The Dreaded Retcon

The term retcon is used in most media communities, but it really has a life of its own within the comic community. A retcon, short for retroactive continuity, is a new situation that is presented to erase or change past canon events. Retcons are a dime a dozen in the comic book community, but there are still a handful of bad ones that people will be angry over forever. Retcons can happen for any number of reasons, both bad and good. It could be that in order for the current story to continue, the past has to be edited so that it makes sense. It could be that there was something that happened in older comics that was extremely controversial or in poor taste, so they went in and created a story to retcon those scenes.

Photo Credit Marvel Comics

Here is an example of a retcon that always surprises people. Did you know that Captain America being frozen in the ice for a number of years was not the original story? After WWII ended, Captain America found himself without a nemesis. For years the stories written for him had been fairly straightforward; punch the Nazi. After the war, the writers tried to find a new enemy and that's when they decided on incorporating the resurgence of the Red Scare. So Captain America became the "Commie Smasher", and with that came many racist moments as well as just overall themes that were in very poor taste. 

It wasn't long before the writers looked at the series and realized their mistake. So they brought in the handy dandy retcon and fixed the problem. That wasn't actually Captain America, that was just a bad guy pretending to be Captain America, of course. Where was the real Captain America during all of this? Was he dead? Of course not, he and his trusty sidekick Bucky were frozen solid, in a state of suspended animation, and had been since the war. So everything that happened in the last 20 years? Not Captain America.

Some retcons are huge and game-changing, and others are simple and nearly unnoticeable if you're not a huge fan. If you're just starting out, you don't have to know what details have been retconned right away. It just helps to know that it happens and that some details you're reading may be changed in future issues of the comic stories.

If you're interested in finding out more about the Captain America retcon you can find a link here to a great article by BookRiot going into detail about the stories. 

If you're curious about other big retcons in comics, Ranker has a vote for the biggest retcons going and I think they're all pretty good. You can find that list here.