canary as a founding member of the JLA instead of Wonder Woman.

I'd question that Tim being bi came out of nowhere. There's a pretty big fan base of people who read Tim as bi for years. His friendship with Conner had a lot of queer subtext to it, particularly with Tim's reaction to Conner's death going far beyond his reaction to other losses including his parents. It's said that Tim being gay - that's the way it was phrased - was a sort of inside joke in the DC offices.
That's not to say it's been handled well, but there was something there that some people saw.

[Stanlos]

The problem in the bolded part. For many, many decades, we did know what was going on internally because we have thought balloons telling us. While bisexuality can still work because we don't know every thought, homosexuality is a much tougher row to hoe, because we saw from their thoughts, when a character was very much attracted to the opposite sex, and not just in a "going with the flow" or "doing what I'm supposed to do" sort of way. While I never read Alan Scott, it's particularly an issue when previous relationships that we saw were enthusiastic and real and then later said to be not that.

You knew SOME things at a given moment in time. But readers can't know the subconscious struggles about which the person themselves don't have conscious awareness. I keep calling them persons. I should say characters. But the characters do mimick persons, yeah?

Anyway, identity and orientation are complex and there are so many external pressures serving to force people to hide from themselves. This should be readily apparent in the US. Not sure about the rest of the world but there are people organizing to increase and further institutionalize those artificial constructs and the pressures deployed to force compliance

[The Darknight Detective]

I'd question that Tim being bi came out of nowhere. There's a pretty big fan base of people who read Tim as bi for years. His friendship with Conner had a lot of queer subtext to it, particularly with Tim's reaction to Conner's death going far beyond his reaction to other losses including his parents. It's said that Tim being gay - that's the way it was phrased - was a sort of inside joke in the DC offices.
That's not to say it's been handled well, but there was something there that some people saw.

Whether or not it could be seen subtextually, it seems plausible to me.

[bat39]

I'm a huge fan of Byrne's revamped Superman, even though I enjoy much more the triangle era than when Byrne was actually writing it. It's not perfect (especially some of his takes on the villains ), but I enjoy many of his back to basics concepts and, overall, I think it gave us the best Superman of all. It's been a long time, but I think the whole born on Earth ties in with making Superman unique in the DCU, truly the LAST Son of Krypton. Byrne later, in his Krypton mini-series, genetically tied the Kryptonians to the planet Krypton itself, making it impossible for any other Kryptonians to leave the planet that was about to be destroyed, even though they clearly had the technology to do so. Not being born on Krypton, Kal-El was not bonded to the planet, and actually became a solar battery and got all his powers on Earth. I know others like all the history that comes with Krypton, but I've always prefered Superman to be unique in the universe. Byrne found other ways to give us Supergirl (Matrix), Zod and the Phantom Zone prisioners (copies from a pocket universe), and even Krypto (a normal dog with the wrong name on the collar), but I liked the idea that there would never be someone else quite like Kal-El. Over time, this uniqueness fell away, and we even got to the point of a storyline of a whole planet of Kryptonians invading Earth. IMHO, those later retcons (or reboots, I get confused sometimes) were, IMHO, not very good.

Here's the thing though - none of what you've described absolutely required the retcon of Superman being born on earth. He could still have been the Last Son of Krypton even if he'd been born on Kryptonian soil (in fact, that would have made his status as the last Kryptonian even more poignant). Hell, Siegal and Shuster intended Superman to be the sole survivor of Krypton and never even thought of other survivors (to my knowledge)...if Kal-El being born on Krypton and coming to earth as a baby worked for them, then it should have worked for Byrne.

If you really think about it, the birthing matrix means that every Kryptonian died, but a bunch of Kryptonian genes made it to earth on a rocketspace and synthesized an infant once it landed. And if I'm overthinking that, if in terms of the narrative there's no functional difference between Superman being born on Krypton and Superman being born on earth, then why bother?

*If* it went somewhere bold and suggested that Kryptonians, on their native world, weren't even a little bit humanoid, and Kal only formed as a human(looking) infant was because his 'birthing matrix' was activated by a pair of humans, then it could have been interesting and tread new ground, but, as you say, it seemed kind of pointless and pedantic.

That would be a much bigger and more fundamental change to the mythos. Dunno how it would have been received.

I doubt Bart ever becomes Kid Flash again. Wally's daughter could fulfill that role again but she now has her own identity and people seem comfortable with Wallace being Wally's Kid Flash.

Looks like Ace is 'safe' then, for now!

Wonder how future adaptations will deal with him though. I suppose it depends on whether or not they choose to race-lift Wally.

My take on what constitutes an unnecessary recon is one that makes you scratch your head as to why the change ocurred, instead of one you just don't personally like. So something like killing off Barry's mother wouldn't count, IMO, because it's obvious as to why that was created. For that story to work (and it's one of DC's most important ones), Barry needed a huge impetus to set things in motion.

OTOH, changing Alan Scott's sexuality (as opposed to others that have been altered which I feel are credible) is an example of an unnecessary recon, IMO, based on GL's publication history.

Totally agree.

Again, returning to my point about the birthing matrix...I don't hate the idea. I even think it was a neat creative wrinkle. But what was the point of it? Every other change Byrne made had a point - keeping the Kents alive, making Clark the 'real' identity, Lex Luthor as a corrupt businessman rather than a mad scientist/supervillain, no other survivors of Krypton etc. All of these changes, and many others, have stood the test of time across subsequent adaptations and reboots. The birthing matrix didn't. There's a reason for that.

[Nomads1]

Here's the thing though - none of what you've described absolutely required the retcon of Superman being born on earth. He could still have been the Last Son of Krypton even if he'd been born on Kryptonian soil (in fact, that would have made his status as the last Kryptonian even more poignant). Hell, Siegal and Shuster intended Superman to be the sole survivor of Krypton and never even thought of other survivors (to my knowledge)...if Kal-El being born on Krypton and coming to earth as a baby worked for them, then it should have worked for Byrne.

If you really think about it, the birthing matrix means that every Kryptonian died, but a bunch of Kryptonian genes made it to earth on a rocketspace and synthesized an infant once it landed. And if I'm overthinking that, if in terms of the narrative there's no functional difference between Superman being born on Krypton and Superman being born on earth, then why bother?

Required? No, I don't think it did. But it was the story Byrne was going with. As I said, it's been a long time since I've read most of this, so my mind may be playing some tricks on me, but, as a recall, Byrne was attempting to give some more scientific explanations to Superman's powers, other then the lower gravity of Earth and the color of our sun. The genetic modifications that the Kryptonians suffered, that tied them to the native planet (and here is where it gets a bit murky in my mind. It had something to do with a war for the rights of clones and it involved biological weapons, I think), made them potentialy living solar batteries. However, the weaker, older red sun of Krypton wasn't enough to really give them a charge. And here is where I liked what Byrne did. Clark was exposed to the rays of our younger, stronger yellow sun since birth, and, as his body was systematically being charged, his powers got to slowly develop, explaining away that he was not yet powerful enough to operate as Superby, and that his powers only reached their peak with adulthood. As a consequence of this change, Superman no longer instantly lost his powers when not under a yellow sun, and he also took some time to really re-charge. I liked that. Kryptonite poisoning was also explained as a radiation that painfully expelled the solar charge from Superman's cells, allowing him to fight a bit its effects. All of this tied up with the genetic manipulation of the Kryptonian race. Was it essential to have Kal-El born on Earth, and not Krypton? Probably not, but it's the creative path Byrne chose. Am I in love with this retcon? No, but it doesn't bother me as much as it does others.

That would be a much bigger and more fundamental change to the mythos. Dunno how it would have been received.

I don't think it'd be well recieved.

Again, returning to my point about the birthing matrix...I don't hate the idea. I even think it was a neat creative wrinkle. But what was the point of it? Every other change Byrne made had a point - keeping the Kents alive, making Clark the 'real' identity, Lex Luthor as a corrupt businessman rather than a mad scientist/supervillain, no other survivors of Krypton etc. All of these changes, and many others, have stood the test of time across subsequent adaptations and reboots. The birthing matrix didn't. There's a reason for that.

That is a good point. However, not all the retcons that undo other retcons end up being a good thing. I still don't fully understand what Loeb did to bring back the 50's-60's Krypton and Krypto into the modern continuity.

Peace

[Lightning Rider]

Imo almost every character they added after Damian, feels kind of redundant to one that was allready established.

Yeah, it's basically the same cut-off for me as well.

[Lightning Rider]

My take on what constitutes an unnecessary recon is one that makes you scratch your head as to why the change ocurred, instead of one you just don't personally like. So something like killing off Barry's mother wouldn't count, IMO, because it's obvious as to why that was created. For that story to work (and it's one of DC's most important ones), Barry needed a huge impetus to set things in motion.

For that retcon to be permanent was unnecessary. Barry's origin was perfectly simple.

[The Darknight Detective]

For that retcon to be permanent was unnecessary. Barry's origin was perfectly simple.

Not if DC wanted to keep the Multiverse that sprang from it.

[The Darknight Detective]

Again, returning to my point about the birthing matrix...I don't hate the idea. I even think it was a neat creative wrinkle. But what was the point of it? Every other change Byrne made had a point - keeping the Kents alive, making Clark the 'real' identity, Lex Luthor as a corrupt businessman rather than a mad scientist/supervillain, no other survivors of Krypton etc. All of these changes, and many others, have stood the test of time across subsequent adaptations and reboots. The birthing matrix didn't. There's a reason for that.

I agree about the others (especially the Kents if you wanted them "alive" like they were in Superboy stories pre-COIE) and also how the birthing matrix seems superfluous.

[superduperman]

Throwing out Superman's New 52 origin. The idea of him starting out in a T-shirt and jeans and at GA power levels sounds like something they could have made work with Rebirth but they just junked everything New 52 because Jurgens or Johns wanted to play with the "old" version again. The origin was the one thing about New 52 that people liked.

[bat39]

Throwing out Superman's New 52 origin. The idea of him starting out in a T-shirt and jeans and at GA power levels sounds like something they could have made work with Rebirth but they just junked everything New 52 because Jurgens or Johns wanted to play with the "old" version again. The origin was the one thing about New 52 that people liked.

I get that. But honestly, I like the idea of Morrison's T-shirt and jeans Superman existing separately in his own world. The problem is that they just haven't done anything with him

In hindsight though, they just have just had Superman Reborn reveal that the Post-Crisis Superman was the 'real' Superman of Earth 0, the New 52 Superman was from another earth (and shunt him back there), and fully restore the Post-Crisis continuity, including the Kents being alive, in one go. The whole idea of a Superman 'Red' and 'Blue' and merging the two versions was ultimately pointless, since practically nothing from the New 52 version was preserved...apart from the fact that he once wore the New 52 armor in the past, and that the Kents were dead (which eventually got undone anyway).

[Lightning Rider]

Not if DC wanted to keep the Multiverse that sprang from it.

I feel like there are a lot of tools in the multiverse-event-kickoff toolbelt before one has to reach for "permanently adding tragic backstory to iconic hero"

[Nomads1]

Since we're mentioning so much Superman, I'm gonna go with what was probably the most pointless retcon (or is it reboot?) of all, Superman Birthright. I actually liked Waid's take on Supes and his origins, with his own particular tweaks (which some I liked, and others I didn't), but thew were almost instantly forgotten in favor of the tweaks and retcons that Johns wanted to put in his own Superman run. A shame, for I really didn't care much for Johns love letter to Richard Donner's Superman The Movie and to the Pre-COIE Superman.

Peace