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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 21, 2016 13:44:30 GMT -5
I think Retcons are bad FAR more often than they are good:
Adding 'famous heroes no one remembers' (Sentry, Blue Marvel, Triumph, Alias) never works... even when the character is interesting.. find another way.
It's also rarely good when characters suddenly know each other in the past... like Joker killing the Waynes, Ben Grimm knowing Wolverine in 'the war' (which it is today), etc.
The ones that DO work, IMO, when it's presented as a purposeful deceit, like Aunt May saying she new about Spidey.
Also, the big example no one mentioned yet:
Bad: the Crossing (I may have mentioned that once or twice)
Good: re-retconing the Crossing to be a Space Phantom
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Retcons
Aug 21, 2016 13:55:08 GMT -5
Post by tingramretro on Aug 21, 2016 13:55:08 GMT -5
More or less right, except that the Vision from the Young Avengers was a completely separate android, created from a copy of the original Vision's operating system installed into Iron Lad's armour. He was later destroyed by Dr. Doom, but the original has since returned, having spent a couple of years in a packing crate in a warehouse owned by Tony Stark. The Human Torch is still around and is now a SHIELD agent. I disliked the idea of the New Vision, but I wish Iron Lad had stayed around. Just like the rest of the Young Avengers, he brought a certain feeling of renewal mixed with continuity to the Marvel Universe. (Just what the new Nova should have been, had he been introduced as "Kid Nova" and allowed to grow on us, instead of being shoved down our throats complete with a re-writing of the history of the Nova corps. But that's the grumpy old fan talking). I really dislike the new Nova. He's just another case of a character with decades of history and a loyal fan followig being shoved aside to make way for some writer's new pet character. The only Nova I'm interested in is Rich Rider. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 21, 2016 16:47:54 GMT -5
I disliked the idea of the New Vision, but I wish Iron Lad had stayed around. Just like the rest of the Young Avengers, he brought a certain feeling of renewal mixed with continuity to the Marvel Universe. (Just what the new Nova should have been, had he been introduced as "Kid Nova" and allowed to grow on us, instead of being shoved down our throats complete with a re-writing of the history of the Nova corps. But that's the grumpy old fan talking). I really dislike the new Nova. He's just another case of a character with decades of history and a loyal fan followig being shoved aside to make way for some writer's new pet character. The only Nova I'm interested in is Rich Rider. Same here, for historical reasons, but I do not object the idea of a new, younger Nova. What really upset me is how the new character was brought to prominence with nary an acknowledgement of the original Nova. Every Marvel character just acted as if Sam Alexander had always been the Nova, while I would have expected at least two years of "wait, aren't you supposed to be older?" Much worse, in my opinion, is that this new Nova comes with an origin that doesn't square with the history of the Nova Corps. The Corps, as Marvel's equivalent of the Green Lanterns, is a new development; they used to be just Xandar's police force. Selecting an Earthman (Ryder) as a member was a desperate measure by a dying centurion, and all the Novas had been from Xandar up to that point. Now Sam's father has been made retroactively into a member too, because Bendis. We were talking about continuity in another thread... This is an example of lazy plotting and bad continuity killing my interest for a new concept. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 21, 2016 17:02:10 GMT -5
NEver mind the fact that Sam's dad is a special BLACK Nova, an elite squad of the Nova corps no one had ever mentioned before.
Everything about him is a nightmare from a continuity standpoint, to be honest.
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 21, 2016 17:11:57 GMT -5
Bad Idea and Worse Execution: America vs. the Justice SocietyBad: Krypton was a cold, angular, forbidding planet. Bad: The Kents get younger.
I don't really see why any of these are "bad". I loved America vs. the Justice Society, and still do. And I think Byrne's retcon of Superman was probably the best thing that ever happened to the character; pretty much everything about him prior to 1986 I just found ridiculous, including the very 1950s B movie depiction of Krypton. Byrne's version was believable. : Written about this before, but happy to oblige. Watch as Roy Thomas, whose best qualities as a writer are his love for the past, eye for detail and ability to tell a big story, allows his love to become besottment, his meticulousness to become obsession and his stroytelling to become list-making. I'll leave aside the disappointing, slapdash art, but as always with Roy at his worst, he lets his mania for cramming an overlong narrative and far too many words into a story trying to do far too much. He wrote this as if he'd never get to write another JSA or Golden Age story. That aside, the premise (that the JSA was a Fascist fifth column and that Batman's secret diary outed them) was absurd, and the resulting ret-con ridiculous. The Kents got younger not for any reason but editorial fiat (I'm assuming). Whatever seeming link might have been forged with the readership was hardly balanced by the beauty of having Clark's parents having been childless throughout much of a long and loving marriage before finding the infant in the spaceship. They were comics' Abraham and Sara (Remember Ma Kent's name in the 1942 novel and the television program?) receiving a gift from God. Their absolute love and faith in the son whom they were charged with rearing and in whom they instilled a moral sense based on honor, service, and compassion was inspiring to see. And the irony, of which they themselves were well aware, was that they would likely not see their son reach adulthood. Read "The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent ( Superman 160, IIRC) for the full story. Having younger Kents as his parents meant no pathos. It was instant gratification, what the editors must have thought was a sop to Cerberus that would make the Kents more relevant to the readership, but was actually a high price to pay. Someone with more recent knowledge of the Superman saga may correct me, but wasn't the Jonathan Kent in the two-part story in the 80s in which he returns to life oh so briefly the "original" Pa Kent? Whoever wrote that story must have realized that "Pa" Kent was far better as a character than "Dad" Kent. Kold Krypton: Cliched SF. One of the most appealing tropes of the Superman story is the heartbreaking irony of the rescued orphan orphaned yet again, whose yearning for both his biological parents and his adoptive parents is palpable. And the homes of both sets of parents fill him with nostalgia, in the literal sense of the word. Kal-El's longing for Jor-El and Lara and the world of Krypton add yet another layer of melancholy to the life of the supreme being of Earth. if Krypton is cold, forbidding, and emotionless, a Superman reared by Earthlings would not miss it at all. Why that version of Krypton is any more believable than the one that had been carefully crafted for nigh on 50 years before Byrne did his terra-forming escapes me. And why Byrne would eliminate one more complexity of Superman's life just to follow a science-fiction convention is beyond me. |
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Aug 21, 2016 23:53:39 GMT -5
Post by chadwilliam on Aug 21, 2016 23:53:39 GMT -5
I don't really see why any of these are "bad". I loved America vs. the Justice Society, and still do. And I think Byrne's retcon of Superman was probably the best thing that ever happened to the character; pretty much everything about him prior to 1986 I just found ridiculous, including the very 1950s B movie depiction of Krypton. Byrne's version was believable. : Cliched SF. One of the most appealing tropes of the Superman story is the heartbreaking irony of the rescued orphan orphaned yet again, whose yearning for both his biological parents and his adoptive parents is palpable. And the homes of both sets of parents fill him with nostalgia, in the literal sense of the word. Kal-El's longing for Jor-El and Lara and the world of Krypton add yet another layer of melancholy to the life of the supreme being of Earth. if Krypton is cold, forbidding, and emotionless, a Superman reared by Earthlings would not miss it at all. Why that version of Krypton is any more believable than the one that had been carefully crafted for nigh on 50 years before Byrne did his terra-forming escapes me. And why Byrne would eliminate one more complexity of Superman's life just to follow a science-fiction convention is beyond me.
"Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the psychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits.” Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him." John Byrne
So Byrne had an axe to grind when it came to the desire some adopted children have to seek out their biological parents and rewrote a key component of Superman's psychology to fight his battle for him. This, combined with Byrne's distaste for numerous stories which established Superman's visits to Krypton by way of time travel, possession of Kandor, personal memories of the planet, etc, resulted in the grim and bland Krypton Superman was burdened with for so long.
That's the problem I have with most retcons - they're too often employed not with the victim's fans in mind, but to appease those who don't like the character. I can understand if a new character is just not gelling with their intended audience, but to just throw away the core of a character that at this point had enjoyed nearly 50 years of success is mindboggling.
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Aug 22, 2016 1:12:14 GMT -5
Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 22, 2016 1:12:14 GMT -5
Do I understand this correctly? Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch being the son and daughter of Magneto had been retconned so that Marvel Studios would have clearer legal rights for them to appear in Avengers movies (X-Men movies being the property of a different studio) And does any of this have to do with the despicable death of Bova the mid-wife?  .png/revision/latest?cb=20120519001143) |
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Aug 22, 2016 1:52:00 GMT -5
Post by tingramretro on Aug 22, 2016 1:52:00 GMT -5
NEver mind the fact that Sam's dad is a special BLACK Nova, an elite squad of the Nova corps no one had ever mentioned before. And which would in any case have been depowered along with the rest of them when Xandar was destroyed the first time. |
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Aug 22, 2016 2:07:02 GMT -5
Post by tingramretro on Aug 22, 2016 2:07:02 GMT -5
I don't really see why any of these are "bad". I loved America vs. the Justice Society, and still do. And I think Byrne's retcon of Superman was probably the best thing that ever happened to the character; pretty much everything about him prior to 1986 I just found ridiculous, including the very 1950s B movie depiction of Krypton. Byrne's version was believable. : Written about this before, but happy to oblige. Watch as Roy Thomas, whose best qualities as a writer are his love for the past, eye for detail and ability to tell a big story, allows his love to become besottment, his meticulousness to become obsession and his stroytelling to become list-making. I'll leave aside the disappointing, slapdash art, but as always with Roy at his worst, he lets his mania for cramming an overlong narrative and far too many words into a story trying to do far too much. He wrote this as if he'd never get to write another JSA or Golden Age story. That aside, the premise (that the JSA was a Fascist fifth column and that Batman's secret diary outed them) was absurd, and the resulting ret-con ridiculous. The Kents got younger not for any reason but editorial fiat (I'm assuming). Whatever seeming link might have been forged with the readership was hardly balanced by the beauty of having Clark's parents having been childless throughout much of a long and loving marriage before finding the infant in the spaceship. They were comics' Abraham and Sara (Remember Ma Kent's name in the 1942 novel and the television program?) receiving a gift from God. Their absolute love and faith in the son whom they were charged with rearing and in whom they instilled a moral sense based on honor, service, and compassion was inspiring to see. And the irony, of which they themselves were well aware, was that they would likely not see their son reach adulthood. Read "The Last Days of Ma and Pa Kent ( Superman 160, IIRC) for the full story. Having younger Kents as his parents meant no pathos. It was instant gratification, what the editors must have thought was a sop to Cerberus that would make the Kents more relevant to the readership, but was actually a high price to pay. Someone with more recent knowledge of the Superman saga may correct me, but wasn't the Jonathan Kent in the two-part story in the 80s in which he returns to life oh so briefly the "original" Pa Kent? Whoever wrote that story must have realized that "Pa" Kent was far better as a character than "Dad" Kent. Kold Krypton: Cliched SF. One of the most appealing tropes of the Superman story is the heartbreaking irony of the rescued orphan orphaned yet again, whose yearning for both his biological parents and his adoptive parents is palpable. And the homes of both sets of parents fill him with nostalgia, in the literal sense of the word. Kal-El's longing for Jor-El and Lara and the world of Krypton add yet another layer of melancholy to the life of the supreme being of Earth. if Krypton is cold, forbidding, and emotionless, a Superman reared by Earthlings would not miss it at all. Why that version of Krypton is any more believable than the one that had been carefully crafted for nigh on 50 years before Byrne did his terra-forming escapes me. And why Byrne would eliminate one more complexity of Superman's life just to follow a science-fiction convention is beyond me. Why would Superman miss a world he'd left as a baby and should logically have no memory of in any case? That never made any sense to me, frankly. But then, virtually no Superman story published before 1986 really made much sense to me, and certainly there was very little I found "appealing" about him. I think the basic problem here is, you clearly had an emotional connection to the pre-Byrne Superman which I did not; all the things you consider significant about him which Byrne removed are either irrelevant or just plain silly to me. I thought having the Kents still be around actually improved things by giving him two more interesting supporting characters rather than the bland cardboard cutouts at WGBS during the Bronze Age. Also, any religious allegory surrounding the case would have gone right over my head, I'm afraid, as I am not religious. I don't even know who Abraham and Sara(?) were.
As for the JSA, I'm afraid everything you seem to dislike about Roy's writing is precisely what appeals to me. Like him, I'm a continuity freak who needs everything to make sense, and that limited series was an exercise in world building, which is just the kind of story I love. If I had any complaints about it at all, it's that I'd have liked it to be an issue longer and dealt more with the Society's history up to the (then) present day. |
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Aug 22, 2016 2:10:06 GMT -5
Post by tingramretro on Aug 22, 2016 2:10:06 GMT -5
Kold Krypton: Cliched SF. One of the most appealing tropes of the Superman story is the heartbreaking irony of the rescued orphan orphaned yet again, whose yearning for both his biological parents and his adoptive parents is palpable. And the homes of both sets of parents fill him with nostalgia, in the literal sense of the word. Kal-El's longing for Jor-El and Lara and the world of Krypton add yet another layer of melancholy to the life of the supreme being of Earth. if Krypton is cold, forbidding, and emotionless, a Superman reared by Earthlings would not miss it at all. Why that version of Krypton is any more believable than the one that had been carefully crafted for nigh on 50 years before Byrne did his terra-forming escapes me. And why Byrne would eliminate one more complexity of Superman's life just to follow a science-fiction convention is beyond me.
"Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the psychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits.” Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him." John Byrne
So Byrne had an axe to grind when it came to the desire some adopted children have to seek out their biological parents and rewrote a key component of Superman's psychology to fight his battle for him. This, combined with Byrne's distaste for numerous stories which established Superman's visits to Krypton by way of time travel, possession of Kandor, personal memories of the planet, etc, resulted in the grim and bland Krypton Superman was burdened with for so long.
That's the problem I have with most retcons - they're too often employed not with the victim's fans in mind, but to appease those who don't like the character. I can understand if a new character is just not gelling with their intended audience, but to just throw away the core of a character that at this point had enjoyed nearly 50 years of success is mindboggling.
I always thought the core of Superman's character was that he was (originally) the last survivor of an alien race, raised by a kindly couple on Earth who taught him their values. Constantly revisiting Krypton and making it this perfect society just seems to me to weaken that. |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 22, 2016 2:12:29 GMT -5
Do I understand this correctly? Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch being the son and daughter of Magneto had been retconned so that Marvel Studios would have clearer legal rights for them to appear in Avengers movies (X-Men movies being the property of a different studio) And does any of this have to do with the despicable death of Bova the mid-wife? You understand correctly. Although since their being Magneto's kids was a retcon to begin with, and I personally never liked it, I'm not upset by it. I just wish they'd restored the original status quo, that they were the children of the Whizzer and Miss America. |
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Aug 22, 2016 8:37:53 GMT -5
Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 22, 2016 8:37:53 GMT -5
NEver mind the fact that Sam's dad is a special BLACK Nova, an elite squad of the Nova corps no one had ever mentioned before. And which would in any case have been depowered along with the rest of them when Xandar was destroyed the first time. That's the least of the issues it causes... first off, where was he (and the other Black Novas) during Annihilation? They can't have had a more important mission than the end of the Universe. More importantly, if they exist, it implies both that the Worldmind didn't REALLY trust Rich Rider when they were merged, and/or Rich was too stupid to realize there was a squad of elite Nova out somewhere waiting to be used. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 22, 2016 9:40:41 GMT -5
"Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the psychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits.” Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him." John Byrne
So Byrne had an axe to grind when it came to the desire some adopted children have to seek out their biological parents and rewrote a key component of Superman's psychology to fight his battle for him. This, combined with Byrne's distaste for numerous stories which established Superman's visits to Krypton by way of time travel, possession of Kandor, personal memories of the planet, etc, resulted in the grim and bland Krypton Superman was burdened with for so long.
That's the problem I have with most retcons - they're too often employed not with the victim's fans in mind, but to appease those who don't like the character. I can understand if a new character is just not gelling with their intended audience, but to just throw away the core of a character that at this point had enjoyed nearly 50 years of success is mindboggling.
I'd never read this quote from Byrne, but its Trumpish insensitivity and surface-level knowledge certainly don't surprise me, given how wrongheadedly he treated Superman's Kryptonian history and legacy. Nice of him to have decided that 50 years of character development, a large portion of which courtesy the character's creators, meant nothing. Reveals the shallowness of Byrne's understanding and/or his unwillingness to dig deeply enough into what qualities formed the quintessence of the character. |
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Aug 22, 2016 9:52:36 GMT -5
Post by tingramretro on Aug 22, 2016 9:52:36 GMT -5
"Clark would be proud, too, of his Kryptonian heritage, but later portrayals of him have tried to shoehorn in too much of the psychobabble of adopted children longing for and seeking out their biological parents. Excuse my French, but to me, they fall under the heading of “ungrateful little shits.” Clark grew up as human, thinks as a human, reacts as a human. He lives and loves as a human. And that is what really defines him." John Byrne
So Byrne had an axe to grind when it came to the desire some adopted children have to seek out their biological parents and rewrote a key component of Superman's psychology to fight his battle for him. This, combined with Byrne's distaste for numerous stories which established Superman's visits to Krypton by way of time travel, possession of Kandor, personal memories of the planet, etc, resulted in the grim and bland Krypton Superman was burdened with for so long.
That's the problem I have with most retcons - they're too often employed not with the victim's fans in mind, but to appease those who don't like the character. I can understand if a new character is just not gelling with their intended audience, but to just throw away the core of a character that at this point had enjoyed nearly 50 years of success is mindboggling.
I'd never read this quote from Byrne, but its Trumpish insensitivity and surface-level knowledge certainly don't surprise me, given how wrongheadedly he treated Superman's Kryptonian history and legacy. Nice of him to have decided that 50 years of character development, a large portion of which courtesy the character's creators, meant nothing. Reveals the shallowness of Byrne's understanding and/or his unwillingness to dig deeply enough into what qualities formed the quintessence of the character. As I said earlier, I really don't see how Krypton had that much to do with "forming the quintessance of the character". Superman's character was formed by his having been raised as the son of the Kents. Byrne just recognized that, and actually made him into a real, believable and interesting character for the first time in fifty years. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Aug 22, 2016 10:30:00 GMT -5
Why would Superman miss a world he'd left as a baby and should logically have no memory of in any case? That never made any sense to me, frankly. But then, virtually no Superman story published before 1986 really made much sense to me, and certainly there was very little I found "appealing" about him. I think the basic problem here is, you clearly had an emotional connection to the pre-Byrne Superman which I did not; all the things you consider significant about him which Byrne removed are either irrelevant or just plain silly to me. I thought having the Kents still be around actually improved things by giving him two more interesting supporting characters rather than the bland cardboard cutouts at WGBS during the Bronze Age. Also, any religious allegory surrounding the case would have gone right over my head, I'm afraid, as I am not religious. I don't even know who Abraham and Sara(?) were.
As for the JSA, I'm afraid everything you seem to dislike about Roy's writing is precisely what appeals to me. Like him, I'm a continuity freak who needs everything to make sense, and that limited series was an exercise in world building, which is just the kind of story I love. If I had any complaints about it at all, it's that I'd have liked it to be an issue longer and dealt more with the Society's history up to the (then) present day. A few things, tin. No child has a memory of his or her life before a certain age. Kal-El was no exception. But, like many of us, adopted or not, we have a curiosity about our origins, our ancestors, our heritage. The Kents knew that in the case of this exceptional child in particular, it would be crucial for him to know about from where he had come and from whom he was descended. That knowledge was always a part of his life, in great part thanks to the Kents, who could easily have prevented the young Clark from knowing anything about his origins, but took an opposite tack and encouraged his interest in his Kryptonian roots. Had Superman never known jack-squat about his Kryptonian heritage, your first point might be valid, but it flies in the face of centuries of human behavior. Of course, everyone's Superman or Batman or any other characeter can be greatly influenced by one's earliest encounter with the character; we all get that. However, Byrne did you and every other reader who first met Superman when the character was under his control a disservice by not acknowledging the significance of what had gone before and essentially creating a different character. Changing this aspect of Superman's background was akin to deciding to "ret-con" Batman's origin by revealing that the deaths of Martha and Thomas Wayne were the results of a hit ordered by Thomas Wayne gone wrong. This makes more sense, since as we all know, most murders are not random acts of violence and the first suspect in any murder is the victim's spouse. That the Wayne's deaths were not the results of a carefully constructed plot by Thomas Wayne, but the result of living in a random universe is a key part of the origin of The Batman; change that piece and you've created a new character. That's what Byrne did by making Krypton a dystopia. Pretending that the previous five decades of stories had got it wrong is simply lazy, neglectful, disrespectful... take your pick. BTW, Batman's origin was ret-conned before the term or the notion really existed in the famous story in which Batman learns the identity of his parents' killer and confronts him in an unforgettable sequence. However, the ret-con enriched and reinforced the story that had already been told and did not violate what had already been established as "fact" in the Batman world. Oh, and as for the religious allusions, one need not be religious to be aware of cultural touchstones. In fact, many nominally religious peopel wouldn't know Abraham and Sarah from Kanye and Kim. I am living proof that you can be irreligious and know your Bible. Reading comics without at least an acquaintance with myth of any kind -- religious, national, ethnic, whatever -- is a less fulfilling experience. I think, for instance, that Superman's Kryptonian surname/ family name is no accident given his creators' backgrounds and allows the reader further understanding of them and their character. Oh, and America vs. the JSA? That was not world-building; it was Roy at his overly fussy, prolix, OCD worst. And again, all sins of poor writing aside, the ret-con was absurd in motivation, execution, and effect. We'll have to agree to disagree. |
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