Retcon
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Retroactive continuity or retcon is the adding of new information to "historical" material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. The change itself is referred to as a "retcon", and the act of writing and publishing a retcon is called "retconning". Retconning can be done either on-purpose, or accidentally, wherein a break in continuity is not noticed until later and is then blessed by later events.
Retcons are common in comic books, especially those of large publishing houses such as Marvel Comics and DC Comics, because of the lengthy history of many series and the number of independent authors contributing to their development; this is the context in which the term was coined. Retconning also occurs in soap operas, movie sequels, professional wrestling, video games, radio series, series of novels, and can be done in any other type of episodic fiction. It is also used in roleplaying, when the game master feels it is needed to maintain consistency in the story or to fix significant mistakes that were missed during play.
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[edit] Origins
The term "retroactive continuity" was popularized by comic book writer Roy Thomas in his 1980s series All-Star Squadron, which featured the DC Comics superheroes of the 1940s. The earliest known use of the term is from Thomas' letter column in All-Star Squadron #20 (April 1983), where Thomas wrote that he heard it at a convention. The term was shortened to "retcon" by Damian Cugley in 1988 on USENET to describe a development in the comic book Swamp Thing, in which Alan Moore reinterpreted the events of the title character's origin. The term "retcon" was also used by the Birmingham University Treasure Trap society as early as 1987.
[edit] Types
Although there is considerable ambiguity and overlap between different kinds of retcons, there are some distinctions that can be made between different types of retcons, depending on whether they add to, alter, or remove material from past continuity. These distinctions often evoke different reactions from fans of the material.
[edit] Addition
Some retcons do not directly contradict previously established facts, but "fill in" missing background details, usually to support current plot points. This was the sense in which Thomas used "retroactive continuity", as a purely additive process that did not "undo" any previous work, a common theme in his work on All-Star Squadron. Kurt Busiek took a similar approach with Untold Tales of Spider-Man, a series which told stories that specifically fit between issues of the original Amazing Spider-Man series, sometimes explaining discontinuities between those earlier stories. Yet another retroactive continuity book was X-Men: The Hidden Years.
Related to this is the concept of shadow history or secret history, in which the events of a story occur within the bounds of already-established events (especially real-world historical events), revealing a different interpretation of (or motivation for) the events. Some of Tim Powers novels are examples of this, such as Last Call, which suggests that Bugsy Siegel's actions were due to his being a modern-day Fisher King. Alan Moore's additional information about the Swamp Thing's origins didn't contradict or change any of the events depicted in the character's previous appearances, but changed the underlying interpretation of them. This verges on making alterations to past continuity. Such additions and reinterpretations are very common in Doctor Who novels, though they are not usually referred to as retcons by Doctor Who fans.
Additions are among the better-received types of retcons, because nothing is actually undone, and because people generally appreciate the explanation of [previously] ambiguous and/or mysterious events.
[edit] Alteration
This kind of retcon often adds information that effectively states "what you saw isn't what really happened" and then introduces a different version. This is usually interpreted by the audience as an overt change rather than a mere addition. The most common form this takes is when a character shown to have died (sometimes explicitly) is later revealed to have survived somehow. This is well known in horror films, which may end with the death of the monster, but when the film becomes successful, the studio plans a sequel, revealing that the monster survived after all. The technique has been used so frequently in superhero comics that the term comic book death has been coined for it. The first famous example in popular culture is the return of Sherlock Holmes: writer Arthur Conan Doyle killed off the popular character in an encounter with his foe Professor Moriarty, only to bring Holmes back, due in large part to audience response.[1] On the other hand, many of these situations offer plausible explanations for how the character survived, by building on what we thought we saw, in which case they can be considered additions.
Another famous example is in Star Wars. In the film, Return of the Jedi, it appears that the character Boba Fett has suffered a horrible death in the belly of the Sarlacc. However, in later in books, graphic novels, and even in a Star Wars Unleashed action figure, Boba Fett is depicted as surviving the whole ordeal by rocketing out of the pit. To date not even the various forms of media can agree on how exactly Fett escaped the pit, or whether he even escaped at all; some say that his rocket pack upset the Sarlacc's stomach so badly that it ejected him. Similarly, fans may invent unofficial explanations for inconsistencies, the challenge itself becoming a source of entertainment. It is important to note, however, that some fans do not consider events outside the movies to be Star Wars canon, and thus Fett did indeed, for all known purposes, seal his fate in the Sarlacc Pit.
It is commonplace for characters to remain the same age, or to age out of synch with real time; this can be considered an ongoing implicit retcon of their birthdate. When historical events are involved in their biography, overt retcons may be used to accommodate this; a character who served in the army during World War II might have his service record retconned to place him in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, etc. This is similar to a problem faced by many works of future history: the events they describe happening in years after the initial publication do not conform to history as it actually happens. To accommodate such discrepancies, retcons may be used in later stories, altering dates or other details.
While retconning is usually done without comment by the creators, DC Comics has on rare occasions promoted special events dedicated to revising the history of the DC Comics universe. The most important and well known such event was the mini-series Crisis on Infinite Earths; this allowed for wholesale revisions of their entire multiverse of characters. It has been argued that these were not true retcons, however, because the cause of the changes to their universe actually appeared within the story, similar to stories in which a time traveler goes to the past and changes history from how he remembered it.
[edit] Subtraction
Sometimes retconned alterations are so drastic as to render prior stories untenable. Many of the retcons introduced in Crisis on Infinite Earths and DC's later Zero Hour were specifically intended to wipe the slate clean, and permit an entirely new history to be written for the characters. This is commonly referred to as a reboot. This is often very unpopular, upsetting fans of the material that has been removed from continuity.
Unpopular or embarrassing stories are sometimes later ignored by publishers, never referred to again, and effectively erased from a series' continuity. They may publish stories that contradict the previous story or explicitly establish that it "never happened", for example by claiming that events in a previous installation were "just a dream". Likewise, an unpopular retcon may even be re-retconned away.
(See also Fanon, Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome.)
[edit] Reconciliation
Retcons and loose continuity can lead to more retcons. When the "explanation" for an inconsistency makes it into an official work, this is another retcon.
[edit] Related
Retroactive continuity is similar to, but not the same as, plot inconsistencies introduced accidentally or through lack of concern for continuity; retconning is done deliberately. For example, the ongoing continuity contradictions on episodic TV series such as The Golden Girls reflects very loose continuity, not genuine retcons. However, in series with generally tight continuity, retcons are sometimes created after the fact to explain continuity errors. Retconning is also generally distinct from replacing the actor who plays a part in an ongoing series, which is more properly an example of loose continuity (i.e. the different appearance of the character is ignored), rather than retroactively changing past continuity. An exception to this can be when the difference in appearance is explained, such as the case with "regeneration" in Doctor Who.
Retconning is also distinct from direct revision; when George Lucas re-edited the original Star Wars trilogy, he made changes directly to the source material, rather than introducing new source material that contradicted the contents of previous material. However, the later series of Star Wars prequels did qualify as "new source material", and many fans have pointed out instances that apparently retcon elements of the original trilogy.
The "clean slate" reinterpretation of characters - as in movie and television adaptations of books, or the reintroduction of many superheroes in the Silver Age of Comics - is similar to a reboot retcon, except that the previous versions are not explicitly or implicitly eliminated in the process. These are merely alternate or parallel reinterpretations.
[edit] Miscellany
In the BBC television series Torchwood, "retcon" is offhandedly mentioned as an ingredient of an amnesia pill.
[edit] See also
- List of retcons
- Back-story
- Canon
- Plot hole
- Prequel
- Reboot
- Fanon
- Fanwankery
- Jumping the shark
- Spin-off
