10 Unbelievable Retcons That Made Comics Worse

[Music] no word invokes more fear in a comment book readers heart than the dreaded retcon although plenty have Marsh provide a fresh spin on a given character or premise plenty more have done the exact opposite or to often associate it with the reset button and convoluted backstories writers who dabble with retro actively inserting a change into a character's past or makeup are engaging in a high-risk high-reward game get it right so you'll be praised for adding a vital and interesting dynamic to a hero villain or story get it wrong and you could just go down as the guy who tarnished 87 old comic book moments now some changes are pretty easy to overlook but the following retcons all left a lasting impact and not for the better so this is Ewan from what culture speaking and here are 10 unbelievable retcons that made comics worse number 10 making Nightcrawler an actual demon Chuck Austen's x-men full disclosure Nightcrawler is my favorite x-man witty adventurous and wickedly cool Kurt vogner's resilience and bravery is an inspiration to us all as his backstory when he first appeared in giant-size x-men number one vogner immediately stood out he looked like a demon and after being paraded around as a circus freak in Germany he was rescued by Charles Xavier he promised to give her the opportunity to fight for a world free from anti-mutant prejudice the genius behind the character is that in regards to the mutant metaphor he was literally being demonized the fact he was just a mutant was the whole point he was there partially to fight against religious paranoia and persecution and his faith was even deeply personal to him - answered Chuck Austin's x-men Austin series has gone down us something of a fever dream for Marvel's uncanny group boasting a menagerie of cringe inducing moments from pretty much start to finish you can take your pick as to what could be considered the worst but the change Austin made tonight poreless past is borderline criminal part of its mutation is that he looks like a blue demon so how clever would it be if Marvel actually made it so that he was the son of a demon and that he wasn't a mutant at all not very you say well you'd be correct because it stands out as a terrible decision run chock full of terrible decisions number nine Peter Parker hits the reset button one more day one more day might just be the most important spider-man storyline this side of 2000 and that's frankly appalling I won't waste any more time talking about this story because let's face it you're probably about as sick of it as I am but hey Marvel editorials efforts to make spider-man more quote-unquote relatable to their readers by wiping out decade's worth of history set the webslinger back actual years and is today emblematic at the publishers repeated struggles with committing to genuine change how does one more day embody that more the most well it's down to the motivation behind its creation as well as what it actually changed which was a lot in the wake of civil war Peter Parker found himself in quite the pickle earth-616 is spider-man had revealed his identity to the public as per the request of Tony Stark but had later switched allegiances to join Captain America side after taking issue with Iron Man's increased in the extreme methods this left him a wanted fugitive of the law and with his identity out in the open his family were placed in immediate jeopardy as was ostensibly the characters ability to relate to younger audiences the final heir for mentioned problem wasn't a problem at all of course Pete was being pushed in a new direction but when editorial disagreed with said direction litter sorry to have spidey bargain with Mephisto to reset his life by about two decades the reason why to say an elderly Aunt May Peter Parker willingly sacrifices his marriage with Mary Jane his future and years of his life in a pack Mephisto to save his pants ten years later and one more day still ways and Spidey's Comics Grimm number eight years of character development erased new 52 the new 52 had its ups and downs but one does have to wonder why DC didn't simply fashion it as an alternative to their main continuity much like Marvel did with the ultimate universe a decade earlier rather than making it a direct replacement the old post-crisis DC Universe had its issues but it was also unquestionably unique it was an eclectic mix of genres continuities and story arcs that contributed to form one unique whole with decades of material informing been beloved characters and relationships so when do you see this Laura to hit the reset button in 2011 with a line wide reboot controversy was inevitable paper the new 52 could be considered a successful experiments it galvanized interest in DC's books and provided an obvious gateway for new readers to jump into their mythos an obviously good thing however it came at the expense of longtime readers as those aforementioned characters found themselves brought back to square one in a new continuity that was somehow even more confusing than the one that had come before Barbara Gordon returning as Batgirl Green Arrow and black Canary losing their relationship and Wally West vanishing from existence were just the tip of a large and painfully tragic iceberg the one that DC have thankfully since addressed with the advent of DC rebirth number 7 daredevil secret identity gets made secret again all-new all-different daredevil there's plenty to love about all-new all-different daredevil and it would be blatantly erroneous to suggest that it didn't try new and exciting things writer Charles Soule utilizes experience as a lawyer to tell a fantastic story about the Man Without Fear campaigning to allow superheroes to testify under their secret identities and it was clearly worthy better Marvel titles in the last five years but and this is a big but did it really have to come at the expense of one of the most important changes in the current his recent history I'm of course referring to the decision to erase the events of the Murdoch papers from active Marvel continuity which resulted in daredevil strife and see being revealed to the public sent story helmed by Brian Bendis and Alex meleave went on to inform the next decade of daredevil stories IDI Brubaker and Michael lark had to factor into Beveren and so too did Mark Waid and Chris Sam knee Murdoch's double life being public had become a key pillar of the character in the modern day but then came the 2015 daredevil Netflix show which obviously started off with Matt's secret identity firmly in place as it was an origin story for the MCU in what was likely an attempt to link the comics up with the show Marvel outfitted Murdock and a black costume and put his identity back in the bottle courtesy of some assistance from the purple children erasing the world memory of his alter ego including his closest allies when daredevil Mehta was said allies again I felt like watching conversations that happened decades ago play themselves over again without that shared history those team ups were nowhere near as interesting and it's still a problem today number 6 magneto wasn't actually Zorn x-men new x-men by Grant Morrison in front quietly ended up being wildly great just excellent arcs ever and eyelets sense it was an amazing plot twist rolling around the character of Zorn introduced in the series as a mutant fugitive from the Chinese states the character was sent to have a son for a brain which you can probably gather was a big deal it was said that were he ever to take his mask off the world would combust into nothing a lot of pressure for a new character but it was all part of Morrison's plan to reveal that magneto was Zorn all along the clues were there for everyone to see too from the careless use of methyl to the way he performed his healing abilities it was all a ruse designed so that Magnus could strike out the x-men from within but then Marvel had a bright idea what if dr. Morrison had left the series they revealed that there was a real zone all along and so in check often Zechs men it was reveal that there was in fact a real version of Zorn Morrison felt as though that revelation tacitly undermined new x-men and to be honest who can blame him number 5 Gwen Stacy slept with Norman Osborn before her death spider-man since past the nights Gwen Stacy died was a seminal moment in spider-man's history and so anything that would dare mess with an arc was always going to be divisive unfortunately said thing came during J michael Straczynski stint on spider-man a run that blew hot and cold over at several years on the stands since past was the arc in question and it revolved around Spidey being attacked by two unnamed assassins who blamed him for the death of Gwen Stacy Peter eventually discovers thanks to MJ that Gwen had slept with Norman Osborn prior to her death and had become pregnant as a result she then gave birth to twins and threatened to expose Bourne publicly which was apparently the modes of he needed to murder her and Jerry Conway and John were meet his iconic story needless to say this particular arc has gone down as well as Spidey's lowest moments of the modern era number 4 erasing the Vietnam War the history of the Marvel Universe sliding timelines can be a tricky thing to navigate on one hand they can afford writers a degree of freedom to not stress too much over continuity on the other they can sometimes make things even more confusing than an old fashioned linear model and it can even encourage publishers to maintain the status quo and the expense of actual developments still it's only recently that Marvel have intended to address their own sliding timeline by providing any definitive chronology of the mole the universe as it exists today in 2019 seemingly having to constantly rack on what conflicts alikes the punisher and i man 14 to maintain their age both famously got their start during vietnam but have since appeared in the Gulf War and later the war on terror bubble introduced something known as the Sian Kong war designed to replace the Vietnam War and give Marvel a semi timeless conflict from which to draw from this particular retcon basically flies in the face the publishers age-old commitment to reflect the world outside our window it sanitizes the Marvel Universe on one hand and bizarrely reiterates the publishers old fascination with quote-unquote Yellow Peril symbolism on the other a weird and unnecessary change all things considered number three Batman weed himself during year one Batman the widening gyre Wendy what culture gang assembled the 80 greatest moments in the characters history Batman gear once you have eaten well speech clinched the top spot Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli as comic estimated the Dark Knight's most lauded story and that moment crystallizes the moments the character declares war on Gotham's criminals it's haunting atmospheric and stunning above all else not something you'd expect anyone to mess with given its significance and yet it's Kevin Smith did exactly that in Batman the widening gaya the Mallrats crater had previously done impressive work on Green Arrow at the start the naughties and has since got on to helm accomplished material in the medium since plus Batman on Batman is one of the best podcasts going seriously go check it out if you haven't already however for some reason or another he decided to have the Dark Knight admit that he pilled his plans during the moment depicted a Miller's opus and it's not too great the more you look at it number two making Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver confusing various retcons depending on when you encountered the Maximoff twins you're likely to have your own impression of what their history is all about are they related to magneto does wonder have kids the answers changed like the seasons and it's all help make the pair way too confusing as a result when introduced first as members of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants wander and PHR were unrelated to magneto their parents were jungle and Mariah Maximoff until Marvel decided to change it so that their father was actually magneto and that their mother was Magda Magnus's ex-wife the High Evolutionary may or may not have had something to do with it as well this was then changed again in the pages of uncanny Avengers where it was revealed that jungle and Mariah were the biological parents want more and that the High Evolutionary was responsible for augmenting wanders powers look it's just all really confusing and it doesn't help that Marvel cants that's a long one and I just have a really bad headache now and everything hurts number one nearly turning Wolverine into a wolf hybrid Wolverine evolution compared to most Wolverine has actually benefited a great deal from retcons he got his bone claws Merc on the Weapon X program was developed through retcons and it's just generally rare they ever fail him that was until Wolverine evolution during Jeff Loubs run on the solo Wolverine ongoing he introduced a figure known as Romulus and within the idea of lupines instead of mutant saw humans lupines would evolve alongside both species from actual wolves and yep you guessed it the series also revealed that Logan was in fact a lupine all along lupines also do or don't get along based on the color of their hair and yeah there was a reason why I didn't last long obviously evolution eventually revealed that Romulus had lied about the whole lupine thing to begin with but it kept the whole angle that he was responsible for most of the major events in Wolverines life somehow as with all the other retcons mentioned thus far Romulus and the lupines is one best left forgotten and one marvel themselves are probably eager to forget about as well [Music]

Channel: WhatCulture Comics

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Id: gUY5spm0s3k

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 21 2019

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