Skip to content
Elseworlds Exchange: Best Retcons in Comics episode artwork

EPISODE · Jan 24, 2018 · 56 MIN

Elseworlds Exchange: Best Retcons in Comics

from Elseworlds Exchange · host ComicPop

Sal and Joel discuss some of the best retcons in comics history! See more at comicpop.net and help ComicPOP keep the lights on at patreon.com/comicpop.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jan 24, 2018

Embed this episode

Ready to play

Elseworlds Exchange: Best Retcons in Comics

0:00 56:03
of MATCHES

TRANSCRIPT · AUTO-GENERATED

You have a show or YouTube channel, podcast, or relevant product that you wanna promote at the top of the Elseworld Exchange? Well, not your chance, man. For 50 bucks, you'll get a month's worth of plugs at the audio version right here at the Elseworld Exchange. Right at the top of the show, first thing you'll hear, now it'll probably still be my voice, but you'll write up a short one minute plug, we'll record it and toss it to the front of the show.

Or alternatively, for 20 bucks, you can get a month's worth of plugs at the end of the show. Right after you hear us sign off, same deal, one minute scripted plug for your stuff. How you take advantage of this incredible opportunity? Just go to thereelconicpop.com, hit the contact button at the top and fill everything out and work it out through PayPal.

By the way, we do reserve the right to reject or accept based on our own personal taste. I'm not gonna plug your Nazi podcast, man, I'm sorry. You know what, I'm not sorry about that, but you're not gonna do it anyway. So go toreelconicpop.com, hit the contact button at the top of the page, fill everything out, and we'll work it out.

Worth it. All right, let's get on with the show now. Waiting down upon the underworld to smash ganglin, come a friend of the unfortunate enemy of criminal. An mysterious, all powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law.

Hello everybody, what's changed with Sal. And I'm Joel. Today we're gonna talk about the best comical retcons. We could've talked about all retcons been like the most controversial or the biggest, but let's save those for another time.

Let's just talk about the positives, the good retcons. Those are episodes in and of themselves. Exactly, you could take an episode out of like one particular retcon if you so chose. Rather, we're just gonna talk about some of the best retcons in comics.

Those retcons that are clearly retcons, not things that were either like things they wanted to do, but didn't get a chance to do, and then eventually did. Just things where it's like, they obviously meant to do one thing. And then someone else came in and said, oh no, let's do this instead. So let's get into it.

Joel, you made an Instagram observation before we started the show about who is kind of like guilty of having the most. Oh yeah. Or at least in your research, let's talk about that. Like 90% of the retcons I have researched for this and the ones that people always seem to talk about and come back to are X-Men retcons.

And I guess it only makes sense because there's only like a zillion characters over a billion teams over like 70 years. It's true. Having the lifespan that the X-Men has had since 1963, having a rotating cast of characters that span the hundreds, if not thousands, and being a very much soap opera of a conic book means there's gonna be all told continuity in retconning going on. You're gonna have parentage and wives and children and then you have all different timelines and everything just gets.

Alternate universes even. Universe versions, alternate timelines, of alternate timelines and children and parents and whatnot, it's a mess. And time travel, so much time travel. Yes, and some of those, like time travel isn't technically retcon, you know like cable isn't a retcon.

He's a character from the stories. It's not like cable showed up in like X-Men number 19. And says I was always here. And then in the 90s they were like, oh it turns out he's a time traveling bat.

Like you know, offspring of blah blah blah. Like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, cable encounter, but what is it is a good X-Men retcon? What a positive one. Wolverine being a mutant, right?

Cause when he started he was just a whole guy in his claws where his gloves, they didn't write all that other stuff until later. That's right. If you are new to this whole comic book thing or if you're new to Wolverine or Marvel, know that when Wolverine was first introduced, he looked pretty much like his comic book counterpart in that he always wore yellow spandex. It was always oddly complicated.

You know like it had like shoulder thingies and gloves and whatnot, but he always wore gloves and the blades popped out of the gloves. Naturally, those who created him, I believe it was Lenween. Yes. And the artist were like under the apprehension, like, no, no, no, Wolverine's claws are like a weapon.

Like they just pop out the gloves. He puts them on and now he's suited up. He's Vega from Street Fighter. He's Vega from Street Fighter.

And then later on somebody else, some brilliant creator who's name escapes me. I think it was Burnt, was it? I could be wrong. He might be Burnt or Peter David.

It's always one of those two guys. It is. I think Burnt wanted to work with him cause he's like, oh, Wolverine's Canadian? I'm Canadian.

Right. I'd love to use that character and thank goodness. Because being Canadian as part of it is like, one of the biggest identifiers of Wolverine's character, I think. Tell me about it.

At least speaking, I have Twicken-aid. Hey, hey, he's one of our people. Man, I tell you, he's one of ours. Do you know where he's from?

Like what area of Canada? Oh, well, in another right colony in Origins, didn't they say he's an old money family from, oh, god? Right. Like I'm trying to remember what town, but the reason I'm trying to get to the town is because I wonder if that town has erected a statue in his honor.

Man, if they haven't, I'm starting that shit right now. I'm getting that happening. They'd have no fun with me together. I'm writing my, I was going to say congressman, but it's not a conch and I'm writing my member of Parliament.

Yes, you should write your member of Parliament. i have actually i'm really not a right i know my member of our let's say we'll reach out to him again and go over the statue with it but you just bring it to her is a bill that she had a documentary i can put out that ronald film festival the quest for wolverine statue exactly i'm a hell of frickin uh... detroit can try to get a robo cop one in filley can have a rock what should we have over a man that i can't believe that people do the the mayor of the truck one of the block of robo cops at you or i uh... fucking that's the only reason i would ever go in these days of the chat says alberta even better there's nothing else in albert it would be perfect you'll be like uh...

the enterprise that you in a but i think that actually is one of the first years i got a google always that the great they're telling me there is well we're already told then alright next year in albert of that and to take a picture uh... but that said there are a lot of that up there are multiple continuity changes particularly involving wolverine the first of which of course his gloves word was a little uh... a little caveat to that was of course that they wanted to be that he was like a mutating wolverine that became a man which we didn't do that quite a lot of times like a behind the scenes i wanted to do this but they obviously through that idea way because clearly terrible and uh... and then of course the idea that he had bone claws he uh...

you know he had implanted memories his whole weapon experience everything that is wolverine will be a walking right is his entire history is a fractal spreadsheet nightmare where almost the fact that he doesn't know it is history is is part of the story right until he did until house of and we woke up and he's like i remember everything because you write all down for us we can keep it all straight like but they're still adding shit to it to like even as far as old man logan and like a marvel legacy was like oh also father to kid that i didn't remember until now with one of my wives i mean not only that you've also got that obnoxious retcon that people still kind of like saw i guess a counted where his soul breaks oh yeah that's what keeps the fact that it keeps him from going from from dying right and and then eventually he died for real and his feeling factor away yeah that's a thing he has lots of things doesn't he fix that i think they did i think now that he's in the post credit scenes of all these marvel comics and back is that it's stones which are not james uh... i think i think he is definitely going to throw it away i think he's got his feeling factor back is that it's a bit of a skeleton we're good we're good i'm sure the right thing where it's like nobody by being in case in at a maximum i went into a new feeling coma and i broke out like a butterfly from a cocoon stronger than ever before you recall the secondary mutation of everybody how i was out i will read and get one maybe he gets one where it's like i my second reputation is that i got to re-get my old mutation yeah right but we are better than ever that's why i am i'm not a person on the best there is what i do what i do is not die it's really true it's really true he's helping us out in the super chat thank you so much nathan welcome course uh... to the show speaking of retcons i guess it's we talked about wolverine and the x-man will get to more vx men but i want to talk about that and because one of my favorite retcons and every time it's violated makes me twinge is the fact that that man doesn't remember his murderer yeah yeah they always they love going back and forth especially now in the gotham telltale batman era where it's like stop talking with it yeah uh... i know that it was originally joe chill in the original original he actually reveals himself to joe chill yes he dies of a heart attack or something something like that the idea that the killer is named joe chill and that he gets away with it is not the problem if the problem that he either catches him or gets revenge for it or he solves it the idea should be that he never i was not that it should be i always liked the retcon that he never caught the killer and so every face every thug that is out there in the streets could be him and so he beats on all the time like it's pretty good it's just an idea for me that i always love it's just it's a retcon that's so subtle and so it's seemingly so simple and yet it really is when you do it changes and alters the batman character it really does there's times where it's like oh he knows it's joe chill but joe chill died in jail or joe chill did it but he was hired by someone to kill the wains because it was some manner of it or that's the worst of it the worst retconning is making joe chill a higher gun that killed the wains as part of our thing no it was a random thing which is fine with it else world i find with anything else but don't don't make it can what makes batman cool is that you know it was a random event that could have happened to anyone but it just so happened to him that's why he declares war on crime all crime and not like organized crime you know not like the mob you know like that was one of the things always kill me about the batman movies yeah uh...

even the new ones but i mean the the the the bertons humacher ones where he's like he basically he kills the joker who murders parents and so i thought she's gotten revenge doesn't be that many more and like he keeps not wanting to be that man and then ultimately i think in forever he's like i choose to be that now it's like yeah but every day you could not if you're you have a well adjusted that every morning when he wakes up from another night of being that he could go screw me a batman yeah i got my parents killed i'm good i'm good like not only have i caught my parents killer but i'm thirty five i'm in unbelievable shape i have rich i have lots of women who are all who are all like trying to tell me some of more like really cool people people who can deal and and have martial arts and shit and that and you know here's a tenth of my of my earnings police department uh... gordon your engine because this is how police actually works you just pay them and give you things and indeed hey i own the police department now gordon isn't is the emperor of the police emperor of cops and he gets to hire only people that he trusts and i'm still going to crazy Batman my way behind their backs and look them up and he tabs on them and i'm robin guess what your job and i'll pay you six hundred thousand dollars a year to do it is to run constant background checks on every company i mean like why wouldn't he do that also like a luscious box you know all that super advanced body armor and vehicles that you're building from a company selling to the army or get given to the police yes oh yeah no i'm gonna have like the greatest task force in this one city and once like crime is purged my city i'm gonna move to the next city to the same fucking thing over there in the next one in the next one and the next one and you'll Batman USA and this is all from the fact that Batman remembers who killed his parents yeah it's a slippery slope Jeff johnson also it's like hey with my money to i'm gonna fight the root causes of crime and then i'm gonna go to Washington we're gonna take back the white house i like that yeah i'm telling you that's genius the i the theory oh god of rage says love what you guys and the rest of the week full crew do i know what's called the best retcon but i got to say the worst is the retcon of mule nears creation which one the last one there's been a couple of mule near respond i like the idea of being about it being alive and having a sentient storm inside in that it kind of has a say and who wields it me i'm i'm i'm i'm pretty much ambivalent to living weapons like the weapons having a conscience of their own i like the idea of if mule of implying that mule near has a voice or like a will of its own you know like that Thor and mule near have been through battle together the way that like a great cool samurai his sword have gone together and like it almost like it responds to my thoughts because magically it does if i call to it and stuff and so i can imagine Thor being like you know yes it is an instrument of my wrath but at the same time like it because it does kind of like move on its own and it has aided me in so many of my adventures like i treat it with reverence that i would like a treasured pet or even like a loved one but i like the idea that like it speaks to you and that like it comes to life and that like it doesn't in words right but like you know i like the idea of like treating it with reverence while also basically like the spider man retcon of uh you know there's a spider totem oh yeah he he sent a spider and it accidentally got irradiated with radiation but one way or the other you know either it was a magic spider or it was radiation that's a retcon where i'm like if you need to do this in order to your Ezekiel story which was good i'll accept it as long as you allow for both as long as it's like Peter Parker says no it was the radiation and Ezekiel's like no it was a spider god of course then jms said like no really a spider god though like they're a really spider god and you have spider god powers and those powers are also things that you already had powers for but i didn't know that because i didn't read spider man con i think the hammer thing too is also just kind of Jason erin's way of being like okay this is why some people have been able to wield it throughout Thor's career and why some people haven't because something was making a choice the whole time because when you think about the grand breath of it and all the different ragnaros it stops making sense right moen shelly has a recommendation for best retcon and that's a sir i think he means or not being magneto take that great morrison that's a pretty solid reveal yes and abraham park says love you guys how do you feel about the retcon about new 52 superman and classic superman during superman reborn necessary love it my favorite retcon of the last couple of years same here because i hate new superman 52 superman who doesn't only wanted well a lot of people loved new 52 superman i'd like to blame him enough by the end he was the best in his sacrifice yes but i love i loved old school superman we needed him back i was a fan of the retcon that he was like there you know that he's from the the new you know the pre-flashpoint universe but then when they were like no there is no pre-flashpoint this is the pre-flashpoint universe and they had to make it work i was like right now you have to make them you you for all the purposes you threw away new 52 superman and you made classic superman come back right it's it's still a little nebulous about what the retcon means you know like did his retconning like how like a retcon wave that changed the whole world i say yes but uh they've never really explored it as much as like there's there was no like thing we only saw it affect superman's continuity and not like the world i mean i guess it's like a ripple butterfly effect where it's like if superman the progenitor of the dc universe got his shit all put back they would have a domino effect that everyone else's shit got put back exactly uh theory oh god of rage comes back it says i hate them you only retcon because i feel like erin did it so that no one could take it away from jane suddenly open can control it miss me ha ha um fair enough i mean like there's no question that writers who have a plan or want some new status quo to take place will use continuity or abuse it or change it in order to facilitate the story they want to tell right and so that's really in the idyll of the it's true will i am golden also says i always thought uh i always thought thorsammer was alive you know yeah exactly i mean i i easily accept it where i'm like oh okay shit i mean the super powerful nyan breakable hammer also is alive and also has a sentient superstorm in it that maybe has implied to be the polar opposite of the phoenix force they never went back to that right yeah maybe maybe if erin takes over a vendor that's a story he'll tell but fine by me uh so what else you got oh what are some other good ones here again so many so many freaking x-men ones like hey all all the times jean gray die because again i mentioned uh the phoenix right right jean gray changing uh jean gray's death resurrection cloning and all that stuff yeah jean gray deserves wolverine based solely on their ability to retcon each other out late amorize big time no a botello by the way says what about when hal brought alie back to life this is a reference to green arrow quiver and final night here and here to my own hearts which is actually retcon of itself and it's one that i kind of dig which was uh hal jordan being parallax and then the idea that the name parallax belonged to a yellow demon that was actually the spirit of the sinestro core or whatever um but that's that's a retcon that has a lot of controversy i liked it because it was like green lantern reverb is a perfect retcon yes it is holy works it is completely not what the author intended and yet it fits in perfectly and it continues the story and you're allowed to tell new stories as a result of the change and really the entire book is a retcon it's retconning the entire green lantern universe to get it back to what it was like when jeff jon's was reading it's like hey did we say guide gardener was warrior fuck that yeah well that sucks and it's like granted i agree with you um and it literally just like well if a ring goes near and boom he's green lantern again that's the end of it it purges all his dumb alien warrior DNA from it like good you know it's funny i think that the best retcons i think the best retcons are clever and work like in young avengers when they brought back scott lang from having the young avengers go back in time and just in the middle explosion they pulled him back so that it looked like he died um that was perfect there's a lot of perfect retcons actually within a young avengers the children's crusade but the perfect retcons the kind that not only work within continuity and exploit moments that still preserve the original story but also enhance it but they also make things the way that the majority kind of want them to be yeah kind of a little bit of fan service in there as well um oh so yeah uh the idea is that when holland became parallax in his selfishness he like kind of willed ollie queen to come back to life and so he did but his soul wasn't grafted his body and so eventually holly has to find his soul and then the two of them join and then he becomes like kind of a mix between the gritty new version of him that was killed off because he couldn't sell books and the classic like you know robin hood obviously liberal agenda character that kevin's with remembered wanted to write about and made a character that he wanted to read about again yes indeed perfect right and i'm very thankful for it because green air was my favorite character so i'm glad that happened to him yeah other retcons uh i noticed that there are quite a few captain america related there really is the and the biggest one and it's actually the the the cover of this episode bucky yes coming back to life yeah bucky having like you preserve a story of bucky uh blowing up except he didn't and he fell and he gets frozen and he's like captured by the soviets and you get all these great stories and it's amazing how much mileage bucky got from one kind of like written on the wall never gonna change marvel mandate which is there are a few things there are a few characters that never come back to life gwen stacy uncle ben and bucky yep um give it to broob acre he turned into a freaking years worth of storylines broob acre made that story work and in a way where if you objectively told somebody like hey here they bring him bucky back sounds like shit they did it and you go oh my god this is awesome like it does i don't even care anymore like i'm glad that he's back because i golly's really really rich awesome stories and now he's a fixture of the marvel universe it would be hard to imagine it without winter solider it's true not only that he's a fixture of the marvel cinematic universe damn right he is have the captain america movie and in fact they certainly wouldn't have made bucky Sebastian stan or or in any way prevalent in the first movie if it weren't for broob acres ritcon indeed and the second he showed up like oh shit they're probably gonna do winter solider at some point and then by the second one oh shit they're doing winter solider the first one he falls off the train into the water and they're in and they're in russia you're like oh i know what's gonna happen now cool um what else you got oh before you while you're preparing uh teddy says what about the recent retcon with tim drake ak robin finally being fixed and back to being robin yeah they just gave tim drake his old origin back they're like hey remember that new origin we wrote you that was really stupid we'll just have your old one back i i i don't even read it is it literally just that they were like no did they say was it a retcon in as much as like well when superman got merged it all went back or were they like no no no the story that you remember is like a little different from what you from what you remember it's not really that it's funny you should say that i have my own interesting little conspiracy theory on this so in james chyanin's new detective comics in the fight with the colony tim drake is assumed dead when he gets blown up but he wasn't really dead because mr aus ak a jorrell or possibly dr man hadn't took him away from that and brought him to their like interdimensional prison and while there jorrell is like you know oh tell me tell me your story tim drake you know we are we are like you and i we are both you know men of science brainy men who you know are forever slaves to forces we can't fully understand and tim tells him his story and it's it's his original story it's not his new 52 one it's his new one in my conspiracy theory so put your tin foil hats on for this the general has tim drakes costume that was left behind after the explosion but in the other dimension talking to mr aus he's fully clothed tim drake yeah did they kill new 52 tim drake and then dr manhattan just grabbed old tim drake from time and this is going to be like this is this is a tynan's mic drop moment like in a couple volumes where it's like you're not even the original tim drake of the new 52 you're this other guy that'd be cool it'd be well my guess is it's probably some kind of combination there are words like you know the pre-flashpoint and the new 52 tim drake emerged by dr manhattan during that time like in that moment and so like his his his crappy costume was left behind maybe like yes it was i don't know but i'm happy to see that original origins back i loved it um he also mentioned uh that the worst retcon is one more day we will get into that in the future and so that's a whole episode in of itself and superluigi act says i feel like every retcon with wednesday is bad i agree with you pretty much every retcon yeah every time they go back to wednesday so with the notable exception of spider-man blue yes is terrible and we'll get into it in the next episode uh so joe what do you got uh hey so here's another good one uh flash of two worlds that basically brought in the multiple earth theory in general to dc comics saying like hey all those like old golden age heroes you remember they're not dead they're not gone they exist on a whole other earth yeah the idea is basically the multiverse theory yeah was a great idea and it allowed the golden age readers to to keep their comics to be like no no that those stories happened and here they are and maybe we'll bring them back too and indeed they did it keeps you what we're saying that good retcons are also a little bit of fan service as well oh big time like if you can avoid it i guess like you should but at the same time like sometimes like some retcons are done to clean house other retcons are done for some bullshit agenda but sometimes we just retcon stuff just to fix them or to have fun or to tell you something you wanted in the first place mhm um you know in the on the flip side of the winter soldier we got to talk about that other that other character who no one would dare bring back that came back as a mercenary who's like also kind of a bad guy yes Jason Todd yes who his retcon resurrection story was probably the best story they told with him and then it's all kind of been a rollercoaster but mostly downhill sense yeah uh i liked under the red hood and me too but i like the idea of a dead robin from hubris on both sides of that man and robin oh yeah they did it again when they killed danean for a little bit only to bring him back yeah and grandd Morrison wanted him to die that's another he did he really did he really did and i also would argue it's good because yeah get super sons out of it indeed yeah i mean danean has really redeemed himself in the last couple years yes but what's funny is like deep down inside if he turns out to be death strokes real son and they either kill him or make him go away no one would be happier than me really because you love super sons so much i do but i wonder how many how much mileage you can get out of it nah i think they think we do not right so far yeah it's good it's good like don't get me wrong but my problem is i don't like damean as a concept right where you could come to my house and give me free candy but it was still i'd be like i fundamentally don't like you though you undermine batman and the bat family damean would never give you free candy yeah it'd be great i mean he would spin in it and call me an asshole and like i just had me but uh at the end of the day like you know i get the damean character and nobody made him better than tamasi he really did but that man puts so much work in he really does i got to talk to him about it if all to work on it i was like hey man i hate damean but nice job and he's like that's what i do it really really is his calling isn't it he's like that's what i do he goes you know what the reality is like i know i succeeded because i know people hate damean and if they like what i did then it worked and i'm like he did work some magic like it's hard to believe for comic fans who only got in recently and only know damean is a fixture people were so resentful of him when grant more sin first invented him and brought him in it took years for people to calm down about it and even warm up to him in some regards yeah i've never i never warmed up to it entirely but uh but i'll take what i can get if there's one thing that a comic book reader should always understand it's the futility of tilting at windmills it's like knowing that blogging tweeting yelling writing letters sending waffles nothing will fix your problem the only thing that will bring back what you like is either you or someone like you becoming the editor of that book it's true it really is that's why whatever people that's why when people are like oh you know gracens a spy spider-man is doctor octopus this is the worst thing that's ever happened and it will never change it's going to change i'll give it give it six months give it nine months it'll be all give everything you don't like six months because the status quo is always returned to a comic there's a couple things that have lasted a lot longer than six months that people are really unhappy about um but i get what you're saying and you're totally not wrong mouve shalli jumps back into the super chances what about flash rebirth and return to berry allen another excellent retcon it is you're right it is a good retcon i i don't know if i like you like green lantern more than the flash rebirth is what you're saying i think that green lantern rebirth is better is a better retcon i think flash rebirth is a great retcon i like the idea of legacy in the universe i think dc does it better than marvel and so as such i'm like when you don't honor that legacy or you undermine it by bringing back the old guard it does something to the legacy and it kind of like it it betrays the cracks in it's a bit of a step back to where it's like hey you know how walli has been the de facto flash for all these years to a whole generation to my generation i know he was the only flash walli was was the only flash i ever knew and then to be like hey but here's berry back though and you know he's gonna slowly but surely start edging on in there and edging on in there that's the thing like and it's not even like can you imagine because i know you all can but the idea that let's say like you're a reader and like you're reading this thing and you're really enjoying it you got this character that you jumped in on boom it's flash he's been flashed forever i really like this flash guy he's got a crazy rogues gallery he never believes he could fit into the boots of his predecessor whole shit what what path it was this character but you know what time and time again he proves not only is he is he as good but maybe he's a little better than his predecessor and occasionally they'll do time travel stories where he like where his predecessor's like hey you're doing a great job walli like keep it up you're honoring the legacy like i knew you could do it that kind of thing and then someone 30 years older than you says i don't like that and then just takes it away from you and brings things back to the way they were 30 years ago i wanted to bring it back to the way it was when i was a boy right um it it's understandably like a kick in the face and a little bit it's why you know like i'm always careful about bitching about the marriage because like the spider marriage has been gone for 10 years yeah now that said i don't think they've ever done anything worthwhile that makes it justify like killing berry was cool because there was a while there was a while he was waiting in the wings he had an arc he goes through this experience it's a lot of changes and a lot of like story driven stuff making the spider marriage go away was an agenda that then allowed for nothing new or interesting or valuable to be like oh carly cooper or is a character that they got rid of and nobody cared yeah oh but there's that he's sleeping on mockingbirds couch isn't that something to and they're together but maybe not but who knows i remember that time when he was friends with benefits with the with black cat like oh yeah none of this is fun or interesting nor does it justify a hardcore retcon like i i liked and marie she was my favorite spider-man romance and he wasn't even in the driver seat at that point it was doc okay i thought there would be something with that where they're like you know where where he actually goes you know what i'm gonna date you and if doc got from beyond the grave you're like i hate you so much all of my hate that would be amazing and before i forget don't worry Brian i didn't forget about you but thank you very much for the double super chat batman beyond justice league retcon of batman being terry's father good i i don't think the show needed it at that point but i'm fine with them doing it for the last episode where it's like look this may be the last words that we ever ever write on these characters so you know it's i think it works number one because in the show number two because like we never really did anything with the terry dad anyway you know like he dies and terry avengers him and that's cool but we never do anything with that and it's it's almost like they waited too long because bruce wane is like a hundred and twelve years old and it's like you know at that point is he really even your father or is it just like a decrepit old man that helped you that like told you how to punch you know like i think it was more important if they're like no the seed of wane shall continue it does not die with bruce yeah no it didn't it has it's two people it's terry obviously his brother because both parents are gingers but not the case see i i would have loved to have known that story when terry found out he had to go to his little brother and be like hey man dad wasn't actually our dad man you're actually a wane yeah you're robin now you i guess you'll be the robin of the far future or maybe when i die you can be like the batman of space yeah that'd be cool hey worth worth investigating certainly thank you Brian for your question uh crescend metsden says just want some love go live more Joel i thank you i should i became a twitch partner and then i started just recording my let's plays like a two in the morning so like who was up at two in the morning if i go live fair um another interesting retcon i only talk about it for a second was uh okay so when when when when swam thing was a thing yeah everybody has a secret identity what swam things was Alex was Alec Polland yep and then Alan Moore's like no he thought he was Alec Holland because he like melted into him that guy's dead he just thought he was yes one thing is an entity unto itself yeah here's a big pile of roots and mud i i think that's not only cool but so in keeping with the the story that Alan Moore wrote with with respect to swam thing like everything about that book is just like a and a gut punch and a like and and a mind fucking of itself so it's totally like totally works and it's not betraying the holland legacy at all you know and holland even gets to make some comebacks like people forget Scott Snyder wrote a sizable chunk of swamp thing stories for the new 52 that were actually pretty solid and actually did give holland something to do yeah before we forget will i am golden in the superchitz ace the bat hound yeah they write kind of a number of times i remember like sometimes he's like sometimes he's like a German Shepherd or a basset hound or like whatever that dog was in the bat ambion show um sometimes we're probably a batman other times he's just the dog that lives there like there's a lot of retconning especially with the superpats i think like what's tricky the supercat turns out to be super girls yes like comment the super horse was like actually super girl or something like there's a lot of shit with the superpets um here's a retcon that i'm just gonna toss out there i'm gonna let you take two um spoons killer oh yes this is a fun one and this is great because we get to talk outside marvel in d.c it used to be chapel but then it couldn't be chapel anymore because Rob Liefell don't chapel and that's the problem when you own a publishing company that's interconnected continuity and everyone owns their own characters and one of those characters is intrinsically tied with the number one flagship character is owned by rott lifeld who is a petulipet little boy in that during that time yep we will just pick up his toys and go and go and every time you mention chapel he needs like a check for like $25 like fuck that so then they made priest you know because like chapel and priest and like it's next to him and like pew or like a petal but you know pew is confessional because they shoot things but like all i could think of and i didn't have a meme for it back then but now i do which is stop trying to make priest happen it's not gonna happen i remember that priest retcon look so the idea was that chapel this member of young blood turns out when he was back uh during his workdays murder al simmons he goes to alley become spawn then al simmons comes back he's fallen he says i remember one thing is that chapel killed my ass he goes kidnapped chapel burns his face makes him look like chapel all the time and then chapel tries to kill himself to get spawn powers it's fucking amazing it's a whole thing but uh and most of it is attacking the spawn animated series oh yeah big time i don't know how they think how they made that work yeah for real but uh when they made the day they made this the shift they were also making the spawn movie and in the spawn movie they just went ahead and made it priest and i think it's some actors that i've seen a million times yeah yeah but it doesn't matter the point is and win was there too for the murder oh yeah win well yeah and he was there and it sucked and that whole movie is pile of shit except the michael j white is really good it's really good it's really good um we should do a commentary track on the spawn movie sometime you know we should just call michael j white and be like dude you want to sit on him with us and just talk about it tell us all the stories what was john like was almost like in real life hey we should get you on like was almost do i don't think he's doing it's gonna be a motherfucker actually ate the maggots it was he was at new york comicon promoting his new comic uh well i never got to go to a comic con for you guys i wanted to i was gonna hunt like was on but dude i love your one man shows right he'd be like thanks did you go yeah no but i watched the money to go back in the day okay that's fine yeah never good so yeah take take two of them yeah really no no you like you can give us one oh i mean i feel like we already talked about captain america let's keep with the marvel one uh the many retcons to the hobgoblin and how it was meant to be ned leads and it wasn't ned leads it was always supposed to be roger kingsley and uh yeah it was supposed to roger roger kingsley and then he got and then uh the original author got kicked off the book or left and they went eh and they made it ned leads posthumously by the way because leads was killed in a single issue of spider-man versus wolverine so they retconned that they actually retconned that ned leads is the hobgoblin then they made it jason macandale then finally roger stern came back and then he made the hobgoblin lives book which retconned saying that it was always kingsley uh the hobgoblin shift was always weird to me i don't know why they didn't just make it kingsley the whole time like yeah what was the point of cutting out uh a stern story like it must have been for spite so it must have been bizarre and now we get this wonderful twisted web of people who were hobgoblins but it does set the precedent though that other writers would use what's like this is this is kind of an identity that no one wants this kind of an identity that gets ping pong back and forth to everyone to even where roger kingsley himself becomes an identity broker selling identities to d-list criminals yeah pretty decent concept for that character especially since like kingsley's old and like shouldn't be jumping into a hobgoblin costume and flying around and shit like it makes sense that he's like a broker of of of powers identities hey hey you're a kid you want you want some of this you want to hop up in here yeah you want to be hobgoblin one of a flaming sword and bat wings how's that sound yeah that was dumb that was the thing that happened i remember i read it and that kingsley was also or not kingsley but that that uric was also one of the green goblins but he was like the one green goblin that tried to be good yes he was the good green goblin he had his own solo series he actually not only did he have a solo series but he like phil uric also had a role in the spider girl series by tom defactiolo we're like an uncle phil an uncle phil like occasionally would help around because like that's sonic or that goblin scream never goes away no so yeah but then eventually uh slots like fuck it kill that guy did you see dader was he just depowered no i thought he killed him no but he became the goblin knight and then he became the goblin king once osmorm was defeated again at the end of the year i'm pretty sure he's still running around as the goblin king but i could be wrong well fair enough i remember being murdered but oh well doesn't matter there was a great christos gauge one shot where benyric actually went to confront his nephew and they actually uh stated a lot of precedent for the weird history these two characters have had with one another that's cool because yeah like benyric and phil uric have uh have their own demons and uh skeletons in the closet and it's worth seeing them cross over because you never really get to see that that it's true it was good thanks right he's good by the way he's just he's an unsung hero he really works hard and he never gets the credit he deserves getting arse with lobster in the super chat says haven't able to be here a while but i bet i'm catching the end of the shell aren't i you're god like 10 minutes before the end so hey thank you so much for joining us man thank you super chat red sam right also hey guys dani was actually created in 1993 in the story son of the demon that's until i get married she fakes her son's death and then the characters reappear and can come to the doll that's morrison's retcon yes we're aware of the history of daniin yes slash the son of the demon which is technically outside continuity and didn't actually count and so as such nobody really regarded it and then morrison said no no there's no such thing as outside continuity and so he folded it in yeah he wanted to establish his own version of that character and also he changed it as well because in the son of the demon she gives live birth and in borsons run he's a test-to-baby so you know there's a lot going on it's continuity until it's not exactly also victor vendetta just helping us out the super chat thanks man shout out to try to think of some other continuity some solid continuity changes that i really enjoy there's the multiple captain america's when it's like no he actually died in world war two and then there was other guys who filled the identity of cap and bucky i like the idea of the u.s government going like he's he's dead did anybody know who he was no shit we'll just put somebody else in the costume and send him out damn we're bad at this super soldier serum fuck it who cares whatever he'll be a figurehead another good one uh Leslie tomkins didn't kill Stephanie Brown yes originally uh yeah originally Stephanie Brown was killed in war games in war games that's right and uh and then they were like now we just uh because it ruined the Leslie Thompson's talk to kenkin's character it did for a while she was like oh this is this is my big thing against you babbin you can't uh what is it inducted kids into your war on crimes i just let this girl die what yeah what and then it was like no just disappeared her yeah i'm not a murderer fine i mean good you know what that is a good retcon because sometimes the good retcons aren't just like oh i found this little like loophole in continuity i'm gonna do this no sometimes they go like that guy fucked up yeah we got to fix that i got to fix that shit um by the way uh proto fiend said what about all the ghost writer origin retcons oh yeah i don't think we have time for all the ghost writer retcons do starlord origin retcons that's another show horrible origin retcons in general are rough if they're not a flagship character the dollars are known as they changed up moonlight for god's sake he didn't always used to have multiple personalities he was just a dude who made fake names to keep the paper trail that kept the distance between himself and moonlight even longer and then they're like nah it isn't weird that i would do that like let's make it a mental illness um but i do hear you the ghost writer origins i mean just in terms of danny ketch being ghost writer and then being like oh no that's not zerithos and then then being like oh no actually you're an angel and then like just yeah ghost writer in a self-complicated in a mess which makes me sad because of how much ghost writer there could be and how much ghost writers they've made over the past like two years the last guy was on television he had a sweet ass car he was getting a lot of ground swell he got one last miniseries and now they don't even mention them anymore yeah no well hey robbie ray has appeared in the frickin marvel legacy number one he was like one of the characters of that book shockingly and then we still didn't see him again champions you're recruiting people this week why didn't you go recruit him he really should be on that scene there's no really really should be uh getting our to the last recess and how about that fire star rumor for homecoming too i'm down i heard that myself uh the idea basically that they were like hey you know what let's make liz alan it's a fire store or a fire star like in the ultimate universe and also like in spider-man and his amazing friends would that be fun to since now that disney could potentially make newton's and stuff wouldn't have become yeah um yeah that'd be fine i'd be fine with it i'm cool with that uh i've heard that they're introducing a femme fatale in the new homecoming too which i'm going to be calling spider-man to because there's no more homecomings good we could if i say spider-man two is coming out in the next two two years no one's gonna go they're releasing spider-man two yeah really it's going to spider-man two what's after homecoming i don't know the united states and yeah spider-man prom doesn't work near as well prom night oh okay spider-man prom night and then you make it on a black cat and it's like all about you know like metaphorically losing your virginity because like i don't know one day yeah i mean if you call it prom night two will people think oh wow spider-man crossing over with that slash or horror franchise prom night fine by me um i think spider-man would have dealt with that pretty quickly if he was there oh knife-building lunatic i got this of a one one well placed web the end man that was short tannas and marshall reminded me of this one which is mother maggie and original sin oh yeah yeah the better retons they did probably the best one that is clearly the best one from original sin there was that and then uh Thor and lokier like oh angel is actually our sister we remember that now and then they did nothing with it unless do nothing with that we how i hope you got your money's worth you know what yeah 1602 which hunter angel is an amazing series go back pick it up they're probably 50 cents in dollar bin so you can grab it probably that was my very Bennett right right in the room and i'm ready yeah and Stephanie hans check it's good shit good shit yep best stuff with angel is since niel game and rotor and uh you know no spawn just to be to be to be heard um if you're not familiar with with the retcon i'll really quick uh it looks like to dair devil it turns out that batlin jack mordock is father whom he idolizes a wife beater yes then it turns out that mother maggie had uh or had post-part depression and tried to kill mat and batlin jack protected him from her yes which explains now forever hey how come dair devil's mom is more active in his life what the fuck's up with that why did she like bailage when i'm honest every that's why yeah that's why i'm like awesome excellent answer thank you mark way that was also from the mark way broden holy shit mark way we don't fucking do we'll pull that hat trick yeah that's good shit indigo ryan says how about that new 52 rebirth wallie west retcon still the character though yeah the new 52 wallie west uh and then then being like oh only like a tenth of you accepted him here's the original wallie west but he's still not flash unless flash war does something cool yeah he's he's a cousin but from the other side of the family and they were both named from the same uncle and that's why we have two wallies which is also pretty clever yeah to justify the two name thing at the very least they didn't like feel ashamed to do that no and like because they would have been it would have been so easy for them to do something really dumb like kill him or merge them or something like that and instead like no no well like new 52 wallies got enough in audience here he is also he's on tv right now so we'd feel really bad if we took this new young black character and just winked him out of existence yeah a week i completely agree it would be any other before we wrap up here today Joel oh man i think i saved one of the best ones for last now we talked about how wolverine and jean graze origins are fractal spreadsheet nightmares of retcons and reinvisionings and everything else what about hawkmann and hawkmom and oh yes hawkmann hawkmom or hawkmom and or hawkmom good lord in heaven if you want to just look just to see the the visual example of that look up zero hour oh yeah because there's a moment where like all the hawkmann and all their perspective versions of themselves are all in a row and they're going to do something and then they merge them all together into one hawkmann which they keep doing it's like there's too many different versions of hawkmann they're all hawkmann they're all hawkmann doesn't make any goddamn sense some of them are a dude from the justice side from the earth some of them are aliens other alien space cops yeah some of them are like crossbred alien human hybrids they're also like youtube chris and chris and chris and chris and chris and chris and chris and chris and chris and chris fucking what like which a big up to them for saying that what's like man this guy's origin is really confusing what do we say it all happened it all happened it all happened and i like the complicated it even gets complicated in the justice league cartoon yes they're like okay so the sanogarians they come from space they look like people but they're hawkm people then they have the audacity to bring in carter hall and they're like no he is hawkmann and he wears a costume he wears a costume and he's reincarnated and like what and so is shaya and so is john steward for that matter yeah what and here's the one hawkmann villain you know shadow thief and they fight shadow thief for an episode why is carter hall reincarnated as a hawkmann when there are alien hawkmann was he was he an original hawkmann alien and he like got reincarnated as a person if that's the case do all fanagarians get reincarnated as people i say no i think according to tim and deanie they were just like you know what this was our last season we wanted to cover all our bases and do everything we hadn't done yet so fuck it here's carter hall because they had a hawkmann in the previous season who was like you know the one leading the fanagarian armies against earth and they apparently caught a lot of flack that they're like look it's a hawkmann but not the hawkmann who is in a relationship with shaya but you know it's not carter hall no and i guess if you were to say that like i'm not even gonna bother hawkmann is a cluster fuck and he always will be even even as far as dark knight's metal when he's a big central part of this they're like no no we're gonna own the fucked up nature of him is what we're gonna do yeah no he is also the great he's also the grandfather of dream yes he's also like the weapon of barbatos and and and all the other stuff he's also been waging a one man war against barbatos and the metal and that's why you didn't see him for such long periods of time because he was working on the real shit hashtag what what a mess what i meant to say but i love it though it's probably one of my favorite messes why i can't ever get into it i will never do it like i'm like no i'm not gonna learn all that shit like oh and so it's a what about war hawkm yeah that's right the sun that shaya and uh green lantern have in the future in the batman beyond universe that's a red tongue of itself because like clearly he's not the son of john store that was not the plan when they created in batman beyond and then they were like oh wait no let's make it that it was they even say on the commentary they're like yeah i know we can't have implied hawkmann but you know we like to imagine that shaya and john got together later in life but that was their thing yeah fine i mean like listen i like that because i like that relationship whatever and war hawks got a cool fucking costume he does have a cool costume but uh there you have it so thank you guys so much for joining us those are some of the best retcons and comics that we felt to bring up uh hey what about sentry before we got to mention sentry really quick great retcon it's too bad that he like was really wasted um i hear the for years phenomenal stuff with him in donny case and stuff so i got to pick that up and i apparently got to pick up thanos too because it's like hey all this big cosmic stuff happening in infinity you got to read these yeah uh read dr strange it's all say um but yeah i agree with that there's a lot there's a lot we missed we didn't get a chance to talk to all talk about all of them but uh let us know your favorite retcon in the comments down below and we'll see you guys next week on all the web episode of course we'll do a sister chef episode of this show uh where we'll do uh the worst retcon first that'll come up later i don't know if it'll be next week but probably in the near future yeah we'll give it a round but uh thanks a lot for hanging out with everybody we'll see you guys next week with another episode on sal i'm sure i'm sure

No similar episodes found.

No similar podcasts found.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is this episode of Elseworlds Exchange?

This episode is 56 minutes long.

When was this Elseworlds Exchange episode published?

This episode was published on January 24, 2018.

Is there a transcript available for this episode?

Yes, a full transcript is available for this episode. You can read the complete transcript on the episode page.

Can I download this Elseworlds Exchange episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.
URL copied to clipboard!