Retcon ho!

[TheLuckyOne]

Okay, a bit of explanation is in order: "retcon" is a comic book term, but it's a phenomenon that transcends all forms of media. It's short for "retroactive continuity," and it refers to the act of changing some aspect of a character and/or their history in a manner not originally planned, or not intended by their creator. For instance, Clark Kent was first presented as having become Superman after his adopted parents died, as an adult. So when later stories show him active as Superboy, or his parents still alive in present day, that's an example of a retcon. Note that because Superman's creators were the ones who introduced Superboy, it is possible for a creator to retcon his or her own earlier work. (For instance, Arthur Conan Doyle retconned his creation Sherlock Holmes back to life after "killing" him in The Final Problem by revealing that he had never actually fallen off the cliff where he supposedly met his end.)

Retcons can be both good or bad -- they can fix holes in backstories and introduce new characters who have a history with your protaganist. But they can also needlessly confuse established stories that were elegant in their simplicity, or create problems for future writers. An extremely unpopular season of Dallas was retconned away by having the main character wake up from a dream at the beginning of the next season; on the other hand, most people would tell you they aren't happy with George Lucas's retcon that "midichlorians" are responsible for aptitude in the Force. One of the most famous retcons in comics occured when Magneto pulled Wolverine's adamantium out through his pores... it had been established that Wolverine gained his claws in the experiment that gave him adamantium, but afterward readers learned he had bone claws that must have existed even before the Weapon X experiment. On the other hand, more minor retcons can simply give your characters added depth: X-Men #1 in 1963 showed teenager Jean Grey first meeting Professor X, but a later retcon established that they met when she was a little girl, as Xavier helped her overcome the trauma of having been inside her friend Ann's mind when Ann was hit by a car and killed.

So, what I'm asking everyone to share is their favorite and/or least favorite retcons. This isn't limited to comics -- feel free to draw from movies, TV, books, video games, etc. What do you think was a brilliant addition to a character or story, and what nearly ruined your interest in a property? I'm hoping we can get some interesting debate going over good vs. bad changes, so don't be shy about sharing!

-D

[Hucklebubba]

I hate to take the easy one, but. . .

Greedo shooting first.

As retcons go, I wouldn't call this one "bad", but rather, I would make use of an as-yet undiscovered negative adjective of such intensity as to be unutterable by the tongue, imperceivable by the ear, and unfathomable to the mind. It would be like God according to Deism in the form of a pejorative.

Does this even fall under the retcon heading, or is it more of a world-class shark-jump?

[Lissa]

Greedo shooting first is indeed a most heinous change. It's one of my favorite examples for when people try to tell me "an author can't write their own characters out of character." (That and Darth Vadar sinking to his knees and shouting "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" instead of killing something in a fit of dispassionate rage.)

This is a current one, but I am HATING the retconning that Lynn Johnston is doing in For Better or For Worse, especially with Therese and Anthony. What bugs me is the inconsistency. A few days ago, there was a crack that Therese took Anthony for everything. But when Anthony told John about the divorce, he got the house, the baby, and pretty much everything. How is that Therese taking Anthony for everything?

But what REALLY bugs me is, despite the fact that every time Anthony appeared in the strip some character would say something about how he still loved Liz, even though he was engaged or married, there is no indication that Anthony is at fault for the way his marriage turned out. If LJ would have Anthony admit to some responsibility for it, I'd be much more accepting. But as it is, I am utterly hating the story line. (And don't get me started on how Liz treated Paul. Not that I EVER condone cheating. But she screwed up before he did.)

A retcon I actually rather enjoy so far (we're almost done Season 5) is the introduction of Dawn to Buffy. I'm not crazy about Season 5, but Dawn isn't the reason. I think the way they did it was a pretty interesting way to introduce a new relative, given that she really is pivotal to the plot. I still miss the funny and what the heck is going on with Spike being a boring woobie, but I'm not blaming Dawn for the season not being as awesome as the first four.

[Al]

On the subject on Star Wars, I'd say Boba Fett surviving the Sarlacc Pit is a positive retcon, since, overrated as he is, it gave us some pretty neat Expanded Universe novels. But, after a bit of deliberation, I'm calling his clone origin a negative retcon, because even though it makes Jango a more interesting character, it cheapens Boba and completely negates the way-cooler backstory the EU dreamed up.

Comicswise, one of the biggest retcons in my recent memory was the revival of Colossus in Astonishing X-Men. I personally thought it made for an awesome and entirely unexpected splash page, and why have Kitty Pryde on your team without Piotr? Good call.

Also- Winter Soldier? Color me pleased. Bucky sucked.

One movie retcon that's immediately springing to mind is in Moonraker, where Jaws (Richard Kiel) speaks to his girlfriend over a glass of champagne ("Well, here's to us."), when it was previously established he had his tongue removed to accomodate his metal teeth. Moonraker is far from my favorite film, but I'll give that a thumbs up. Jaws deserves a bit of happiness.

[coccatino]

Oh man, good idea! I'm sure I can think of a bunch of them, but this was on TV the other night so it immediately comes to mind.

For anyone who watches Law & Order SVU- I HATE how they reconned Alex Cabot back to life. Witness Protection Program, my foot! I might feel differently if they let her be back on the show after the big reveal that she was still alive, but she was in 1 episode and then back to the witness protection program. lame!

As far as good retcons... I really Love how Jason Todd came back as the Red Hood. I haven't liked every subsequent storyline, but the initial beatdown of Joker looking so eerily identical to how Joker killed him was completely amazing.

[TheLuckyOne]

Good ones, guys! Keep 'em coming.

Off the top of my head, one of the most successful and unexpected retcons I've ever seen centered around the comic character Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing was introduced in 1972 as Alec Holland, a scientist working in a lab in the Louisiana swamps, developing a bio-restorative formula to promote plant growth in deserts. But when a villain wants the formula, he has his thugs set off a bomb in Holland's lab. The explosion douses Holland in his own experiment and throws him into the swamp, where the formula interacts with the plant life to change him into a grotesque human/plant hybrid. And so the Swamp Thing wandered around the DC universe for about a decade, having adventures and constantly striving to restore himself to human, kind of like a plant version of the Hulk.

And then came Alan Moore. With a reputation for being 1) brilliant and 2) eccentric to the point of insanity, Moore is now considered one of the best comic writers in the world (Watchmen, V for Vendetta, etc.) but then was relatively unknown. And when placed on a comic that was on the verge of cancellation for low sales, he went for broke by reinventing everything.

In Moore's second issue, The Anatomy Lesson, minor supervillain Jason "The Floronic Man" Woodrue is brought in to perform an autopsy on the Swamp Thing, killed in a hail of bullets the previous issue. What Woodrue discovers is that, while Swamp Thing possesses vegetable life roughly corresponding to human organs -- a heart, lungs, a brain -- they're all entirely nonfunctional, essentially decorative. Woodrue is puzzled because in his scientific opinion, there is no biological way a human could have turned into this plant being... but his breakthrough comes in remembering planarian worms, who can actually absorb knowledge by devouring each other. As Woodrue ultimately realizes, the Swamp Thing is NOT Alec Holland -- Alec Holland died instantly when his lab exploded. But his body, doused in his experimental formula, was devoured by the various bacteria and microbes and plant life living in the swamp, which absorbed his mind and subconsciously formed a crude plant version of a human body based on his memories. Swamp Thing was "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland." But once the secret is revealed, Swamp Thing's enemies realize (too late) that you can't kill a plant by shooting it in the head...

"Of course, there's never been any real evidence of the Swamp Thing intentionally hurting or killing anyone. The old man shouldn't be in any real danger at all... as long as the creature hasn't read my notes. But if he has read my notes... You see, throughout his miserable existence, the only thing that could have kept him sane was the hope that he might one day regain his humanity... the knowledge that under all that slime, he was still Alec Holland. But if he's read my notes he'll know that just isn't true. He isn't Alec Holland. He never will be Alec Holland. He never was Alec Holland. He's just a ghost. A ghost dressed in weeds. I wonder how he'll take it?"

On the surface that may not seem like too huge a change... big deal, he was a plant monster who used to be human and now he's just a plant monster. But as Moore intended, it completely redefined the parameters of what could be done with the character. No longer did you have to write stories about Swamp Thing trying vainly to regain his humanity -- there was no humanity to regain. So, freed of that restriction, Moore transformed the book into a dark gothic horror/fantasy title, with Swamp Thing eventually taking on the mantle of Earth's plant elemental. It's now considered one of the most mature, successful reinventions of a character ever and paved the way for DC's eventual adult-themed Vertigo imprint... and it all started with that one retcon.

And that's your history lesson for today.

-D

[Hucklebubba]

lissa said:

It's one of my favorite examples for when people try to tell me "an author can't write their own characters out of character." (That and Darth Vadar sinking to his knees and shouting "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" instead of killing something in a fit of dispassionate rage.)

This reminds me of another debate that can often be found swirling around the fiction arena: Who really owns the characters? In other words, is the author's word law, and we the reader/viewer must bend a knee to whatever changes they make, regardless of how crapulent said changes may be?

Or, in light of sufficient revulsion, can the readership force their lunatic captain to relinquish control of the vessel, so to speak?

gunslingeral said:

On the subject on Star Wars, I'd say Boba Fett surviving the Sarlacc Pit is a positive retcon, since, overrated as he is, it gave us some pretty neat Expanded Universe novels. But, after a bit of deliberation, I'm calling his clone origin a negative retcon, because even though it makes Jango a more interesting character, it cheapens Boba and completely negates the way-cooler backstory the EU dreamed up.

I'm going to assume that by "bit" you mean "picosecond."

I absolutely loved Fett's EU origin, as evidenced by the fact that I. . .er. . .can't remember most of it. I vaguely recall that he began his career as a common stormtrooper who was jailed/discharged for misconduct of some sort. And then became a trucker for a while. And was ultimately revealed to be a robot piloted by a tiny gnome.

Did I get any part of that right?

[coccatino]

hucklebubba said:

Who really owns the characters? In other words, is the author's word law, and we the reader/viewer must bend a knee to whatever changes they make, regardless of how crapulent said changes may be?

I'm pretty big on the idea that any extra blank pages at the end of a book are there so that I can rewrite the parts that I didn't like.

[TheLuckyOne]

I agree wholeheartedly on most of those Star Wars ones, especially Han shooting first. That said, I suppose I come down on the side of the fence that a creator can do what he or she wants with their characters, no matter how crackpot it may seem to fans. If J.K. Rowling decides tomorrow to write Harry Potter and the Underage Sorority Sisters, that's her prerogative... they're her creations, she can do what she wants with them. Just as it's my prerogative not to read it, or if I do, to delete it from my own personal canon. As I'm sure most of us have already done with the Han/Greedo retcon.

[Note: Kyle, J.K. Rowling is not actually writing that. Sorry.]


Good retcon: Magneto is changed from a cackling, megalomaniacal world conqueror to a nuanced, introspective Holocaust survivor who simply wants to protect his people (albeit through extremist means).

Bad retcon: Before the All-New, All-Different X-Men were recruited to save the original X-Men, Xavier gathered a previously unknown "X-Men 1.5" team and sent them on the rescue mission. When they were all (seemingly) killed, he was so overwhelmed with guilt that he covered it up by mindwiping everyone on earth into forgetting they ever existed.

-D

[mrhat2nd]

CSI Miami is having to retcon Slater from Dazed and Confused back on to its show. Have fun with that.

[aargmematey]

Good Retcon: Lestat going from big smelly evil guy with no redeeming qualities in Interview with a Vampire to...well...Lestat in The Vampire Lestat. I'm going to count that as a retcon even though one could say "blahblah Louis is an unreliable narrator blahblah." I don't care.

Bad Retcon: Uncle Ben's killer being Sandman in Spider-Man 3. RAAAAAAAAGH!

[Al]

aargmematey said:

Bad Retcon: Uncle Ben's killer being Sandman in Spider-Man 3. RAAAAAAAAGH!

You know, I agree it was a bad idea and think it shouldn't have been done at all, but, with that said, I honestly think they did a good job with it. It gave Peter the right push to send him into a tailspin and gave him the opportunity to really face down his uncle's killer in a way he was never able to. In the context of the movie, I think it works.

[Grifter]

Hilarious retcons: All the changes Boy Meets World went through. First Cory and Topanga met each other the first season of the show. Then they've known each other since kindergarten. Morgan changes into an entirely different person. We can let that go because shows can change actors and keeps the same characters, but more importantly she also stops aging. Shawn and Topanga both have siblings, then they are only children, then Shawn gets a half-brother who becomes a main character. Finally, everyone mysteriously skips several different grades. I love that show. I'm still convinced that this is all intentional metahumor.

Bad retcons: Anytime anyone is fingered as the killer of Bruce Wayne's parents. Joe Chill, Jack Napier, whoever. He's a better character when the killer of his parents is just as faceless as the wave of crime he constantly combats.

Good retcons: Sherlock Holmes survived his encounter with Professor Moriarty, leading to more Holmes stories. Always a good thing.

[Hucklebubba]

Meh Retcon: I had always assumed--and it may have been explicitly stated at some point--that GI Joe's silent ninja, Snake Eyes, was such because of an oath to that effect. However, back in the early 90s, when buffalo roamed the plains freely, Marvel did sort of a mini-origin of Snake Eyes in the GI Joe comic, wherein it was revealed that his reluctance to speak was actually an inability to speak, brought about by injuries sustained in a chopper crash.

Also, it turned out that Snake Eyes was not a Japanese fellow (just assumed such, since Storm Shadow was) who began his ninja training in the womb (as is proper), but rather, a regular American grunt who began his military career rather inconspicuously, and eventually decided to start training with the Arashikage on the weekends, or something.