The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time

Direct action has always been verboten to the little green monkeys, at least until Oa was reborn and the Guardians along with it. It was one of the things that nagged me about the story, but given what id seen of the blue bastiches beforehand, it didn't seem that far out of character for most of them.

Um, Hal's father died in an airplane crash when he was a little boy. He lost a brother in he Spectre series, but that's his only family member that's died in the last 20 years or so that I can think of.

Emerald Twilight was dumb when I read it as it came out and it's even dumber now. I've perused most of the Green Lantern books that have ever been published at one time or another and it's right up there with the dumbest things that have ever been done with the franchise. Dumber than Itty, even. Dumber than a badass test pilot selling toys. Dumber than G'Nort. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.

The franchise has never been in better hands than it is right now.

Resurrecting someone and then killing yourself is a pretty direct action, don't you think?

Yeah, the Guardians have always been dicks, but that was just dumb.

The sole reason the Guardians were all killed off (except for the one with the pony tail - I'm surprised he didn't have a goatee, too) was to put future writers into a corner where they couldn't just magically bring the Corps back. That's the only reason Kilowog died, too. The fewer living Corps members, the fewer possibilities of just rebooting the whole thing. It was another 90's X-TREEEEEME decision to not just change the status quo, but CHANGE IT FOREVAAAAR!!!!!!! Marz continued the trend in his monthly GL book, which it took me probably 50 issues of to realize I just didn't like it and didn't have to keep buying it in hopes it would improve.

Hal was never, ever a navel gazing type who would sit in the ruins of Coast City and hold a teddy bear and go "boo hoo." This is a guy who would immediately beat Mongul down (check), then stop whoever was responsible (check), then see who else needed their ***** kicked for messing with his home town. Assuming there were no ***** remaining, he'd start searching for survivors. Hal should have been at Carol's door the second the Cyborg went down. He should have been checking up on Tom Kalmaku and his family. He should have been at his brothers' houses. After his family and friends were known to be safe, he'd get started on rebuilding.

He was never a guy for much rumination. Sure, he'd had some self-pity over the years (which had actually been shown as an alien presence [not Parallax] influencing him and undermining his confidence just a few issues before this whole thing went down), but that had been left behind and recognized as bad characterization that was best left forgotten.

In ET, Hal just went "Oh woe is me" and then flew off to kill one of his best friends and undermine everything he'd done in the last 15 or so years of his life (assuming comic-time, not publishing time). He never even checked on his friends and family. The word "Carol" didn't even show up in his little pity party monologue.

Oh, and Hal pretty clearly killed those other Lanterns in ET. It was only future writers who tried to explain that away.

In regards to the Guardians basically killing themselves, they were commenting on how atrophied they were to the point where only Ganthet had the wherewithall to use his Guardian powers. Also they mentioned how Ganthet's plan was voted down, and we don't know what his plan was but it might have involved them transferring their powers to him and thus "dying", but putting stock in Ganthet's overall plan that would lead to them being rejuvenated.

Remember in Rebirth #4 Ganthet tells Parallax that the memories Parallax stole from him are his again, and Parallax called Ganthet a liar.....this is one time I have to agree that the Guardians were lying. I think the Guardians KNEW that Parallax had taken Hal as a host but they were so atrophied in usage of their powers that they knew they couldn't stop it at the time. So their gamble was to merge their power/essence to Ganthet and await rejuvenation AND for the time when Hal would begin to wake up and realize what was wrong with him.

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You mean in the comics lately? I don't know. Haven't had the money for comics recently.


That's part of what doesn't make it work for me and why I've brought up the losses of other heroes. If Hal is all about willpower, then how is it that his will was broken after Coast City when other heroes endured? I mean, should the Guardians have chosen Tim Drake instead?

Somehow in my head this ended up with giving a GL ring to Stephanie Brown. Crossovertastic!

his will was not broken with Coast City's destruction,his sense of perspective was.

without a rational perspective,his will became the problem.

Except that makes no sense.

Again, I point out that not a single member of his supporting cast was in Coast City when it blew up and Hal never bothered to go see them even though he knew they were alive. If your hometown suddenly disappeared off the map and you found out that all your friends and family had survived, woudln't you go running to see them so you could grieve together?

Emerald Twilight was bad and dumb. Showing it to be bad and dumb seems to involve a lot of examples from within the Green Lantern mythos, the publishing history of DC Comics, basic psychology, and a slew of other sources of information and perspective. Defending seems to involve grasping at straws.

LOL!

OK, I am now going to make the effort to add that to the forum memes.

Whenever I read something that's annoying, I will respond, "In the ear!"

It'll be awesome...

actually, he even says it to Kilowogg that he left them enough power to survive. how they were supposed to use it without the rings, im not sure, but he did leave them alive. the worst he did before getting to sinestro was cutting off Boodika's hand.

Classic case of the writer and artist having different intentions. The old Marvel method failed them since all signs pointed to "mercilessly slaughtered," but one line of dialogue makes it all okay.

Kinda like how we knock people unconscious with swords in City of Heroes.

Heck no. I'd go crazy and try to destroy the known universe... especially if I had the most power weapon ever created.

Mu

Ha
Ha

Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha

Ha.

barring being ripped in half or atomized, being unconscious or dead look pretty similar in comics.

"Atomised" is code for "transported to another dimension".

In comics, no-one stays dead except Bucky. And even Bucky got better.

technically bucky never died. that itself was a retcon. originally Cap and Bucky survived the end of the war and were active well into the 50's. but then i dont think death should some insurmountable obstacle when it comes to comics anyway.

It is not just that, it is also the terrible invention of the massive cross-over. Having these giant crossovers more-often-than not introduce huge continuity problems rather than neatly cleaning them up. My favorite is when a "universe-spanning" event is going on, yet several books go on without even acknowledging it (like some DC books are doing right now during Blackest Night).

And Wolverine.

Yes, Bucky's return is a retcon of a retcon. Also for another character with a tangled history, the original Human Torch.

As for death being insurmountable....well Marvel still doesn't restore Captain Mar-Vell, they just keep making lame replacements including a skrull version.

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bah, i liked Mar-vell's son taking over. The run by Peter David was pretty good. The other ones ill agree were kinda lame.

Actually I too liked Pad's run with Genis as CM. But then came all the garbage from Joe Q. Little promotion for the book and then that stupid "U-Decide" contest where fans got to vote from three choices to be CM......then the cancellation/restart, then the final cancellation. Then what was done in Thunderbolts was atrocious. Truly a character with a lot of promise and he was just MANGLED by editorial decree.

Phyla to me is little more then a joke. Now she is the avatar of death and the Quantum Bands are back with the recently restored Wendell Vaughan as Quasar, so he's back as an energy being and Protector of the Universe again. (amazing, chewed and eaten by Annihilus yet he can come back and Mar-Vell can't.....)

Monica Rambeau: to me this was AT FIRST, a weak attempt by Marvel to retain the Captain Marvel trademark. However she grew as a character and was a good Avenger.

Noh-Varr: what little I've seen I do not like. Kill him off.

Carol Danvers: well I hear ish 50 is her last issue, she's facing off against Mystique and I think ish 49's cover is her vs, "Mar-Vell" though I bet it's Mystique in disguise. Maybe SHE will become Captain Marvel? Her powers came from a Kree device that Mar-Vell saved her from, and were based on Marv's powers so perhaps she is the worthiest to take the name?

Only other candidate would be Rick Jones but he's been mangled by the idiotic Red Hulk/War of the Hulks/Fall of the Hulks junk into being the current Abomination.

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What's hard to understand about some of the books taking place before and after the event? They haven't been fighting the zombies for 4 months; I believe they're still on the first night. There's no reason an ongoing story has to stop and fight zombies when that evening most likely just took place after the current story arc and before the next. Secret Invasion was particularly guilty of this, outright derailing X-Factor into oblivion and hitting up books for no reason like Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova (though the latter two rolled it in pretty well). I'm personally very glad every DC title right now isn't dropping their story to fight zombies.

Now, its important not to ignore the event entirely or you get a situation like Final Crisis where no one seemed to notice Darkseid leveled civilization and became the supreme lord and master of earth or WWH where the Hulk destroyed all of Manhattan, but no one seemed to notice. The event specific banner titles like BN: Batman or SI: X-Men do a pretty good job of making it feel like the events effect everyone, though they should start doing them as one shots rather than extended stories. I'm totally down for "and then the X-Men killed some Skrulls" but 3 full issues of it, clearly with nothing of real importance just feels unnecessary. Just one issue to play with the concept is all they really need.

Question is: Which is worse: The Retcon or the Junk Story that necesitated the retcon?

Case in point: THE CROSSING. Still considered by some as the story that pretty much killed Iron Man as a character. Combined with at the time that many of the Avengers were also screwed up badly, then here comes X_men:ONSLAUGHT that necesitates the sacrifice of non mutant heroes to stop him, then comes Franklin Richards and his Cosmic Deus Ex Machina power to warp reality to send them all to a pocket universe after he recreates them as he feels they should be, hence the big old red REBOOT button was pressed. However characters like Iron Man were so mangled at this point that only a reboot was going to restore him.

Spiderman: CLONE SAGA. Still considered by many as the worst story ever, though Mephisto wiping out the marriage is now probably tied with this. The Clone Saga was overextended by edicts from editorial and the marketing folk and it was never the plan at first to retcon Norman Osborn back to life to correct it. That was the choice they made to end the clone junk. Ironically another choice would have involved Mephisto.

Original Human Torch: stated to be rebuilt/reprogrammed as the Vision, despite that the Mad Thinker had used a plan to capture Toro by having a funeral staged for the Torch and he was buried while at the same time another Torch was taken by Ultron to become the Vision. Later revealed that this discrepancy is due to Immortus splitting the Torch so that there were two Torches, one of which would become the Vision. Torch is finally revived and is around for awhile until Byrne depowers him in the Namor series. Then as part of the New Invaders he absorbs heat energy and thus has to fly up into the sky where upon he explodes and is in pieces. Then in Captain America, Capucky and Namor team up to retrieve their fallen friend before he is weaponized and is later given a military funeral and interred at Arlington. Now he has been dug up by the Mad Thinker, thoroughly analyzed, restored and reactivated, and now the resurrected Toro must stop him. Definitely a tangled mess of a history with this character due to Marvel not wanting him and Johny Storm around back in the day, but now I hear he's coming back to stay once his current mini series is done.

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Best thing I like about Blackest Night is that per Johns, you only need teh Blackest Night mini and GL and GLC books to get the whole story. The other mini's are not critical.

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