The Official Stupid Question Thread: Marvel Edition - Part 5

[Mulholland-Jr]

How many/ what Marvel characters have been ruined by a retcon? Not talking nitpicky stuff, I'm talking the big ones.

 

[Havok83]

Is Match from New X-men always "flamed on"? Does he have a normal form and if not, how does he not burn everything he touches?

How many/ what Marvel characters have been ruined by a retcon? Not talking nitpicky stuff, I'm talking the big ones.

there is no definitive answer as this is a matter of opinion. But to add one, Id say Profesor Xavier. Its been one dark secret after the other for the past decade or so. Its hard to view him the same way and the characters werent even treating him the same when he was around

 

[chamber-music]

Feeling a character has been ruined by a retcon is subjective.

The “Sins Past” storyline by J. Michael Straczynski revealed that Gwen had an affair with Osborn and that he had impregnated her. She was “drawn to his magnetism” and the pregnancy was why she suddenly left for Europe where she gave birth. Gwen refusing to let Osborn have the children was his main motivation for eliminating her.

Straczynski himself has indicated there was a large amount of editorial influence and feel many fans feel the story tarnished the legacy of Gwen Stacy.

 

[KevanG]

Overall, they've done a bunch of things to 'ruin' characters with retcons. They resurrected Aunt May after a really well done death where she knew about Peter being Spider-man, they talked and she died at peace with him and everything. Turns out that was a paid actress who got surgery to look like May, copied her every action, blahblahblah.

Then they had Norman Osborn back for the Clone Saga after being dead for 25+ years. Turns out he was behind it all despite being dead. Although we did later get the time he basically ran the entire MU while being an obvious total crazy pants maniac who was a well known and publicly charged murderer which was pretty good. From the Clone Sage we got the whole Gwen Stacy had his kids thing.

Then we got One More Day/Brand New Day (this **** happens to Peter a lot doesn't it?

Now for other people, like was mentioned about Prof X getting a bunch of kids killed then mind wiping everyone about it, including the fact that Cyclops (who was pretty much his son in all but blood) and Havok had a brother that was killed. Although the 60's Prof X was a total ass, mind wiping everyone just because so I don't see why anyone was surprised.

There's Wolverines past which has done nothing but have him spend the entire time since House of X running around and getting attacked/assassinated/mugged by every single person in the MU because of something he did way back when. There's been ass pulls like he has twelve million kids that they had attack him because he never cared about getting women pregnant and just leaving. He murdered them all. Then there's the entire thing with Romulus and him being in charge of Every. Single. Thing. Ever. In Wolverines life.

I can't think for anything else right now. Give me time. Those things gave me a headache.

 

[Havok83]

Overall, they've done a bunch of things to 'ruin' characters with retcons. They resurrected Aunt May after a really well done death where she knew about Peter being Spider-man, they talked and she died at peace with him and everything. Turns out that was a paid actress who got surgery to look like May, copied her every action, blahblahblah.

WTH? Thats really how they got around that? Why would some actress impersonate her and why did she look like May?

 

[KevanG]

Cause of the Osborn family.

Again.

He found her again a few years later and she's all like 'Oh that horrible Spider-man' and he's like WTF?

 

[Mike Murdock]

WTH? Thats really how they got around that? Why would some actress impersonate her and why did she look like May?

IIRC, it was orchestrated by Norman Osborne who wasn't really dead either and it was apparently to ruin Peter's life.

I suspect there are good stories between the time the clone saga went off the rails (the beginning?) and when JMS took over, but it seems to be the exception.

 

[KevanG]

Basically, you can attribute 90% of Peters issues to him not killing Osborn, leaving him to die or just letting someone else do it.

Say what you want about the Authority but when they stop their enemies, they don't come back.

 

[WolfCypher]

Does anyone count the most "recent" retcon? The status quos of Wanda, Pietro, and Magneto?

 

[KevanG]

I haven't even looked at that, therefore I'm ignoring it.

But them being Inhumans makes no sense in any way.

 

[chamber-music]

I will add Luke Cage to the terrible Retcon list.

(Carl Lucas) Luke Cage was a young teenage fist fighting wannabe gangster who formed a gang with his friends and did some petty low level crime which he eventually turned his back on after realizing the effect it was having on his family.

For some reason wasn't gritty enough so a few other writers have been adding more stories of violent criminal acts to his past including Cage unwittingly helping his best friend Willis Stryker stab a Diablo gang member and Cage joining a gang of bank robbers when he escaped from prison. One of the bank robbers shot a security guard who Cage spent the rest of his life sending money to.

Cage had reformed long before he was framed and sent to prison so him joining a gang of bank robbers flies in the face of what the character was about.

Cage would not of stayed friends with Stryker after he attempted to murder someone. Even as a teenage gang member he was shown to have a code of ethics.

 

[Havok83]

Does anyone count the most "recent" retcon? The status quos of Wanda, Pietro, and Magneto?

It hasnt played out yet so one cant say its ruined the characters

Id add Madelyne Pryor to the list. Retconning her into a Jean Grey clone ruined her like no other character. She was effectively removed and her memories and life were given to Jean. I was not a fan of hers, but I can imagine those that did enjoy her being pissed off by that

 

[KevanG]

I liked Maddie. She basically told Scott to go **** off and leave if wanted to go run off after he dead girlfriend. She regretted it afterwards but still. The whole Sinister/clone thing was an asspull but it did lead to Inferno which was all sorts of screwed up (in a good way). Those crossover issues where no one knew what the **** was happening were pretty awesome. I especially like the Daredevil ones since he was in one of his deep funks where everything sucked and he just went around helping everyone and beating down demons without thinking. It was awesome.

 

[CaptainWagner]

Cause of the Osborn family.

Again.

He found her again a few years later and she's all like 'Oh that horrible Spider-man' and he's like WTF?

And that's exactly how the readers felt, too.


Why is it that Marvel seems to have some written-in-stone bylaw that Aunt May can't die and stay dead?

 

[chamber-music]

I'm still on the fence over the third summers brother thing. I still don't know if I liked Vulcan but at least he wasn't Adam X.

 

[DawnWarrior]

While we're on the subject of RetCons, I'm wondering about the whole Heroes Reborn business in the mid-90's. I recently learned that it didn't quite go down as planned, and that the ending where (long story short) Franklin Richards uses his powers to bring all the heroes back home was a way to wrap the whole thing up quickly after poor sales, or something. Also there was something about making the new, modern-day HR origins of the heroes into the new official 616 origins, but those plans were sunk. What was the original plan for that?

 

[WolfCypher]

And that's exactly how the readers felt, too.


Why is it that Marvel seems to have some written-in-stone bylaw that Aunt May can't die and stay dead?

I dunno. Same mandate that says Spider-Man can't be married or he'll ruin the franchise?

And to continue the ruined retcon, Falcon was retconned origin-wise to being another stereotypical street-tough/drug pusher/inner city minority/pimp character. That may not have ruined him, but it sounds like an unnecessary changed that had to have pissed people off.

Personally, retconning Eddie Brock's original motivations pissed me off.

And now there's the retconned Symbiote origin. Irrelevant if you guys hate these characters. But it's all dumb to me.

 

[KevanG]

What did they do to the symbiote now?

Originally it was just an alien that liked Pete and wanted to be with him. Pete freaked the **** out, got it blasted off of him and forgot about it at the FFs place. I did like how they had it over the years that it just wanted to get back with him and hated him for being spurned.

I was going to post the Falcon one but I honestly couldn't remember if they retconned him since the 90's or earlier so I left it out.

 

[WolfCypher]

Read the current GotG book by Bendis (or don't, I'm still going to get into it)...cause for no goddamn reason, Agent Venom is on that team. And in the several issues since he joined, he's bought guns on the black market, got captured by Skrulls, and was literally forgotten about by the rest of the Guardians for several issues when he got separated from them. Buying guns was the most interesting thing he's done since being forced into this book.

Anyway, in the most recent and abysmal "Planet Venom" arc, the GotG go to the Symbiote Homeworld...also, symbiotes are actually called Klyntars, btw...where we discover that apparently Symbiotes aren't evil and have never, ever been evil. They're life-giving, nature-loving aliens that want to spread peace throughout the galaxy and aren't hostile parasites that bond with organisms to survive.

Except...ya know..they are hostile parasites that leech people and use other organisms to survive. They may not be evil, but in the same way any other tick or tapeworm or virus or "The Last of Us" zombie fungus harms other organisms, symbiotes have always been dangerous. Not peaceful. Not with any intent to help.

And supposedly the only reason the Venom symbiote is "evil" is because its been corrupted by the psychotic/"evil" natures of previous hosts, like Eddie Brock, Mac Gargan, or its first long-term host, the psychotic & "evil" Peter Parker.

They aren't dangerous organisms. They just want to bring you love.

 

[Mulholland-Jr]

What about the Phoenix Force? Wasn't it only suppose to be bonded with psychics before AvsX or is that just a fallacy?

Id add Madelyne Pryor to the list. Retconning her into a Jean Grey clone ruined her like no other character. She was effectively removed and her memories and life were given to Jean. I was not a fan of hers, but I can imagine those that did enjoy her being pissed off by that

Yeah. Most of the classic X-Men characters are ruined. At least Storm's not with BP anymore, but the damage has been done.

 

[Havok83]

What about the Phoenix Force? Wasn't it only suppose to be bonded with psychics before AvsX or is that just a fallacy?

Yes and only telepaths of the highest order could contain. It briefly bonded with Emma in Endsong, but she wasnt powerful enough for it. It ending up with Cyclops, Namor, Collossus and Magik of all people was a big WTH

 

[KevanG]

AvX was one big retcon with every single person being retconned as a complete and total idiot in the MU. Anyone who had a good idea immediately forgot it in favor of punching. Punching, smashing, hitting and yelling were all retconned as valid ways of communication. Explosions were used to emphasize their points.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

Is Match from New X-men always "flamed on"? Does he have a normal form and if not, how does he not burn everything he touches?

Yeah, Match is always on. But it looks like the flame doesn't affect people unless he's trying to harm them.

 

[KevanG]

Stupid magic mutant powers not obeying the laws of physics.

 

[Colossal Spoons]

The nerve!