DC Comics and retcons have gone hand in hand for decades. In the olden days of superhero comics, there was very little actual continuity, and creators contradicted each others at times. Eventually, the need for continuity would come about, and creators would start retconning the past of various characters, all to make the world they were building make sense. There were big things, like putting all of the Golden Age heroes on their own Earth, to smaller things, like changing aspects of character’s origins. Retcons would go into full effect as the Bronze Age went on, especially with the widescale reboots that were brought on by DC books like Crisis on Infinite Earths. This led to many characters being retconned from the ground up, their established histories becoming some very different from the printed stories that fans had read for decades.
Some retcons have definitely make DC a lot worse, like in the case of characters like Hawkman and the Legion of Superheroes, where various retcons made the characters very unpopular. However, there are other cases where retcons were some of the best things that could happen to a character. There’s a reason why retcons have become such a huge part of DC history, and it goes beyond just the age of the universe. These seven DC retcons have made things better than they were, leading characters in bold new directions.
7) Changing Jason Todd’s Origin
So, Jason Todd’s pre-Crisis origin was way different than his post-Crisis one. Todd’s original origin was basically the same as Dick Grayson’s, and it’s kind of hilarious. He was the son of circus acrobats Joe and Trina Todd, who were inspired by the Flying Graysons, and also got enmeshed in circus/criminals shenanigans that would lead to Batman taking in young Jason Todd, and making him Robin. There was a reason that pre-Crisis Jason Todd is considered just a slightly different character from Dick Grayson. DC decided to change Jason Todd’s origin in the post-Crisis DC Universe, with Todd abandoned on the streets, stealing the wheels of the Batmobile, and getting involved in Batman’s life. This was a way better origin for the character. It gave creators a way to show that Todd was different from Grayson in many ways, including temperament, and allowed him to become his own character. Can you imagine if DC had kept the original origin of Jason Todd? The character would be even more of a joke than he sometimes already is.
6) Alan Scott Coming Out of the Closet
Alan Scott first appeared way back in All-American Comics #16 in 1940 and soon graduated to his own solo book. He’d fade away with the rest of the Justice Society in the ’50s but would return in the Silver Age comics, when it was revealed that the Justice Society was from Earth-Two. Alan Scott was one of the big guns of the Justice Society, and would stay that way through the continuity altering shenanigans of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, and Infinite Crisis. However, Flashpoint and the dawn of the New 52 would bring about the biggest change to the heroes of the Justice Society. They were shunted to the Earth-2 of the new multiverse, and Scott would premiere in the new universe as a gay television executive who would gain the power of the Green as Green Lantern. Eventually, this version of the Justice Society would be changed back to one that was more like the classic version of the team, but one thing that stayed was Alan’s homosexuality. This has made the character much better, making his history much more interesting. Him as a closeted superhero helps make a lot of things about the character make more sense.
5) Black Canary I and Black Canary II
Black Canary first appeared in 1947’s Flash Comics #86, joining the Justice Society of America a few years before they’d fade away. She was brought back in the Justice League/Justice Society multiversal crossovers of the Silver Age, and would eventually be brought over to Earth-One, along with Red Tornado, and become a full-time member of the Justice League and Green Arrow’s girlfriend. This was fine up until Crisis on Infinite Earths and its widescale reboot. The Justice Society was shunted to the past of the Earth, meaning there was a Black Canary back then and one in the present. Either of these could have gone away — it would have been easier to get rid of Golden Age Black Canary, but they could have gotten rid of the Earth-One version as well — but instead they came up with an ingenuous little solution. The Golden Age Black Canary would still have showed up in the past and joined the team, and then would have had a daughter who she trained to become the Black Canary II. Black Canary become a legacy hero, and was placed in the Justice League back at the beginning, replacing Wonder Woman in the team’s first battle against Starro. Making a Black Canary I and a Black Canary II was a great idea, one that paid homage to her legacy as one of the original DC superheroes and the role she played in Silver/Bronze Age DC.
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4) The Return of the Silver Age Legion of Superheroes
This one is going to get a little complicated. The Legion of Superheroes were first introduced in the late ’50s, coming back in time from the 30th century and having adventures with Superboy. The teen super team became truly massive; fans loved their soap opera dynamics, and the deep lore of the team. Crisis on Infinite Earths took Superboy out of DC history, and that left the Legion with a problem that would lead to a reboot in the ’90s. This version of the Legion faded away, and was replaced in the mid ’00s by what is known as the Threeboot Legion. This would be the Legion paradigm until the blockbuster event comic Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis brought back a lot of things that Crisis took away, including the pre-Crisis adventures of Superboy and the Legion. Readers soon learned in the story “Superman and the Legion of Superheroes” that the Silver Age Legion was back as the actual Legion. This led to Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds, and a solo book starring the modern version of the team. Unfortunately, it didn’t have time to catch on before the New 52 reared its ugly head, and a fourth version of the team was born.
3) The Existence of Donna Troy
Donna Troy’s one of DC’s more complicated characters, her origin being retconned multiples times over the decades. However, most people don’t realize that Donna Troy herself is a character based on a retcon. The popularity of Superboy in the late Golden Age saw DC trying to do the same thing trying with Wonder Woman, introducing both Wonder Girl and Wonder Baby, who were younger versions of Diana. When DC created the Teen Titans, someone vaguely remembered Wonder Girl and put her into the team. The problem with that is obvious, and forced DC to create the character of Donna Troy, and paste her existence into Wonder Woman’s past through the old Wonder Girl stories. Looking at Donna Troy’s existence like that, it’s easy to see why she’s had so many problems in the years to come, vis-a-vis all of DC’s continuity reboots. Since then, retcons have become a key part of her existence, with most of the more modern ones bringing her back to the classic Donna Troy as Wonder Girl and Teen Titans founder who was raised by Amazons, and not the weird daughter of the Titans of Myth that was raised by Wonder Woman.
2) George Perez’s Wonder Woman
Crisis on Infinite Earths changed comics forever. Superman was rebooted from the ground up, and Batman was made into a more gritty version of the character, doing away with a lot of the silliness that defined the character in the late Golden Age and Silver Age. Wonder Woman was also going to get a wholesale reboot, with writer/artist George Perez taking many of the basics of the original Wonder Woman stories, and changing everything else. Perez linked Wonder Woman more explicitly to Greek mythology, made Ares her greatest enemy, and gave readers new versions of classic Wonder Woman heroes like Cheetah and Dr. Psycho. Perez also chose to begin Wonder Woman’s history as a hero in the present day, so readers got to see her win the contest and come to Man’s World. Perez took everything that worked with Wonder Woman’s history and slapped a new coat of paint on it, creating a new version of the character that fans have loved for ages. Honorable mention to Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons, which brought back Hippolyta creating Diana from clay, which had been replaced with her being the illegitimate child of Zeus. This is the superior Wonder Woman origin — George Perez also used it — and it was nice for it to be brought back in such a big way.
1) The Black Casebook
Batman in the 1950s was one of the targets of Dr. Frederick Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent. This led to the Comics Code Authority changing the rules of what could be in comics. The crime stories that had been Batman’s bread and butter were changed, and suddenly the Caped Crusader started having weird sci-fi adventures. These stories were de-canonized as the years went on, but writer Grant Morrison decided that they should exist, so they came up with the Black Casebook, where Batman wrote all of his bizarre adventures.They explained away some of his stranger adventures as hallucinations, established that the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh was a personality construct created by Batman to deal with mental attacks and not an alien, brought back the Batmen of Many Countries, and many other ideas from those olden days. Morrison found a way to canonize a variety of stories that no one ever thought would be canon again, and it added something brilliant to their Batman stories.
What are you favorite DC retcons? Sound off in the comments below.
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