If so, that’s a retcon of the retcon and does appear to improve it somewhat.
I came in precisely to mention this one – and find I’m third in line.
And I DID track down the four-issue [BStanley and his Monster** 9because I was only able to buy the first when it came out). It’s OK, but nowhere near as good as the Angel And The Ape/Inferior Five /Gorilla City retcom Foglio pulled off earlier.
Runner-up: A classic. 1the 1950ds retconned origin of The Joker from Batman. the Joker had been a chatacter for ages before they finally got around to his origin, which was so good it was used in the Tim Burton movie Batman and re-interpreted in Moore’s “The Killing Joke”.
Worst:
Back in the 50s and 60s DC kept screwing with the origins of their characters, and losing iconic significance every time. Batman’s parents weren’t killed in a random assault – Joe Chill did a hit on them because Bruce’s father acted as a proto-Batman and broke up his gang. Jor-El was wrong about Kryptobn’s impending doom. But a passing supervillain overheard him, and decided to blow up the planet anyway. Superman’s capsule got diverted a zillion times between Krypton and Earth, but these all got erased from his memory or by time travel or something. I collectively pit them all.
Actually, the magical creature was a Woody Allen-type gnome named Mopey, Initiate 10th class of the Heavenly Help-Mates. He took Flash’s powers, but they talked it over and decided Flash needed to reimburse the cost of the chemicals expended when the lightning bolt hit him, which amounted to something like 11 dollars. But since Flash never took income for being a hero, he had to actually earn it by doing a delivery for UPS. And of course, the package turned out to be black market stuff and led to Flash breaking up a crime ring.
I know this because when I was a kid I was convinced this comic meant something monumental and memorized it like bible verse.
I CAN ADMIT IT NOW! I’VE BEEN CARRYING THIS SECRET FOR 40 LONG YEARS!!! :smack:
What Nightcrawler retcon are you guys referring to? The revelation that his father was a demon? Or was there something else I’m unaware of?
Personally, I hate the Byrne Superman retcon. I see no need for Krypton to be cold, emotionless and crystalline. Did that add anything to the Superman mythos? It strikes me as retcon for the sake of retcon, which (in my opinion) should be avoided. (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.) I liked Birthright because it seemed like a more realistic take on Superman and his history as well as returning Krypton to its original concept.
Best retcon ever: Crisis on Infinite Earths. Even if the only effect of Crisis had been to get rid of the Legion of Super-Pets, it would have been the best retcon ever. Crisis wiped out all (or at least most) of the stupid garbage that had beem pumped into the DC universe over the years. Gone are the days when Jimmy Olsen gains superpowers every other Wednesday, Lois Lane will marry anything with pants (and preferably a cape) and Batman and Robin fighting any idiot who can come up with a gimmick and a bus ticket to Gotham (Penny Plunderer indeed!)
Lord Il Palazzo:
It adds that Superman’s Earthly upbringing actually gave him something good (aside from yellow sunlight). Otherwise, he’s just the unluckiest little guy who ever lived - sure, he survived when none of the rest of Krypton did, but what a life he might have had if Krypton had survived! In making Krypton unappealing due to lack of emotion, it makes Superman, which his caring personality, an Earth hero who just happens to have a Kryptonian body rather than a Kryptonian hero who just happens to have taken up residence on Earth.
The mandate of Crisis on Infinite Earths was simplify, and the plans to do that to Superman were to rebuild his mythos from the ground up in order to lose the accumulated, and frequently silly, baggage (say, a lifelong enmity due to hair loss…come on, buy the guy a toupee and move on!) of 50 years.
I wouldn’t have minded Birthright, except that so many DCU stories were written since Crisis which included the new Superman, the new Krypton, et al in their millieu that a wholesale re-write of his origin, not tied to any particular premise for changed continuity (Superboy-punches weren’t revealed until much later, and were surely not in DC editors’ minds when they ordered Birthright), muddies the status of countless past stories, which should be forming a smooth, consistent background for future stories.
I like that aspect, too, but I think it was better served by his not finding out about Krypton until he was an adult, rather than remembering it from his infancy, and thus the Kents were the ones who influenced him.
The destruction of Krypton should be a tragedy, not ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’, IMO, and, also IMO, that’s what Byrne created - the universe is better off without his Krypton, and with Kal-El raised on Earth.
The other versions of Krypton, the universe is less for having seen them destroyed. (Even if it was destroyed because everyone in the ruling council but Jor-El was a moron.)
I loved the aesthetic of Byrne’s Krypton, but that was lifted from the movies, and partially carried over into the new continuity.
IMO, the only things that Byrne really improved upon were Luthor (which, depending who you talk to, may not even have been his idea - Marv Wolfman lays claim to it, and some people give the credit to Elliot S! Maggin) and keeping the Kents alive.
Worst:
Chuck Austen deciding that everyone in any book he was on had an abusive asshole for a father…including Northstar, whose dad died when he was still an infant. :rolleyes: Yeah, Chuck, we know you’ve got daddy issues; really wish you’d discussed them with someone who cared rather than inflicting them on the readers.
It’s the little things that get to me, really.
It took me a while to consider this question. Because there are a lot of good answers.
But I finally decided.
Worst Retcon : The Sentry. Marvel has had a number of Superman analogues - Hyperion and Gladiator are both characters I enjoy that have a long, established history, and honestly, come off more as homage than ripoff.
The Sentry is Superman, with the emo factor cranked to 11. He is useless. His abilities are ill-defined. He is uninteresting. Rearranging the entire past history of the Marvel Universe to fit him in is just about the worst mistake I can think of.
Best Retcon : Well, here’s the funny part. The Sentry. Or, at least, a small part of the collection of retcons associated with the Sentry. Apparently, in the “original” history, meaning ‘before the Sentry mindwiped everyone to forget his existence’, in this context, Peter Parker won a Pulitzer Prize for photos of the Sentry. So when the Sentry rearranges everyone’s memory - Peter’s Pulitzer is forgotten.
Peter Parker getting screwed out of a Pulitzer Prize is so quintessentially Spider-Man that I can’t help but grin.
Marvel Comics: One very controversial retcon that I actually liked was a change to Dr. Doom’s origin. As originally told by Lee & Kirby, Doom’s face was hideously scarred when an unauthorized experiment he performed at Empire U went horribly awry. Someone (I forget who) changed it, so that even though the experiment still scarred him, he only received a neglible line down his face. Yet Doom was so narcissistic that the tiny scar was enough to drive him over the edge. And when he went to the Tibetan monks to be ‘transformed’, putting on the ‘Doom’ mask was the event that truly disfigured his face.
As for bad Marvel retcons, bringing back Jean Grey and stating that she had never actually been the Phoenix (X-Factor #1) was the single worst decision the editors ever made. The original Phoenix storyline had so much punch because it broke all the rules - a central longtime character does something unspeakable horrible - and doesn’t get off the hook! Jean had to pay the price for what she did. Making Phoenix someone different from Jean cheapened the original story.
DC: I’d say that the post-crisis reboot of Wonder Woman was terrific. Her feminist icon status notwithstanding, the character & series was stagnating under decades of mediocrity & neglect. Perez re-established her as one of the most interesting characters in the DC universe.
Worst reboot? I’ll catch hell for this, but…the Dark Knight Returns. Yeah, it’s a great series itself, but it’s responsible for popularizing the single worst cliche of modern comics - the ‘grim & gritty’ humorless hero. Making superheroes ‘edgy’ only makes their innate silliness stick out. And IMO, “Dark Knight” is in it’s own way just as campy & goofy as the mid-60s TV show.
Jesus, you LIKED that? I thought it was one of the stupidest things I’d ever read. Okay, yes, I could see Doom being so narcissistic that he lost it over a simple facial scar, but putting the mask on while it was still searing hot? Come on, he may be narcissistic but he ain’t plain STUPID.
Actually, this one was Kirby.
Obviously from the reactions of people who saw his face (Stan and Jack in one instance, Dr. Don Blake in another) Doom’s face is about as hideously scarred as they get.
Eventually Kirby took to the notion that Doom’s face just wasn’t really that bad under the mask and that his vanity didn’t allow him to tolerate the small scar he received. There’s sketches out there by Kirby of Doom without the mask having a tiny scar.
These conflicts were put together with some text straight from 1964’s Fantastic Four Annual #2:
The panel immediately before this had Doom scoffing at the pain of putting the armor on.
So right from the beginning Dr. Doom added some burning to his skin when he put on his mask.
Where was this? In my entire collection of FF (I have almost every Kirby-drawn issue) there’s never a hint that Doom’s face is anything other than hideously scarred. He doesn’t show it in any of my issues, but the implication is very clearly there, beyond the two examples you give.
Kirby did show Doom putting on the mask while still hot (FF Annual #2, back in 1964 or so), but it’s never suggested that it’s searingly, scar-inducing hot.
Why Doom keeps his face scarred is anothre completely unanswerable question. He’s never particularly connected it to Mister Fantastic that I’m aware of. No “Until I have my revenge, never shall I heal by scarred visage!” Yet despite being a brilliant super-scientist and magician, he… remains having a nasty scarred face. Sometimes. Or something.
The initial scarring was caused when an experiment literally blew up in Doom’s face. This was back when Doom and Richards were still students. Doom blamed Richards. Kirby and Lee disagreed on whether the explosion totally scarred Doom or whether he received only a thin line. IIRC Both agreed Doom’s face was ruined by the uncooled face plate.
Why hasn’t Doom with his mastery of science and knowledge of magic healed his scars? Idunno. He kept them in Doom 2099 as well ‘Do you want me to heal your face while you’re under?’ “No. The scars are a reminder of my pain.”
Again, cite? I’ve heard or read nothing to support this. Every Kirby/Lee issue of FF I’ve read assumes that Doom’s face was greatly scarred by the explosion (his entire head is bandaged, fer cryin’ out loud, and refers often enough to “the accident that destroyed my face”), and I’ve never seen anything from that era that suggests scarring from the hot mask.
Here’s my explanation, in 2 parts.
First magic. Though Marvel U isn’t as bad as the Whendonverse, there is still a price for using magic there. Dr. Strange explained to Richards that magic is not like technology–a dispassionate, impartial, and ultimately unconsious source of influence over the world. For a mortal, SS said, it is an invocation of the power of sentient beings who have a great deal of say in the exchange. I think fixing his face would be such serious mojo that Doom would end up in hock to beings he’d rather not be in hock too.
That’s magic. As for science: well, in Doom’s mind, Reed is not merely responsible for his disfigurement, but KNOWS he is responsible and simply won’t admit it. He won’t whip up a new plastic surgery technique to repair the damage because he thinks that would be letting Richards off the hook.
As I think on it, the second reason seems more compelling. I don’t think Doom thinks of himself as the villain in his rivalry with Richards; he thinks of Mr. F. as the fraud who has fooled the world into believing that he and his partners are heroes.
I’m sure I’ve read one of the oldsters at Marvel say it. But OTTOMH my cite is Fenris.
Kirby did several images of this at conventions over the years but none are published in Fantastic Four. One of them (not the one I’m most familiar with, though) can be viewed here on the July 10th post.
IIRC, Doom’s original experiment was an attempt to literally invade Hell and steal away his mother’s soul from Mephisto. It might not be canon but I always thought that not only did Doom’s attempt fail but that his faced was deformed in some hideous way by a supernatural curse as punishment for his presumption.