Retconned Innocence, Retconned Guilt

[E. Wilson]

One of the best things in 1234 was the revelation that Doom frequently speaks and acts through his Doombots. Turns the "if it's too much, it's probably not really Doom" trope on its head. Doom can blame anything on a Doombot.

Generally, what I think bugs me about the idea, as much as John Bryne's bitching, is that Doombots somehow insulate Doom from the most common scourge of all comic characters: bad writing. Nope, sorry. Victor, you're not special, and you have to deal with your Civil Wars and your Crossings and your One More Days like everyone else.

[Mark_S]

All of them irritate me. Retconing is almost always a combination of a writer's ego and an editor's inability to cope with that ego.

[E. Wilson]

All of them irritate me. Retconing is almost always a combination of a writer's ego and an editor's inability to cope with that ego.

You can't think of any good stories that have come from retroactively adding something to a character's history?

[Mark_S]

I can, but I believe that in either case it is ego and lack of editing. If the retcon is to correct a mistake or a wild flight of fancy from the original writer then that means the editor for the first writer wasn't doing his job. Jean Gray has been brought up. The mistake was letting her kill a world for a mildly dramatic effect (the world was created for her to destroy, if she had actually taken out the skrull, kree; a homeworld of a people known, it would have actually mattered) and correcting that led to retconing the origin of the Pheonix so that Jean wasn't the one responsible. In the case of her resurrection (number 1 of many) I'm not sure if it was the writer's ego or marketing that led to the character being revived. It certainly didn't do Cyclops character any good.

If the retcon is done to satisfy the needs of a current writers story (Wanda's insanity in Dissasembled) then you have a retcon so that the writers ego can be satisfied in writing a 'great epic story' and allowing him the satisfaction of knowing that none of the writers who came before him wrote as well as he.

You can get a good story out of a retcon, but for the most part in my opinion retcons are the white out of the comic book genre.

[T Hedge Coke]

If the retcon is done to satisfy the needs of a current writers story (Wanda's insanity in Dissasembled) then you have a retcon so that the writers ego can be satisfied in writing a 'great epic story' and allowing him the satisfaction of knowing that none of the writers who came before him wrote as well as he.

That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? I doubt you'd find too many writers who have fit in retcons or major reveals who'd admit to believe such, and even then, I very much doubt most of them not admitting it were even ever thinking it.

But, what you didn't know is... is one of the oldest modes for continuing a story, period. It's not about thinking you're better than the last writer, anymore than revising a costume or doing a different hairstyle or face on a character is about being better than the last penciler, it's just doing something new, hopefully using what's already there in a way that makes the new stuff more interesting and the older stuff interesting in new ways.

That can fail. It can fall flat. But, it'd be worse to never try, wouldn't it? To just be completely divorced from earlier stories or to treat them as inviolable scripture.

[Mark_S]

That's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? I doubt you'd find too many writers who have fit in retcons or major reveals who'd admit to believe such, and even then, I very much doubt most of them not admitting it were even ever thinking it.

But, what you didn't know is... is one of the oldest modes for continuing a story, period. It's not about thinking you're better than the last writer, anymore than revising a costume or doing a different hairstyle or face on a character is about being better than the last penciler, it's just doing something new, hopefully using what's already there in a way that makes the new stuff more interesting and the older stuff interesting in new ways.

That can fail. It can fall flat. But, it'd be worse to never try, wouldn't it? To just be completely divorced from earlier stories or to treat them as inviolable scripture.

This gives the writer near absolute freedom to pick what he wants and doesn't want. I don't know if there is sometimes a calculation on how much anger will be caused by a retcon, but I am sure that some writers truly delight in causing some anger. Others treat it with indifference. Wonder Woman's new origin, Ice's revamped origin, Wanda's insanity, Mockingbird's skrull/non-skrull status... In my opinion in many ways it is a matter of a past story standing in the way of the story that a writer wants to write and he is just too busy or in a hurry to craft it carefully and just throws in a retcon and moves on. Negative reaction -so long as sales aren't affected- is dismissed as "just some angry internet fans" as Ice's revamped origin was. JQ with Spiderman and Bendis with Wanda have practically made a career out of retcon generated anger.

A retcon can work but by it's very nature a retcon sparks anger. I remember a lot of it when Jean was brought back the first time and her sacrifice was rendered meaningless because it wasn't her. But as long as sales are strong the writers and editors don't have to care because they can just retcon it back and forth and back and forth. For the most part it is easier to retcon than it is to write new characters and stories and they choose the easy path. It can bring out some good stories, but since retcons can be retconed there really isn't any risk.