Worst Spider-Man Retcons (aside from erasing the Marriage during OMD)

[Rahul]

The last one I'll give you, that doesn't put her in a good light. However, the one about her lying to her friends can be dismissed as her covering for Peter. The flirtations don't seem to go beyond flirtations and remember that MJ's party girl image was just a mask for her.

Did they not retcon Norman Osborn faking Harry's death in similar vein? He sent him to Europe but always acted as though he was dead.

[JTait]

My vote goes to the retcon that the Aunt May who died in ASM #400 was a genetically modified actress, and the real Aunt May was alive all along. Very silly, and undid a classic story.

Reversing Spider-Man's unmasking was probably necessary, and preserves one of the most important aspects of the character (in my opinion) but was done in a confusing way, that makes several stories from the Civil War era difficult to reconcile with current continuity.

Outside One More Day, these two stick out for me. Sins Past was clearly a misguided story in hindsight, but at the time it was a brave idea and at least made some semblance of sense.

[Steeler53]

My vote goes to the retcon that the Aunt May who died in ASM #400 was a genetically modified actress, and the real Aunt May was alive all along. Very silly, and undid a classic story.

Reversing Spider-Man's unmasking was probably necessary, and preserves one of the most important aspects of the character (in my opinion) but was done in a confusing way, that makes several stories from the Civil War era difficult to reconcile with current continuity.


Outside One More Day, these two stick out for me. Sins Past was clearly a misguided story in hindsight, but at the time it was a brave idea and at least made some semblance of sense.

I would rank them in this order. 1: ' Sins Past. 2: Clone Saga. 3: Gwen Stacy clone issues. If I had my way, the word CLONE would be erased from ASM forever, as would any ARC that misuses (and especially trashes) Gwen, MJ or Felicia. If people are going to use those characters use them right ( unlike 'Sins Past' where Gwen got a hatchet job ( and MJ came out only slightly better then in OMD)).

[VolcanikTiger86]

My vote goes to the retcon that the Aunt May who died in ASM #400 was a genetically modified actress, and the real Aunt May was alive all along. Very silly, and undid a classic story.

Reversing Spider-Man's unmasking was probably necessary, and preserves one of the most important aspects of the character (in my opinion) but was done in a confusing way, that makes several stories from the Civil War era difficult to reconcile with current continuity.

Outside One More Day, these two stick out for me. Sins Past was clearly a misguided story in hindsight, but at the time it was a brave idea and at least made some semblance of sense.

I have to admit i don't like the unmasking because they never really did anything with it. I mean Matt Murdock wears a mask but everyone knows he is Daredevil the same could be said for the X-men, Iron fist and a few others so i don't know that its a important part of the hero for me.

I would rank them in this order. 1: ' Sins Past. 2: Clone Saga. 3: Gwen Stacy clone issues. If I had my way, the word CLONE would be erased from ASM forever, as would any ARC that misuses (and especially trashes) Gwen, MJ or Felicia. If people are going to use those characters use them right ( unlike 'Sins Past' where Gwen got a hatchet job ( and MJ came out only slightly better then in OMD)).

I'm not trying to argue with you about Sins Past but i would disagree with your order for me its the Clone Saga then Aunt May's return. Sins past as far as i can remember had issues (no Gwen sleeping with Norman wasn't one of them as far as i can see) but i am of the opinon that Gwen didn't get a hatchet job, i acutally think JMS was trying to make her more interesting alot of sins past just screamed for the 616 Gwen to come back and tell a dramatic story and hitting peter even harder in the follow up. For me the sins past concept had potential that was squander with what we had.

[Scarlet-Spider]

2.) Ned Leeds wasn't the original Hobgoblin after all.

Both were ludicrous, full of plot holes, had lackluster follow-ups and severed mainly to undermine beloved classic stories. So what are your picks and why?

Ned Leeds being revealed as the Hobgoblin was certainly not a beloved classic story.

[theshow07]

The last one I'll give you, that doesn't put her in a good light. However, the one about her lying to her friends can be dismissed as her covering for Peter. The flirtations don't seem to go beyond flirtations and remember that MJ's party girl image was just a mask for her.

Yea i have disagree with the covering for peter still say she know peter what was doing and party girl image mask just give her cliched backstory

[Agent Z]

Yea i have disagree with the covering for peter still say she know peter what was doing and party girl image mask just give her cliched backstory

Anymore cliched than 'dead parents' for Peter?

[Scarlet-Spider]

Anymore cliched than 'dead parents' for Peter?

The returned parents just being robots was a bad retcon that deserves mention. Gotta love the robot parents saga lol.

[Mister Mets]

The returned parents just being robots was a bad retcon that deserves mention. Gotta love the robot parents saga lol.

That one's not necessarily a retcon, as that was always the plan with the parents. Although David Michlinie didn't know this at all times.

[Draegwolf]

Clone Saga – While I liked aspects of it in that it gave us Ben Reilly as Scarlet Spider I hated other aspects of it with a passion like the revival of Norman Osborn and Aunt May who should have both been left dead and buried. Also feel like they could have left the ambiguity over whether Ben or Peter was really the clone instead of just shafting Ben Reilly and killing him off to prove a point.
Sins Past – ruined the memory of Gwen Stacy by making her into a cheating bitch that slept with Peter’s worst enemy and introduced two more pointless members to the Osborn family tree.
Brand New Day – retconning Harry’s Osborn’s death just to bring him back into circulation was pointless.
Superior Spider-Man – don’t mind Marvel wanting to replace Peter but putting Doc Ock’s mind in his body was just retarded
Grimm Hunt – resurrecting Kraven the Hunter, served no purpose and they really haven’t done anything with him outside of a brief stint on Scarlet Spider
Spider-Verse – just feels pointless and forced to me, with Marvel once again trying to make Morlun out to be a bigger threat than he actually is by including a whole sect just like him while at the same time permanently closing out the potential for more spin-offs like Noir & 1603

[Scott Taylor]

The idea that Mary Jane has always known who Spider-Man is.

It changes the context of their relationship way too much, and doesn't work in the face of quite a few earlier scenes.

This. Parallel Lives really needs to be ret-retconned.

[Mister Mets]

This. Parallel Lives really needs to be ret-retconned.

I don't really see a way to fix it though.

It might take a relaunch, but in that context it could make sense to have a Mary Jane who always knew that Peter was Spider-Man.

[Kevinroc]

I don't really see a way to fix it though.

It might take a relaunch, but in that context it could make sense to have a Mary Jane who always knew that Peter was Spider-Man.

That's basically what they did in Ultimate Spider-Man.

[Heisennerd]

Retconning Norman Osborn as never having actually have died is the worst Spider-Man retcon, to me.

Having Gwen Stacy have an affair with Norman Osborn & bare his children, is the second worse Spider-Man retcon.

Fuck Norman

[Vortex85]

I actually love Norman's return. The story itself is one of my favorite Spidey comics and it brought about a lot of stories afterward that made Norman my favorite Spidey villian. I actually prefer his Goblin stories after his return over the ones before he killed Gwen.

So that would be one of the best retcons for me. Bringing back Harry was much worse as I don't think we got anything worthwhile out of it.

Since I can't choose OMD for the worst retcon, I'll choose OMIT.