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comic reboots?
noir_blood
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I don't know if this would fit better here or GV. Since the question it's purely self serving and not to spur discussion, I'm trying it here first.
So I'm writing a paper about comic books, mainly about Spiderman and the whole "deal with Mephisto" thing plays heavily into it, mostly as an example of creators sort of resisting change and harkening back to their own favorite or 'ideal' Spiderman.
I wanted to mention some other reboots too, as sort of companions. Obviously there is the infinite crisis from DC, aunt may being brought back to life, but those are the other two big ones I can think off. Are there any others that you guys could think of? If they apply to Spiderman, great, but I'll take any.
So I'm writing a paper about comic books, mainly about Spiderman and the whole "deal with Mephisto" thing plays heavily into it, mostly as an example of creators sort of resisting change and harkening back to their own favorite or 'ideal' Spiderman.
I wanted to mention some other reboots too, as sort of companions. Obviously there is the infinite crisis from DC, aunt may being brought back to life, but those are the other two big ones I can think off. Are there any others that you guys could think of? If they apply to Spiderman, great, but I'll take any.
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And do the Ultimate lines count as reboots?
I think Captain America has gone back and forth with his orgin being because of the super-soldier serum or not, depending on the anti-drug climate.
Batman of Earth-2 (the golden age Batman) was killed by a pretty bland electical villian. However, a few years later that was just pretty much ignored.
Also, Superman: Farewell to a friend (trade paperback) collects the arc/series. It's basically saying goodbye to near godlike superman of the 40's and 50's who punched japs and sat on cannons that looked like dicks and reimagining superman as what we know him today. He's also been rebooted during the "white superman" days, and after the death and return of superman.
No you couldnt. Retcons is a retroactive continuity where you add new facts or information that changes, adds onto or ignores / replaces older events. The Ultimate Universe doesn't do any of that. It's an alternate universe where stories are told with a more modern spin on them.
Some retcons:
Hobgoblin I - Roger Stern left Marvel over editorial differences and didn't tell anyone who the Hobgoblin was going to be back in the 80's. They ended up making it be Ned Leeds and unceremoniously killed him off in the Spider-Man vs Wolverine one-shot and replaced him with a new Hobgoblin. 20 years later, Roger Stern came back and wrote a Hobgoblin Lives series that revealed who he wanted to be Hobgoblin and retconned the whole Ned Leeds thing, making Roderick Kingsley the real first Hobgoblin.
Aunt May's Death - After the Clone Saga, it was decided Peter needed to have the old bag back in his life and it was made so the heartfelt and universally acclaimed death of Aunt May was actually an actress and the real Aunt May was hidden away by the recently returned Norman Osborn / Green Goblin.
Ben Reilly / Spider-Man Clone - He was supposed to have died and been cremated in a smoke stack back in the original Clone Saga. 30 years later, they reintroduced the clone as Ben Reilly and added a lot of convuluted explanations for his survival.
Venom Symbiote - Used to be an alien symbiote that bonded with the host with only some minor aggression issues as the side effects. Now it feeds on cancerous cells or some nonsense from the host.
Crisis on Infinite Earths - Complete reboot of the DC Universe. Almost everything was erased and characters forgot everything that came before. This was carried over in most character's books where things like Man of Steel, Batman Year One and Perez's Wonder Woman all rewrote the origins of characters.
Green Lantern: Rebirth - Hal Jordan was the original Green Lantern. When his home town was destroyed, he went a little nuts, wiped out the Green Lantern Corps, destroyed the Guardians and the central power battery on Oa, killed multiple Green Lanterns and became the all pwoerful villain Parallax. Later, he nearly wiped out all existence. Even later, he died re-igniting Earth's Sun during a DC event.
After his death, he became the Spectre, an instrument of God's wrath that punished the wicked. Geoff Johns undid all this and returned Hal to being a good guy by making the yellow impurity that Green Lantern rings had (they didn't work against things the colour yellow) be the cause of all his insanity. Basically, he divided the emotions into spectrums of colours, green being willpower and yellow being fear. The yellow impurity was caused by the manifestation of fear, the entity Parallax, which is a parasite that corrupted Hal Jordan in his moment of weakness. Johns also revived Hal Jordan and dozens of formerly deceased Green Lanterns, as well as the entire Guardians of the Galaxy.
This emotional spectrum has been expanded to include colours for love, hate/ rage, avarice, hope and another one I can't think of off the top of my head. These colours are all getting their own Corps, similar to the Green Lanterns, each wielding their own coloured rings powered by different emotions. Johns is now even going back and retconning the Year One story, Emerald Dawn, and adding this emotional spectrum based structure to the earliest points in Green Lantern's history.
This is probably the best executed retcon in comic history in my opinion and fit seamlessly with previous stories, even building on obscure stories from earlier Green Lantern volumes.
Superman's Origin - This has been retconned dozens of times. The current one is supposedly based on Superman: Birthright, which is similar to how Smallville is, with Lex Luthor growing up in Smallville and being friends with Clark. The only thing that ever stays the same is Krypton blew up and his parents sent him to Earth. He's currently not the only survivor of Krypton, as his cousin Supergirl survived in a similar fashion (which in itself is a retcon).
Jason Todd - He was the second Robin after Dick Grayson. He was famous for being the subject of a fan call-in that resulted in everyone voting to have him killed by the Joker. It was a monumental moment in Batman's history and resulted in a shrine in the Batcave for Jason and Batman swearing off ever putting a young sidekick in danger ever again and thus, no more Robins. It darkened the outlook of Batman and lead to the darker and grittier style popular at the time. During Infinite Crisis, it was explained Superboy Prime's "retcon punch" shattered reality and caused a burp in time (or something) and Jason Todd was brought back to life. He became the villain the Hood and plagued Batman and later Nightwing for a few years. DC's now ignoring all thep eople he's killed and turning him into an anti-hero named Red Robin in Countdown.
Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier - Bucky is Captain America's kid sidekick from WWII. He died off panel (ie. there was no comic book death / story) in a battle with Baron Zemo where he was hooked on a V8 rocket or something similar and shot out to sea. While deactivating it, he couldn't get free and the rocket exploded. Cap was also on board, but plunged into the ocean and was frozen for however many years until thawed out in Avengers #1 in the present day. Bucky was assumed dead.
In the current Captain America comic, Ed Brubaker brought Bucky back to life as the Russian super soldier, Winter Soldier. It was explained his arm was blown off in the explosion and he plunged into the ocean similar to Cap. HOwever, he was found by Russians and revived. They brainwashed him, equipped him with a mechanical arm and made him their ultimate Cold War operative and assassin. They would cryogenically freeze him and thaw him whenever they needed someone killed.
Eventually, he was activated in the present day and met up with Cap. Through a series of events, Cap restored his memories, subsequently died himself and now Bucky is the new Captain America, capping off one of the biggest retcons in comic history. This is a critically acclaimed run and no one contests or even resists this return of Bucky despite the golden rule of comics being "only Bucky and Uncle Ben stay dead".
Illuminati - Marvel recently retconned several of it's biggest characters into having formed a secret cabal in the early days of the Marvel Universe to meet and discuss major events, like how to handle the Skrulls post-Kree Skrull War or what to do about the all powerful Beyonder or the Infinity Gems and so on. It didn't really change anything in the past, but is a major focal point for current stories.
Dark Phoenix / Death of Jean Grey - Jean Grey died as the Pheonix in the original Claremont story. Marvel didn't like it and ended up having it changed so she was in a cocoon during the whole thign and it wasn't actually her that died. It was a major resurrection at the time and, after multiple other resurrections, Jean is now seen as ajoke when it comes to dying. The first one was a big deal though.
Immortal Iron Fist - Long a joke and a cheap kung-fu tie-in from the 70's, the Immortal Iron Fist was revamped by Ed Brubaker a year or two back and is now believed to be one of the best comics on the market. The entire history of the Iron Fist and his predecessors has changed. Things like who Iron Fist's parents were, where his fortune came from, how he isn't the only Iron Fist and his role as an Immortal Weapon have been introduced to the comic along with other cities with their own Immortal Weapons. Even the basic powers and uses of the Iron Fist have been expanded on with flashbacks and introductions of previous Iron Fists that used the powers for projectiles, healing and so on.
Gwen Stacy's a Whore - In JMS's run on SPider-man, he retconned Gwen Stacy's past so she had an affair with Norman Osborn while going out with Peter Parker and became pregnant with Norman's twin children, which reacted to his blood and became advanced aging children that aged to full adulthood in the span of 5-10 years and returned to plague Spider-Man during the same story.
Spider-Man's not Unique - In JMS's run on Spider-Man, he changed the origin of Spider-Man to be totemistic in nature and had nothing to do with the radioactive spider. There ahve been other "spider-men" with the same power set as him and one even mentors Peter on his totemistic heritage and explains all the animal / totem based enemies he had being the result of his totemistic origin resonating with wack jobs and causing them to dress up like rhinos and vultures and what not.
Return of Norman Osborn - At the end of the Clone Saga, they had planned to wrap it up with Harry Osborn being the main bad guy. Editorial interferred, much like they did in every single step of that much maligned story, and forced them to make it Norman Osborn instead. They were forced to make him responsible for every little thing over the past decade or two and made it so Osborn didn't die by being impaled by his own glider back in ASM #121 after killing Gwen Stacy. His Goblin formula resulted in an advanced healing factor that regernated his wounds. He revived that night, replaced himself with a bum that matched his height fromt he street and fled to Europe, where he built a world spanning criminal empire and manipulated Spider-man's life from afar.
Those are some of the major ones, and most are recent as they are fresh in memory, but just about any major death / rebirth is a retcon and most don't occur until after the Silver Age (ie. start with Crisis on Infinite Earths).
And this would have fit in fine in the GV Ask any questions post and would probably get more responses.