Comic book characters balance on a very thin rope, where one side is diverting too much from what is expected of their character, and the other side is staying too stagnant for too long. To address this issue, comics will often shake things up with massive changes, and sometimes those changes are too much. Whatever the reason, be it to reset to a standard or drastically change it, comics often change their history in order to fit the narrative they are going for. This is the essence of a retcon, or retroactive continuity, where things that weren’t true initially are stated to have always been the case within the story.
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Sometimes retcons are amazing changes that totally redefine a character like all good plot twists should, like Alan Moore’s revelation that the Swamp Thing only thought of himself as Alec Holland, who really died years ago. However, for every great change to comic continuity, there are fifteen atrocious ones, and at least ten so bad it makes the back of your throat sting.
Retcons in comics are notorious for being convoluted, wild, and downright stupid. So why don’t we take a look at what are without a doubt ten of the wildest and weirdest retcons in all of comics?
10) Donna Troy’s Many Origins
Donna Troy is the original Wonder Girl, and if she appears in modern comics, she’ll be vaguely cited as Wonder Woman’s sister. Details aren’t provided because trying to figure out Donna’s history lets you experience what Deadpool’s stream of consciousness feels like. First Wonder Girl was a young Diana, then she was added to the Teen Titans and they renamed her Donna without explanation.
Her origin was established as being a girl Wonder Woman saved from a fire who was given superpowers by Paradise Island’s Purple Ray, but that was retconned to Donna being given her powers by the Titans (mythological, not Teen), then retconned again to be a magical duplicate of Diana made to be her childhood playmate but was kidnapped to the future by the villain Dark Angel, who herself was later retconned to be an evil alternate reality version of Donna Troy and I have a headache already. Needless to say, there’s not a single thing anyone is certain of in her origin, and it’ll probably stay that way.
9) Magneto is (and isn’t) Xorn
In Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run, probably the best X-Men run of all time, recently added X-Man Xorn was revealed to have been Magneto in disguise, who infiltrated the X-Men for the purpose of dismantling them from the inside. This wasn’t a retcon, but rather a masterfully laid plot twist that shocked everyone who read it. The Master of Magnetism reparalyzed Professor X, enslaved New York, and killed Jean Grey before finally being decapitated by Wolverine.
Many fans thought Magneto’s actions were wildly out of character for him, and Marvel Editorial could never survive in a world where they couldn’t print Magneto in comics, so after Morrison’s run they quickly retconned this away, saying that Xorn was an entirely separate character who only thought he was Magneto because he was under the influence of the ancient sentient bacteria known as the Sublime. They even introduced a whole new Xorn, the original’s brother, because they liked the character so much.
8) Barry Allen is the Speed Force
The 2008 comic titled The Flash: Rebirth is famous for a whole lot of series shakeups to the Scarlet Speedster’s lore. Not only is this the comic that brought Barry Allen back from his twenty-year long death and revealed that the Reverse Flash killed his mom, it made the very controversial retcon to establish Barry as the one who created the Speed Force. It was already established that, following his apparent death which had Barry running within the Speed Force as pure energy, he actually became the bolt of lightning that struck him in his own lab.
This series, however, established that this moment is what actually created the Speed Force itself. This retcon totally ripped away years of established lore about how the Speed Force works, and definitely upset a lot of fans. At that time especially, Barry was nowhere near as popular as his successor Wally, so the decision to not only bring him back but make him the most important Flash of all time felt very strange.
7) Hal Jordan was Controlled by Parallax
In a very controversial move (which I’m sure you’re already tired of reading) DC decided to revamp interest in the Green Lantern by having Hal Jordan kill the rest of the Corps and become the villain Parallax. He served as a major threat for years, eventually sacrificing himself in a final act of heroism and returning as the Specter, showing a true arc of falling from grace and rising back to be a hero despite his failures.
In the 2004 series Green Lantern: Rebirth (yes, this and the previous entry were written by the same writer) it was revealed that Hal Jordan was actually possessed by the entity of fear known as Parallax, who had secretly been corrupting him for years before his turn to villainy. This retcon absolved Hal of all his wrongdoing, but definitely raised some very big questions, one of which being how the Specter and actual God failed to realize that Parallax was an entirely separate entity. It also wiped away Hal’s very moving struggle to become a hero after his fall, which definitely leaves a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. Heck, they even made it so Hal’s grey hair was Parallax! What, did the Yellow Impurity eat his coworker’s lunch, too?
6) The Phoenix is a Cosmic Entity
The original canon of Chris Claremont’s foundational X-Men run goes that Jean Grey unlocked the true depth of her powers after being exposed to cosmic radiation and renamed herself Phoenix, eventually leading to her losing control of her powers and choosing to sacrifice herself to avoid killing anyone else. This was changed with the release of X-Force #1, as the team wanted to include Jean Grey in the lineup, so they retconed that the Phoenix Force was actually a cosmic entity that came into contact with Jean when she was exposed to the radiation.
After the rocket she was steering crashlanded back on earth, the Phoenix Force hid Jean’s body inside a cocoon and formed a new fake body that looked and thought exactly like Jean, which is the one who went on to become Dark Phoenix. This retcon was hated then and is hated now for being just plain stupid. Not only did it render all the drama in Jean’s “death” moot, it led to Cyclops abandoning his wife and infant son in what is considered his most out of character moment ever. Definitely a bad retcon.
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5) Aunt May Didn’t Die, it was a Body Double
Aunt May has died plenty of times over the years, most famously in the horrible “One More Day” storyline, but her best death was certainly in Amazing Spider-Man #400, which saw her peacefully pass away as Peter tearfully read her his favorite childhood book. It was a truly beautiful, human moment that was immediately thrown out the window when it was revealed that the then thought to be dead Norman Osborn faked Aunt May’s death to make Peter miserable.
Norman, apparently, kidnapped the real Aunt May months ago and replaced her with an actress he genetically altered to look and sound exactly like May. This woman was so dedicated to her role she was willing to die and never broke character once, not even on her literal death bed. Even by Spider-Man standards this retcon was pretty wold, and that is a high bar, as you’ll soon see.
4) Justice League Lobotomized Dr. Light and Batman
The downright abysmal comic Identity Crisis did irreparable damage to numerous superheroes and villains in its short tenure. It includes, but is not limited to; Green Arrow, Deathstroke, the Flash, Dr. Light, Zatanna, and Batman. Specifically, it turned Dr. Light into a sexual assaulter, which led several members of the Justice League using Zatanna’s magic to effectively lobotomize him to make him less of a threat. When Batman walked in on this and attempted to put a stop to it, the group also wiped Batman’s memories of the event.
This retcon completely shattered the trust many of the world’s heroes, and the readers, had in the Justice League. Not only did they lobotomize one person – something no hero should ever do – they had done the same procedure multiple times to any villain who had information on their identities. This revelation was entirely out of character for everyone involved, especially morally staunch heroes like Barry Allen, and only had a negative impact on the future. This retcon is what instilled Batman’s deep-seated mistrust of other heroes, leading to other horrible mischaracterizations of him and other heroes in that regard. It just never worked and only caused issues, so this is best off forgotten.
3) Aunt May is Spider-Man’s Mom
Yes, there are two horrible Aunt May retcons on this list, and somehow, neither are from “One More Day.” This particular revelation occurred in the 2003 comic Trouble, which was Marvel’s attempt at relaunching the romance comic genre. It followed a teenaged May and her best friend Mary as they got entangled with brothers Ben and Richard Parker. May and Mary were told by a fortune teller that May would never have someone call her mom, and Mary would become a mom before twenty if she had sex as a teenager.
To keep the needlessly raunchy details short, May dated Ben while Mary dated Richard, but May and Richard started an affair because Mary refused to sleep with Richard. This led to May getting pregnant and running away, before eventually giving birth to a baby boy, who she passed off to Mary and Richard to raise. I’m sure you can guess what the baby boy’s name was.
This was a wild, convoluted, and frankly stupid comic with paper-thin characterization and a worse plot. At least it was only ever canon in Marvel’s original Ultimate Universe, but still, it takes the simple story of May and Ben being Peter’s aunt and uncle and needlessly complicates it with drama straight out of a bad soap opera. Why did May have to cheat on Uncle Ben? What does that add? Nothing!
2) Alfred Didn’t Die, He Became a Supervillain
Not many people know that Alfred’s most recent death in Tom King’s Batman run is actually not his first. Alfred actually died way back in Detective Comics #328, where he sacrificed himself to save Batman and Robin from a falling boulder. While this was meant to be permanent, with Dick’s Aunt Harriet moving into Wayne Manor and filling Alfred’s role, with the 1966 Batman tv show on the horizon, DC wanted to bring him back. They did so by having Alfred retroactively become the real identity of the new supervillain the Outsider.
Apparently, after Alfred’s death, his body was discovered by scientist Brandon Crawford and used for the man’s experimental “death cure.” Alfred was revived with stone-white skin and telekinetic powers, along with a desire for vengeance against the Dynamic Duo, who his sickened mind blamed for killing him. Batman eventually discovered this and had a cure made, but this was still an absolutely wild way to bring back everyone’s favorite butler. Hopefully if he comes back sometime soon it won’t be nearly as strange.
1) Gwen Stacy Slept With Norman Osborn
Norman’s face will haunt my nightmares forever. This is, without a doubt, the most gratuitous and useless retcon in all of comics. The infamous “Sins Past” storyline saw Peter learning that Gwen Stacy and Norman Osborn had an affair prior to her death, leading to Gwen getting pregnant. She was going to refuse to allow Norman into their lives, and that was why Norman killed her.
This was an absolutely inane change. Not only did it needlessly have Gwen cheat on Peter with Norman of all people, which makes less than zero sense on its own, but it changed Norman killing Gwen from a simple plot to hurt Peter to some messy tangle of relationships. It’s horrible, it’s useless, and it’s gross. Marvel has to stop dragging up Gwen Stacy’s corpse to hurt Peter in some inventive new way with it, just let the woman rest. At the very least, this retcon was eventually retconed itself in Nick Spencer’s godsend of a Spider-Man run. This retcon was absolutely disgusting, and at the very least I will never have to look at Norman’s Goblin smile again.
Comic books are a weird place. In their effort to constantly keep fans on their toes and keep things the same, they tend to make massive and often stupid changes to their characters’ pre-established lore. Sometimes these changes are for the better, but more often than not they’re just insane.
Think we missed any retcons that you think belong on this list, or just want to share your personal most wild retcon choice? Let us know in the comments below!
