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San Francisco, 2:47 AM
Tue Dec 15
25 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of eric.hutton eric.hutton
    11/18/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    Yup, Brand New Day is when I stopped reading comics... I had a $200 a month habit too
     Reply
    Allen_Richards promoted this comment eric.hutton was starred eric.hutton was unstarred
    Image of Allen_Richards Allen_Richards
    11/23/09

    @eric.hutton: It's when I stopped reading marvel, anyway....
     Reply
    Allen_Richards was starred Allen_Richards was unstarred
    Image of Keeper_of_Traken Keeper_of_Traken
    11/18/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    I've always heard nothing but good things about J. Michael Straczynski, and yet I can't help but notice he's on this list twice. Sure, you could say Brand New Day wasn't his fault, but interviews I've read pretty much say he wrote the story, just divorced himself from it when the PR storm hit.

    Aside from that, I've read many books from him and never found them... enjoyable. Is there something I'm missing? Is he really not good, but becasue he did Babylon 5, no one is willing to give him shit (much the same way people tend to not say overly negative things about Joss Whedon), or am I just thick?
     Reply
    Allen_Richards promoted this comment Keeper_of_Traken was starred Keeper_of_Traken was unstarred
    Image of Allen_Richards Allen_Richards
    11/23/09

    @Keeper_of_Traken: Straczynski's SPIDER-MAN run was lame beyond belief. The flipside of that is everything he wrote before coming to Marvel is tits....perfect tits at that.
     Reply
    Allen_Richards was starred Allen_Richards was unstarred
    Image of rek rek
    11/18/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    Finally an article about mainstream franchise comics on io9 that tells it like it is. They exist to perpetuate a property, not to tell a story. Anything that contradicts the image gets written out in next summer's big "event".
     Reply
    rek was starred rek was unstarred
    Image of Adah Adah
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    Ah, yes, I remember why I don't read comics now. I used to steal my older brother's X-Men comics when I was a little kid, and that Jean Grey/Phoenix retcon pissed me off so much (ages before I was even familiar with the term "retcon") I swore off the series and medium, never to return.
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Edited by Adah at 11/17/09 5:19 PM Adah was starred Adah was unstarred
    Image of LauraAnnT LauraAnnT
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    I liked the Xorn/Magneto retcon for one reason: Morrison's story idea for that was stupid. Totally made what is often (if written well) a complex, interesting, tragic character into a drug-snorting buffoon. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment LauraAnnT was starred LauraAnnT was unstarred
    Image of Islandkiwi Islandkiwi
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    I'm of the belief that the Green Lantern/Parallax storyline has rejuvenated the series, and should be applauded. I never read Green Lantern before Parallax, but I have ever since. #spiderman
     Reply
    Islandkiwi was starred Islandkiwi was unstarred
    Image of rek rek
    11/18/09

    @Islandkiwi: How would you know it rejuvenated the series if you hadn't been reading it prior to that storyline?
     Reply
    rek was starred rek was unstarred
    Image of glucious glucious
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    What some of these retcons have in common - including the stupid spider god, the lupines, and Firestorm as fire elemental - is that they have Alan Moore Swamp Thing envy. That is, they a) totally revise the character's nature (Swamp Thing was never really Alec Holland), and b) give him or her a deeper, richer, more mythic backstory that connects to similar characters (Swamp Thing is a plant elemental created by the Green; Solomon Grundy is a failed elemental etc.).

    Revising these characters by throwing in literary mythic allusions fails to recapture the excitement and mystique of Moore's Swamp Thing run. But it does set up the character for the next reinvention: the inevitable "back to basics" retcon. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment glucious was starred glucious was unstarred
    Image of Jesse Astle Jesse Astle
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    Honestly, I think half the bad writing in comics could be solved by simply cutting the dialogue in half. Like, for instance, during fight scenes. Should I really feel like I'm reading Dostoevsky while Wolverine is punching someone out?

    As for retconing, I can understand why they need to clean house once in a while. But all these solutions feel like they were made by a committee rather than actual writers. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Jesse Astle was starred Jesse Astle was unstarred
    Image of Noah_J Noah_J
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    i'm not sure if this qualifies, but i'd just like to bring up orson scott card's ultimate ironman, which gave ultimate tony stark a distributed brain body deal with a healing factor.

    maybe this fits into best retcons, since everyone immediately pretended that it didn't exist. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Noah_J was starred Noah_J was unstarred
    Image of Paul_Is_Drunk Paul_Is_Drunk
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    The X-Men ones are the worst, but I probably just say that as a lifelong fan of the series. Seriously, the entire Morrison run was gold up 'til revealing Magneto as Xorn. I don't care if that was always the "pay-off," Xorn was too interesting a character, Magneto was written way out of character (even if on drugs/influenced by Sublime), and the ending of the series was anti-climatic. I actually disliked the Xorn/Magneto thing so much, I gave up reading the rest 'til much later. It's too bad, too. Everything else Morrison introduced was amazing. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Paul_Is_Drunk was starred Paul_Is_Drunk was unstarred
    Image of Annalee Newitz Annalee Newitz
    11/17/09

    @Paul_Is_Drunk: Totally agree about Morrison's run on New X-Men. The Xorn thing sucked, but everything else was rad. I loved the whole punk teen omega mutant subplot, and the nano-sentinels! #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz was starred Annalee Newitz was unstarred
    Image of rek rek
    11/18/09

    @Paul_Is_Drunk: The reveal of Xorn as Magneto was the absolute last straw for me. I'd given up after Operation: Zero Tolerance (1998?) but heard such good things about Morrison's shift I wanted to check it out. And then he pulls that stupid move.
     Reply
    rek was starred rek was unstarred
    Image of NekoDaimyo NekoDaimyo
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    Just to note: Immortus IS Kang. Just at a different point in his life. Not to mention other one or two (three?) identities he's used over the aeons. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment NekoDaimyo was starred NekoDaimyo was unstarred
    Image of CodeBlue40 CodeBlue40
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    You know, these retcons coming one at a time doesn't bug me. But when I see them all together and think about how they've come in the last 5 or 6 years, I shudder.

    Wow...these are just so bad. So utterly and ridiculously bad. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment CodeBlue40 was starred CodeBlue40 was unstarred
    Image of Zyg Zyg
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    great article. shows how many bad decisions have been made in comics. not everything needs to be retconed...and their would be no need if editors did their job. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment Zyg was starred Zyg was unstarred
    Image of gbmbg gbmbg
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    I find it hilarious how many of these retcons and plot twists are used by another media industry that tends to take IPs and manipulate them for profit over long periods of time: Soap Operas.

    Think about it:

    *Long lost siblings (bonus points for long lost twins or long lost evil siblings. Max points for long lost evil twins)
    *So-and-so wasn't really dead because the person we saw die was actually an impostor
    *Secret affairs that are revealed years later
    *So-and-so is replaced with a successor while the real deal goes into exile or disappears for some mysterious reason (bonus points if the love interest of so-and-so falls for the "replacement")
    *Clones
    *Pretending that certain events never really happened (bonus points if the event is a dream or a hallucination)
    *Major events (weddings, funerals, bar-mitzvahs, what have you) interrupted by events of earth-shattering importance
    *Non-permanent death
    *Extensive narrative monologues
    *And so on

    I could go on. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment gbmbg was starred gbmbg was unstarred
    Image of deworde deworde
    11/17/09

    In reply to The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
    I got back into reading Spider-Man based on Strazynski's first arc, and lasted until Back in Black (aka "Editorial Mandates are throwing my stories into a dumptruck and driving them off a cliff").
    It's ironic that Strazynski wrote some of the best Aunt May and Spider-marriage work in years (the "Airport" issue is brilliant, even if Captain America is in no way qualified to give dating advice), but was then tasked with destroying the whole lot.

    That said, I loved the ludicrous indignation that occured about the "Spider-Totem". I mean, magic EXISTS in the Marvel Universe. Of course Spider-Man's got connections to Spider-related mysticism. That'd be like being surprised that Namor has connections to Poseidon. Considering everything, it's surprising Peter hadn't researched the Anansi mythology before this. #spiderman
     Reply
    Annalee Newitz promoted this comment deworde was starred deworde was unstarred
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