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The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time

Agonus

By Agonus,
Posted on: 2009-11-17 11:14 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture

 

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Superheroes can escape almost any trap... except for 50 years' worth of backstory that's dated, self-contradictory or gets in the way of a story. So what do you do? Reach for the retcon! Here are 15 examples of retcon fail.

Comics have a grand problem of continuity. Long-lived characters have been starring in multiple monthly titles for years, amounting to thousands of issues, not counting guest stars, crossovers, and tie-ins. And every single one of those issues counts. With retroactive continuity, maybe our heroes fought a clone; or it was a dream; or the whole thing took place in a parallel reality; or someone didn't die, and instead someone took their unconscious body and healed them. Sometimes it's handled well, with good characterisation and a soft touch. But mostly, it isn't. Here are some of the worst, most ham-fisted and generally clumsy ways of dealing with problems in the history of your character.

One More Day/Brand New Day
During the events of Marvel's Civil War crossover, Spider-man revealed his secret identity to the public, making him and his family a massive target for all the would-be assassins, crime-lords and supervillains around. At the same time, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Queseda had been publicly expressing his distaste for Spider-Man's marraige to Mary Jane for years, on the grounds that it aged the character too much.

Quesada wanted to return Spidey to his roots, bring back down-on-his-luck Peter Parker, still living with his Aunt May, still struggling to pay for webfluid and get by day-to-day. And of course, he did it in the clumsiest way possible. He took over writing this series when outgoing writer, J. Michael Straczynski didn't want to pen the revisions Quesada proposed. In "One More Day," Aunt May gets accidentally shot by a sniper, and lays in hospital, on the verge of death. And Spider-man makes a deal with the devil, literally. Mephisto, Marvel's Satan stand-in, saves Aunt May, but in exchange he would take the happy marriage of Peter and MJ, and make it as though it had never happened. So, Peter gave up his beautiful, loving wife in order to extend the life of his already elderly and frequently ill Aunt. In the process, the entire planet forgot his identity, and Peter and Mary Jane's daughter would never come to be. Well, to be fair, MJ made the final decision, but the whole concept made no sense, and avoided any explanations by just saying "it's magic!"



Xornneto

When Grant Morrison took over X-Men, he introduced some radical changes, including the concept of secondary mutations, and the idea that at their current rate, Mutants would soon out-populate normal humans. He also introduced into Xavier's school the character of Xorn, a Chinese mutant with a star for a head, who had spent years imprisoned, and became a teacher for some of the more troubled students at the institute. Xorn eventually revealed he was Magneto in disguise, and died in a giant battle, along with Jean Grey.

However, almost immediately afterwards, it was decided that Magneto was too high-profile to kill for real — so a retcon established that Xorn was NOT Magneto (who was alive and kicking in Genosha). Instead, Xorn was a real person under the influence of another mutant. Then, just for kicks, they introduced another Xorn, a twin to the first, so they could keep the character around. So rather than sticking with a dramatic and powerful moment, as originally written by Morrison, the new writers tossed out the crux of his final arc to preserve the status quo.

Superboy Prime Punches Reality

DC's continuity has always been plagued by issues of multiple realities, which were used as the original way to differentiate Golden Age versions of characters from the Silver Age. During DCs Crisis on Infinite Earth, through the cataclysmic arrival of the Anti-Monitor, all of these timelines were merged into one, dealing away with all the confusion once and for all. Several characters from these dead universes were tucked away in a pocket universe, including Superboy Prime, who came for a reality where he was the only superpowered character. He and Kal-L, the Golden Age Superman, eventually become so angry at the dark and gritty nature of the current DC universe, that Superboy Prime punches a hole through reality. Yup, he punches reality so hard, that it shatters, creating the multiverse, and retconning various story problems, including bringing the 1980s Robin, Jason Todd, back to life. That is the power of the retcon punch.

As a side note, an absolutely excellent version of the Superboy Prime story was told a few years ago in Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen, which is well worth tracking down.

Power Girl's Origin



Originally, Power Girl was the Earth-2 version of Supergirl, a cousin to Superman who arrived long after he did, but with the same sort of powers. However, after the aforementioned Crisis on Infinite Earths, there was no more Earth-2, nor had there ever been. However, Power Girl existed on the main Earth, so she needed a new origin. So instead of making her another Kryptonian survivor (or something similar),she was revealed to be a descendant of the Atlantean sorcerer Arion, who lay in suspended animation for a thousand years before being revived in the current day. Did this make any sense? Nope. Did it gel at all with her old background? Not in the slightest. This stupidity was thankfully forgotten, and during Infinite Crisis, they just decided she was Supergirl from another dimension, and left it at that.

Gwen Stacy Slept With Norman Osborn

Gwen Stacy's death at the hands of the Green Goblin is considered one of the pivotal moments in Spider-man's history, and remains an incredibly poignant scene. However, during JMS's run on Spider-man, he gave her two children. Originally, his plan was that they be Peter's, and that she had them in secret. However, the editorial team decided that giving Spider-man two grown children would — wait for it — age Peter Parker too much.

Instead, they decided that Norman Osborn would be the father. That's right, Gwen Stacy hooked up with creepy old billionaire Osborn, got pregnant with twins, and kept them from Osborn — which is why he killed her. Then, he trained the twins to become assassins, to hunt down Spider-man.

Wolverine



Wolverine's entire history is just one crappy retcon piled on top of another. How's this for a start? Wolverine was originally meant to be an actual wolverine, who had been turned into a human by the high evolutionary, and his claws were part of his gloves. Then the claws became implants created by Weapon X, and he was a mutant. Then he was meant to be Sabertooth's son. Then it turns out he'd had bone claws all along, and they were just covered up with metal. Recently, however, things have started getting even weirder for Logan.

It turns out Wolverine now isn't a mutant, but rather a Lupine, a human looking species that evolved in parallel to humans — but from wolves, not apes. And there are two tribes: one with blond hair, the other with dark hair, and they hate each other — which is why Sabertooth hates Wolverine so much. They're not the only two, either — other Lupine's include Wolfsbane, Feral, Wild Child and Thornn. So pretty much ever feral mutant isn't actually a mutant, but a wolf person. They're all being manipulated by an almost immortal elder Lupine called Romulus.

Wolverine's healing factor has also suffered from major power creep over the years, expanding from "he can heal faster than most", to "was left as a skeleton after a major explosion, and healed completely within seconds." So to de-power him slightly, a retcon established that every time he dies, Wolverine has to fight the spirit of death to return to the living. Since WWI, he has been in constant combat with a being known as Lazaer (the worst anagram since Alucard), and his soul cannot return to his body unless he defeats Lazaer in limbo, each time. After some jiggerypokery with the resurrected version Shingen, Lazaer and Wolverine ended their constant battle — so if Wolverine dies again, it's for real.

Jean Grey and the Phoenix Force

This one is the great Grandaddy of weird retcons. Phoenix/Jean Grey took her own life after losing control of the awesome magnitude of the Phoenix Force, and accidentally devouring an inhabited planet. Cyclops was unsurprisingly bummed, hooked up with a clone of Jean, had a baby, which was then sent to the future to become Cable. However, a few years later, the writers wanted to bring Jean Grey back. So they decided that she was never Phoenix, instead the Phoenix Force created a simulacrum of her, and the real one was kept in stasis, deep beneath the ocean. Problem solved.

The Third Summers Brother?

Two of the X-Men, Cyclops and Havok, are brothers. At one point, the villainous Mr. Sinister dropped hints that there was in fact a third Summers brother, which would throw another powerful energy user into the X-Men universe. The originally planned extra brother was to be Adam X the X-Treme, also known as "the 90s personified". He had the power to combust blood, but only if someone was already cut, so he covered himself with blades (and wore a totally rad backwards cap). He was meant to be half human, half an alien Shi'ar, a product of the **** of his mother by the Shi'ar Emperor.

This origin story was used, instead, for the actual third Summers brother, Vulcan. He was retroactively introduced in 2006, when it was revealed that Charles Xavier sent him and a team to go rescue his missing X-Men decades ago. Unfortunately, the whole team was lost, and Xavier mind-wiped everyone to forget about it. The end product? Xavier was a dick, and Vulcan flew into space to become the Emperor of the Shi'ar.

Nightcrawler Is A Demon



Chuck Austen's run on X-Men is regarded by many readers as the low point for Marvel's mutant titles. In addition to adding a Mary Sue version of his wife, as well as making Havoc his own avatar; and having Angel have sex with the then underage Husk in front of her family, he also tweaked a couple of characters in a rather odd way. The most notable of these was to explain Nightcrawler's demonly looks as a result of him actually being part-demon. Turns out that Nightcrawler's mother, Mystique, hooked up with the demon Azazel, who sired a number of teleporting mutant babies, in the hopes of them breaking him out of Hell. So, Kurt Wagner, the almost priest and one of the most religious of the X-Men, was actually half demon

**** Makes You Deep



Black Cat, Catwoman, Sue Dibny. What links these characters? They had **** retconned into their background as a way of making them edgier. It's lazy writing, offensive, and a cheap ploy to pad out the background of the characters. Sue Dibny's was particularly bad, because it was used as part of the Identity Crisis crossover, which helped turn DC into a far more dark 'n' gritty place, with almost no place for frivolity or fun.

Hal Jordan and The Space Bug



When Hal Jordan turned into the maniacal Parallax, it was originally a story of a superhero who cracked under the weight of his responsibilities. The entire population of his hometown, Coast City, was killed by the villainous ******, and Hal Jordan was driven mad with grief. Convinced that with more power he could bring them back to life, Jordan slaughters his way through the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, and absorbs a huge amount of power, becoming the villain Parallax.

Hal eventually redeems himself, re-igniting the Sun and thus sacrificing his life, during a storyline called Final Night. The retcon was that Hal Jordan didn't break under the grief of the deaths of 7 million people that he'd sworn to protect, but rather he was under the influence of a yellow space bug called Parallax, which was the personification of fear. Thus, Hal Jordan came back as an unblemished character, who never did anything wrong.

Cassandra Cain Goes Evil, Gains Mastery of English Language

Cassandra Cain was the modern Batgirl. Trained as an assassin from a young age, she rebelled against her past to join the Bat family. She kicked *** and took names, but couldn't speak, read or write. Eventually, she managed to learn basic English, and became a core figure in the Bat books, and a tireless crime fighter. Then, during the One Year Later timeshift, she suddenly had a perfect grasp of English, and was the leader of the League of Assassins, the same organization that had brutally trained and abused her since her childhood, and from which she had escaped. This was eventually explained through mind control drugs, but was still completely out of character.

Hawkman, Reincarnated Egyptian or Space Cop?


Originally, Hawkman was an archaeologist who turned out to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince. He flew around with wings made of the mysterious Nth metal, and hit things with a mace. Accompanying him was his reincarnated girlfriend, Hawkgirl. Then, in the Silver Age, DC made Hawkman and Hawkgirl space cops from the planet Thanagar.

Following this, there were multiple interpretations of the characters, sometimes simultaneously — the Hawks were reincarnated Egyptian lovers, alien police officers, or some combination of both. New background and retcon piled on top of one another, until no one knew what the actual background of everyone's favorite flying violence users. Just when you thought they couldn't get any more confusing, a 1990s comic explained that Hawkman was actually a Native American shaman who talked to spirit guide animals.

Presently, it's been established that all incarnations, regardless of origin, are the reincarnated souls of those Egyptian lovers, who were then exposed to Thanagarian technology. Their love is so powerful that it's become the source of all energy for all the Star Sapphires, superpowered women, in the current run of Green Lantern.

Teenage Tony Stark

At some point in the terrifying decade of comics known as the 90s, we learned that Iron Man (Tony Stark) had been under the control of Kang the Conqueror for years. Tony turned evil and killed someone. (Later, it was retconned that this wasn't actually Kang the Conqueror, but another villain, Immortus, in disguise.)

So, naturally, the Avengers went into an alternate timeline, and brought a teenaged Tony Stark forward in time to the present to fight the older Tony. Don't ask. So for a while, Tony was a teenager, until teenage Tony was killed fighting Onslaught, and adult Tony was brought back to life in another parallel universe, during the Heroes Reborn event. Eventually, this was folded in to normal Marvel continuity, and everyone forgot it ever happened. Bad writing, covered with bad retcons, and best forgotten.

Spider-man, Avatar of The Spider God



Spider-man was originally a science hero. Bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker gained the proportional strength of an arachnid, the ability to cling to walls, and the uncanny ability to sense danger. Fashioning mechanical web-shooters, he fought crime as the Spectacular/Amazing/Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man.

After the massive success of the first Spider-man film, though, he was given biological web shooters, to make him more in line with the movie version. Under the stewardship of writer J. Michael Straczynski, it was revealed that the bite that brought Peter his powers wasn't a coincidence, but rather Peter was linked to a totemic Spider God who influenced him. Shortly after, Peter was mortally wounded, built a cocoon, and came out with additional powers, including wrist stingers, a poisonous bite, the ability to talk to arthropods, and night vision. Another side effect of Brand New Day was everyone, including Spider-man, forgetting about his new powers.

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After reading some of these. I physically feel dirty and need to shower after wading through that much crap

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Heh, someone has a hate-on for Johns.

- CaptainFoamerang

Silverspar on Kelly Hu: A face that could melt paint off the wall *shivers*
Someone play my AE arc! "The Heart of Statesman" ID: 343405

 

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A lot of silver age comics had strange or surprising things on the cover -- like Superman dying or getting married or having octuplets -- along with a checklist of non-explanations, like:
* Not a dream!
* Not an alternate universe!
* Not a robot double!
and so forth, all to be careful not to stray from established canon. They shouldn't have bothered. As these examples show, they could make any story they wanted, then change what happened in a later issue. Problem solved!

 

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He and Kal-L, the Golden Age Superman, eventually become so angry at the dark and gritty nature of the current DC universe, that Superboy Prime punches a hole through reality. Yup, he punches reality so hard, that it shatters, creating the multiverse, and retconning various story problems, including bringing the 1980s Robin, Jason Todd, back to life. That is the power of the retcon punch.
That's not even close to what happens. Alexander Luthor builds a massive machine powered by the refugees from the multiverse (like Power Girl) and the Anti Monitor's corpse that lets him recreate the multiverse from the fragments of all the variations of Superman that were compressed into the current Earth-1 Superman. Punching through reality was just an action bit that DC decided to use as an excuse for story inconsistencies, not the crux of the "rebirth of the multiverse".

I still don't really have any hate for Parallax. It's actually a pretty decent explanation for an absolutely terrible terrible story from the 90's. I wouldn't let it slide in say... Batman or anything, but in Green Lantern? Really not that bad of a reveal. Personally, I'd probably hate it more if it was just an explanation for Psycho Hal, but taking it far enough to explain a lot of the other downright stupid inconsistencies in the series bumps it at least above the birthing matrix for me.

 

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I disagree about the Hal/Parallax being one of the dumbest ever. It was to me a great way to salvage both Hal and the GLC from the tremendous TRAINWRECK that was Emerald Twilight.

Again, nothing against Kyle as I like that character, I just despise what was done to Hal.

 

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It turns out Wolverine now isn't a mutant, but rather a Lupine, a human looking species that evolved in parallel to humans — but from wolves, not apes. And there are two tribes: one with blond hair, the other with dark hair, and they hate each other — which is why Sabertooth hates Wolverine so much. They're not the only two, either — other Lupine's include Wolfsbane, Feral, Wild Child and Thornn. So pretty much ever feral mutant isn't actually a mutant, but a wolf person. They're all being manipulated by an almost immortal elder Lupine called Romulus.

Wolverine's healing factor has also suffered from major power creep over the years, expanding from "he can heal faster than most", to "was left as a skeleton after a major explosion, and healed completely within seconds." So to de-power him slightly, a retcon established that every time he dies, Wolverine has to fight the spirit of death to return to the living. Since WWI, he has been in constant combat with a being known as Lazaer (the worst anagram since Alucard), and his soul cannot return to his body unless he defeats Lazaer in limbo, each time. After some jiggerypokery with the resurrected version Shingen, Lazaer and Wolverine ended their constant battle — so if Wolverine dies again, it's for real.
lolwut

Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."

 

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Let's not forget the Changeling stands in for Prof X storyline from early X-Men to explain away one of Prof X's deaths.

 

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No mention of the Spider-Man Clone Saga? Really? I'd think that the "reveal" that the Peter Parker featured in Spidey comics for the last couple of decades may have been a clone, and the following re-retcon backpedal, would've made this list.

And the Nightcrawler piece deserves a side-mention of the equally stupid retcon of making Warren Worthington an actual half-angel somehow. Not to mention hooking him up with the much younger Husk.

There is an art, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. --The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

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See also Web Snark's extended classification of Ret Cons in their ever-spiralling complications as editors and writers misguidedly attempt to improve and/or make sense of their IP's legacies (which includes some of the above examples). Think the hurricane scale except with back issues being whirled around instead of trees:

Category One: Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero!
(e.g. the Silver-Age pre-Superman adventures of Superboy)

 Category Two: The Story You Thought You Knew!
(e.g. Teenage Lex Luthor blames Superboy for going prematurely bald in a lab accident.)

 Category Three: The Real Story You Thought You Knew!
 (e.g. Doctor Light is a rapist, the Atom’s ex-wife is insane, and some JLA members believe the ends justify the means.)

 Category Four: The Story You Thought You Knew Was Right, But Now There's Been A Change!
(e.g. Peter Parker was never married and instead now lives with Aunt May, and Harry Osborne is still alive (just like his dad), and Spider-Man doesn’t have organic webshooters or worship a spider-totem, plus he didn’t reveal his secret identity to the whole freakin’ world, so everything is back to the way you like it, OK, True Believers?)

 Category Five: Meet the New Hero, Not The Same As The Old Hero Because That Never Happened
 (e.g. A catastrophic event across the multiverse at least means that John Byrne can write Superman without having to worry about Lex Luthor blaming premature baldness on our hero when he knew him as Superboy.)

It was so much easier back in the good old days (into the Silver Age) when comic book writers and editors could count on their entire audience turning over every four or five years instead of having to worry about lifelong fans possessing decades of trivia and the Internet making that knowledge available to anyone.

 

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Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater View Post
lolwut
*sigh*

Don't ask.

It makes a Wolverine fan, like myself, weep bitterly.

 

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One More Day/Brand New Day wins in my book. The in-story logic was asinine and the editorial justification is just mind boggling.

Parallax, I don't mind. But they're getting carried away with Ion, Parallax, the Predator, whatever the orange one is, and presumably Nekron for black.

Xorneto just doesn't make any sense.

The Nightcrawler-as-a-demon, Worthington as a descendant of angels, and Wolverine's lupine thing were all bad ideas. (Was Austen the one that had Husk musing to herself about how she essentially fights naked among the X-Men?) I mean, c'mon, you killed off Sabretooth and tried to elevate freaking Wild Child in his place?! Thankfully, most of this crap has been forgotten. I think that Romulus schmuck is still around though.

The third Summers brother was, to me anyway, a neat mystery for a while. Not crazy about the resolution, but I don't mind it.

The ridiculous history is only part of why I loathe Hawkman.

The Superboy Prime Retcon Punch is goofy, but it's no worse than some of Morrison's Crank inspired crap from Final Crisis.

Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.

good luck D.B.B.

 

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Didn't Austen introduce the "evolved from wolves" thing into X-Men?

(Un)fortunately, I got back into comics and the X-Men during Austen's run, so I don't mind some of the things he did.

"Ben is short for Frank."
-Baffling Beer-Man, The Tenacious 3: The Movie

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Originally Posted by Agonus View Post
One More Day/Brand New Day wins in my book. The in-story logic was asinine and the editorial justification is just mind boggling.

Parallax, I don't mind. But they're getting carried away with Ion, Parallax, the Predator, whatever the orange one is, and presumably Nekron for black.

Xorneto just doesn't make any sense.

The Nightcrawler-as-a-demon, Worthington as a descendant of angels, and Wolverine's lupine thing were all bad ideas. (Was Austen the one that had Husk musing to herself about how she essentially fights naked among the X-Men?) I mean, c'mon, you killed off Sabretooth and tried to elevate freaking Wild Child in his place?! Thankfully, most of this crap has been forgotten. I think that Romulus schmuck is still around though.

The third Summers brother was, to me anyway, a neat mystery for a while. Not crazy about the resolution, but I don't mind it.

The ridiculous history is only part of why I loathe Hawkman.

The Superboy Prime Retcon Punch is goofy, but it's no worse than some of Morrison's Crank inspired crap from Final Crisis.
It's time for Marvel to have their own Crisis level event and reboot the whole blasted Marvel Universe.

 

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Originally Posted by Nericus View Post
It's time for Marvel to have their own Crisis level event and reboot the whole blasted Marvel Universe.
I'm regularly of the belief that every 10 or 20 years they should do one big event that ends with "and they all lived happily ever after" and start a new universe like the ultimate line. The animated takes on characters due this with great success; I wish the actual comics would follow suit.

 

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Articles like that remind me why I only read trade paperbacks anymore.

Though the one on Tony Stark in teen mode was weak in that the author doesn't even know that Kang and Immortus are the same person.

Too many alts to list.

 

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Originally Posted by BafflingBeerMan View Post
Didn't Austen introduce the "evolved from wolves" thing into X-Men?

(Un)fortunately, I got back into comics and the X-Men during Austen's run, so I don't mind some of the things he did.
I think Austen has some weird werewolves that tried to take over Worthington's company. Pretty sure it was Jeph Loeb that did the "evolved from wolves" silliness.

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It's time for Marvel to have their own Crisis level event and reboot the whole blasted Marvel Universe.
No argument from me. The continuity clusterf*** between the X-Men and and post OMD Spider-Man alone are more than enough justification to wipe the board clean and start over.

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Articles like that remind me why I only read trade paperbacks anymore.
Huh? A stupid story is a stupid story regardless of the form it's in. Or are you referring to waiting until an arc has been completed, getting a base idea of what happened, and then buying a trade?

Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.

good luck D.B.B.

 

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I need brain bleach... those are just... dumb... gyuh...

 

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Originally Posted by Agonus View Post


Huh? A stupid story is a stupid story regardless of the form it's in. Or are you referring to waiting until an arc has been completed, getting a base idea of what happened, and then buying a trade?
Bingo. That's how I do it. I only pick up TPBs if they look interesting and I can just skip storylines if they look like dreck. Back when I was a proper comic book junkie, I just bought the comics in a series month in and month out.

I suppose I could pick and choose comics as they come out, but this is more convenient.

Too many alts to list.

 

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Originally Posted by docbuzzard View Post
I suppose I could pick and choose comics as they come out, but this is more convenient.
I pick and choose, then selectively remove the bile as necessary. Sometimes its fun to watch something nosedive into an absolute trainwreck, but that doesn't mean I need to display it.

 

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Originally Posted by docbuzzard View Post
Articles like that remind me why I only read trade paperbacks anymore.

Though the one on Tony Stark in teen mode was weak in that the author doesn't even know that Kang and Immortus are the same person.
We do NOT ever discuss the drivel that occurred in Iron Man that is known as the Crossing followed by the trainwreck that was Teen Tony also referred to derogatorily by fans as "Iron Boy", which was then followed by Onslaught/Heroes Reborn.

Also as lame as Crossing/Teen Tony-Iron Boy was, those issues were still better IMO then One More Day.....

 

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Originally Posted by Lord_of_Time View Post
It turns out Wolverine now isn't a mutant, but rather a Lupine, a human looking species that evolved in parallel to humans — but from wolves, not apes. And there are two tribes: one with blond hair, the other with dark hair, and they hate each other — which is why Sabertooth hates Wolverine so much. They're not the only two, either — other Lupine's include Wolfsbane, Feral, Wild Child and Thornn. So pretty much ever feral mutant isn't actually a mutant, but a wolf person. They're all being manipulated by an almost immortal elder Lupine called Romulus.
A couple of years back I finally got fed up with retcons and closed my file at the local comic book place, going to a "I'll buy the trade paperback... well, probably not actually" policy.

Hearing things like this convinces me that I made the correct decision.

Lupines? Really? Does Marvel Comics' mutant line exist for the sole purpose of convincing young, aspiring writers that, yes, they can in fact do better than people who are paid for it?

@Mindshadow

 

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Originally Posted by Egos_Shadow View Post
A couple of years back I finally got fed up with retcons and closed my file at the local comic book place, going to a "I'll buy the trade paperback... well, probably not actually" policy.

Hearing things like this convinces me that I made the correct decision.

Lupines? Really? Does Marvel Comics' mutant line exist for the sole purpose of convincing young, aspiring writers that, yes, they can in fact do better than people who are paid for it?
Yes I just about gagged on the whole Lupine garbage. As to the whole Sabertooth being his father, that was the original plan long ago and it was nixed by the editors. I remember there was an issue of Wolverine where Sabertooth claimed to be his father as they fought, Wolverine didn't believe him and after Nick Fury and SHIELD drove off Sabertooth they did a blood test of the two and confirmed they are not related. Funny thing is that given their very similar appearance and power sets and I thought they'd be brothers or cousins.

The whole "Mystical boost" to his healing factor thus bringing him up to Highlander+ levels of regeneration was stupid. He regenerated after being shot towards the sun along with Jean/Phoenix right before Magneto fried her and Wolverine then decapitated him. He later confronts the villain Nitro and is again reduced to his skeleton and regenerates from that. Yet way back in Days of Future Past he is fried down to the bones by a Sentinel and was killed. Go figure.

 

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Originally Posted by CaptainFoamerang View Post
Heh, someone has a hate-on for Johns.
Hate is usually an unjustifiable emotional indulgence.

... But not always.

 

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Generally, to enjoy comics you have to find specific eras and authors and not sweat the long standing continuity. Keeping revered stories in mind when writing new material is important, but a good author knows that its best not to even entertain a bad idea and just let everyone live in a fantasy world where it never happened. Nerds are terrible about getting into a rage because author Z forgot that Wolverine was actually a Lupine Sapien or something, but nerds just like their rage apparently, because they tend to be the same person that ranted about Wolverine being a Lupine Sapien in the first place. It's best to let such ideas slide into comic obscurity unless they're so big, stupid, and damaging that they can't be ignored (aka character deaths and major power/personality changes).

I liked Marvel during the Initiative era and its a shame that it mucked around so long in Secret Invasion (which was a good, but horribly decompressed idea). Dark Reign blows so Marvel is off my plate right now, but if it eventually moves in a direction I enjoy I'll hop back on at the next starting point. Marvel in particular has been pretty good about making their universe tell a specific tale and giving readers a specific place to start in on it.

DC seems to be more limited to specific arcs and stories. I nab a story arc here and there all over the place, but rarely settle in to a book for more than a year or so. Green Lantern has been a wonderful, wonderful exception to that however.

 

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**** Makes You Deep
Okay. This may make me an insensitive clod and an utter pig, but when I read this all I was thinking was "Ooh! Bad pun!"


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