Marvel Comics has been publishing comics for over six decades, and in that time, the company has changed a few important canon events. The biggest problem with changing these stories is that many fans don’t know about the changes because they quit reading when the changes happened. Others see the new canon origins in the news and have no idea when it changed, often refusing to accept it as a change at all. Even in cases where Marvel has a good storyline reason for making canon changes, there are fans who refuse to accept the changes and simply cling to the past, pretending the changes never happened.
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Here are seven Marvel Comics canon changes that many fans still refuse to accept.
7) Nightcrawler’s Parentage
Nightcrawler was one of the new mutants introduced when Marvel Comics started its All-New X-Men era, with mutants from all over the world replacing the core founding members in comics. His origin revealed that he was a mutant who grew up in a circus after his parents abandoned him, thanks to his blue skin and somewhat demonic appearance. However, it was soon learned that his mother was Mystique. This origin showed his father was a German nobleman named Baron Christian Wagner.
This was a canon change that most fans accepted, mostly thanks to them sharing blue skin color. However, there is a demon named Azazel that looks like Nightcrawler, but is red. Mystique had an affair with him, so fans accepted he was Nightcrawler’s father. Most readers accepted all of these origin changes. However, Marvel then changed everything and revealed that Mystique shapeshifted into a male and Nightcrawler is her baby with Destiny. To this day, fans accept that Nightcrawler’s father might be a demon, but refuse to accept that Mystique could turn into a biological male and be his actual father.
6) Tony Stark Was Always a Villain
For most fans today, the Crossing storyline rarely crosses anyone’s mind. However, this was one of the most controversial storylines of its time, as it took one of Marvel Comics’ most heroic characters and revealed he had always been a villain. This was, of course, Iron Man, and the storyline had him as a double-agent for Kang for his entire time with the Avengers.
What really angered fans was when he began killing people who knew the secret and then helped lead Kang to attempt a takeover of Earth-616. The Avengers time-traveled to bring a teenage Tony Stark to Earth-616 to try to stop the rogue Iron Man, and it all ended with this world’ds Tony dead and the teenager replacing him. Fans hated it, and Marvel retconned most of this after Onslaught. To this day, most fans ignore that this storyline ever happened.
5) Franklin Richards Was Never a Mutant
For long-time Marvel Comics fans, it was easy to see that Franklin Richards had powers because he was born to two parents who had cosmic energy flowing through their bodies, with the additional exposure of being born in the Negative Zone. That was the only explanation needed for his immense powers, one of Marvel’s most powerful young heroes. However, Marvel wanted to add something to it and had Franklin learn he was a mutant. That was the first change in his canon origin story, and Franklin was a mutant for a long time.
However, this canon event changed during the Krakoa storyline. Franklin had finally found a group where he fit in, with the other mutants, but he lost his powers and tried to go to Professor X on Krakoa for help. That is when Xavier told Franklin he wasn’t a mutant, but a cosmically powered being strong enough to make himself appear as a mutant to everyone, including himself. Franklin is not a mutant, but many readers today still refuse to accept that and still rank him among other mutants when talking about power levels.
4) Sins Past: Norman Osborn & Gwen Stacy
There are some canon changes that fans reject because they are too disturbing and gross to exist in comics. “Sins Past” is a terrible storyline from 2004 that goes back and looks at a time in Spider-Man’s life when Gwen Stacy was still alive. This ran from Amazing Spider-Man #509-514, and it seems, looking back on it, the entire event was to create shock value for no reason other than creating shock value.
What happened here was that Marvel revealed that Gwen Stacy had an affair with Norman Osborn, and she had twins that inherited the Osborn Goblin-DNA. This is a moment that fans today refuse to ever believe happened (and maybe it was wiped out by One More Day). How did Gwen hide her pregnancy? Why did Mary Jane know and never say anything? The entire storyline was gross, and it is one case where fans could be excused for pretending it never happened.
3) Kamala Khan is a Mutant
When Kamala Khan was introduced into Marvel Comics, she was shown to be an Inhuman. This is because her powers triggered when the Terrigen Mists covered all of Jersey City, an act meant to reveal any Inhumans living in society. When Kamala’s powers triggered, she had the ability to change her body’s shape and mass into anything she wanted and soon became one of Marvel’s best young heroes.
This happened during a time when Marvel was de-emphasizing all mutants during its silent war with Fox Studios. Once Marvel got the rights to mutants back from Fox, they made a controversial canon change to Kamala. She is also a mutant and is a rare Inhuman-mutant hybrid, giving her the stepping-stone powers from her Disney+ series. However, there are still fans who refuse to accept that she is also a mutant and feel that making her a hybrid is too much.
2) Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver Aren’t Mutants
If there is one Marvel canon change that fans refuse to accept, even though Marvel has no intentions of ever taking back, it is the fact that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are not Magneto’s children. However, this is a story that has been playing out for years and was not a one-time rash decision. In Avengers #234 in 1983, the twins learned that he might not be their father when he admitted he didn’t know for sure if they were his children or not.
However, everything changed in Axis when Scarlet Witch, in a rage, decided to murder Magneto and Quicksilver. She cast a spell that would kill anyone with bloodlines tied to her, and nothing happened to Magneto, while Quicksilver fell dead. This is when Wanda learned she was not Magneto’s child at all, but the daughter of Natalya Maximoff, who was the Scarlet Witch before her daughter. This was a much better origin, giving Wanda a true lineage to her mother, yet fans today still insist that Magneto has to be her father, even though that canon origin was clearly eliminated.
1) Spider-Man: One More Day
The one big canon change that fans today still hate with a passion is the Spider-Man “One More Day” storyline. There is a big reason this is listed among the most hated Spider-Man storylines, not the least of which is the fact that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson made a deal with Mephisto to save Aunt May’s life, even knowing what making this deal really means.
Spider-Man’s “Brand New Day” storyline was a solid story with Dan Slott taking what he was given and delivering some of Spidey’s best stories out of the ashes of “One More Day.” That said, fans still hate the fact that Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage was eliminated, and that much of what happened in comics for three decades of Spider-Man’s life was erased. Readers today have accepted the changes, but there are many Marvel fans who still hate this canon change.
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