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The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time
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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
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Allen_Richards
11/23/09

@eric.hutton: It's when I stopped reading marvel, anyway....
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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?
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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.
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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".
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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.
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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
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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
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rek
11/18/09

@Islandkiwi: How would you know it rejuvenated the series if you hadn't been reading it prior to that storyline?
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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