DC is the undisputed continuity retcon king. It seems like every couple of years there's some universe-shaking event and afterward, everything is changed. Most people think it started with Crisis On Infinite Earths but it's been going on for years, as the DC Universe's continuity was always quite malleable and subject to change. This has worked for and against the publisher.
As the industry became more event-driven, DC put out bigger stories promising sweeping changes. Sometimes, those changes enriched everything, making the characters they touched better. Other times, they just made things worse, either because they took things away or complicated them further.
10 Retconning Improved: Wonder Woman's Origin Has Always Gotten Better After Retcons
Wonder Woman is one of DC's greatest heroes and the toughest woman in the universe. She blazed a trail for all female superheroes that came after her but her original Golden Age origin can be a little rough. While it's full of utopian feminism, there's also a lot of weird bondage elements and it's a product of its time.
Wonder Woman's origin has often been vastly improved by retcons- after Crisis On Infinite Earths, writer/artist George Perez brought things closer to her Greek mythological roots and after Flashpoint, writer Brian Azzarello and artist Cliff Chiang turned everything readers thought they knew about the Amazons on its head, improving things.
9 Retcons Hurt: Wally West Keeps Getting Kicked Around By Retcons
Wally West graduated from Kid Flash to Flash because of the events of Crisis On Infinite Earths but that's pretty much the last time a DC event book did him any favors. Wally become a fan favorite character as the Flash; to many, he is the best Flash but it seems like every time DC retcons itself in recent years, Wally gets victimized.
He's been sent into the Speed Force in both Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis and was completely retconned out of existence by Flashpoint. Fans were happy with his return in DC Rebirth #1 but then it was back to kicking him. Things are looking better for him lately but that doesn't mean it will last.
8 Retcons Improved: Putting The Golden Age Heroes On Their Own Earth Started The Multiverse
DC had a novel way of dealing with its Golden Age heroes. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman had all debuted back then and Silver Age DC creators just didn't want to deal that. They couldn't exactly say it happened but they didn't want to give it up either because the Justice Society was there as well and are great.
So, in order to make the whole thing work, Gardner Fox shunted the Golden Age Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and their friends in the JSA to their own Earth, Earth-2, a move that would set the DC Multiverse into motion and lead to decades of great stories and crossovers.
7 Retcons Hurt: The Legion Of Superheroes Got Abused By The Crisis Retcons
The Legion of Superheroes has been through a lot of changes over the years but the most detrimental to it were the retcons necessitated by Crisis On Infinite Earths. Superboy was pretty much the most important member of the team, the inspiration for them, and Supergirl was also a big part of things, so both of them no longer existing messed things up greatly.
The writers tried to take it stride and fix things as they went but never really succeeded and this would lead to more retcons. The Legion used to be massively popular but as the retcons changed everything, the series kept falling in popularity and has never recovered.
6 Retcons Improved: Bringing The Justice Society Back Into The DC Universe Proper Gave Everything A Sense Of Legacy
While putting the Golden Age heroes on their own Earth was a good idea for a time, DC decided that their Multiverse complicated things and needed streamlining. CoIE brought everything back together on one Earth and eliminated the redundancies, like the Golden Age Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
The JSA was put back into continuity as existing during WWII and this gave the DC Universe something new- a sense of legacy. Heroes like the Flash and Green Lantern had heroic forebears and there were scores of B-list heroes that owed their existence to the JSA, as well as it being the inspiration for the Justice League. It gave DC a feel that set it apart from Marvel.
5 Retcons Hurt: Retconning Past Events Into A Five Year Period For The New 52 Hurt Everything
The New 52 is probably DC's most infamous retcon. On the one hand, it gave the publisher a short-term sales boost that made it look good and was responsible for some fan-favorite stories and runs. However, its reputation is mostly negative now and one of the reasons for that was no one ever really set down a timeline of events for it.
Readers didn't really know what events happened or didn't and what made matters was worse was everything had to happen in a five-year window, which was now the amount of time that heroes had existed on Earth-0, the New 52 Earth. This raised a lot of questions that were never answered and fans were very unhappy about the whole thing.
4 Retcons Helped: Bringing Back The Post-Crisis Superman And Lois Lane Led To A Super Renaissance
While Batman and Wonder Woman flew high throughout the New 52, Superman wasn't as lucky. It began well with Grant Morrison's Action Comics but after that everything was downhill, as the Superman books became a revolving door for creators. However, fans would get an unlooked-for gift from a story no one liked called Convergence- the return of the post-Crisis Superman and Lois.
Steps were taken to kill off the New 52 versions of both characters and they were replaced by their older versions, who brought along their son Jon, leading to some of the best Superman stories in years. Eventually, another retcon would make it so they were always the canonical versions and fans couldn't have been happier.
3 Retcons Hurt: The New 52 Sending The Justice Society Back To Its Own Earth Was A Huge Mistake
Before the New 52 hit, the Justice Society of America had one of DC's best books. The team had a legion of new fans that loved them and the legacy they'd introduced to the DC Universe. So, when the New 52 shunted them back to their own Earth, fans were not only mystified but angry.
The resulting Earth-2 book started out well but things got weird eventually and it led to all kinds of changes that not everyone loved. It also took away the legacy vibe that informed the DC Universe for so long and was a rather big misstep, one the publisher has only now started to fix.
2 Retcons Improved: CoIE Improved The DC Universe Immensely
Crisis On Infinite Earths set the tone for DC's future and remains the most important retcon story in all of comics. DC decided that its Multiverse kept new readers away and decided to do away with it. Turning to the superstar writer-artist team of Marv Wolfman and George Perez to fix it, the result was one of the greatest event books of all time.
CoIE wrought changes to the DC Universe that would make it better in the eyes of multitudes of fans. Post-Crisis DC is beloved by generations of fans and continuity always seems to revert to it every time things are changed.
1 Retcons Ruined: CoIE Ruined Hawkman For Decades
While CoIE overall made the DC Universe better, there's one character that it hurt immensely- Hawkman. Golden Age Hawkman was a reincarnated Pharoah, Silver Age Hawkman was an alien policeman and the Multiverse separated them and it made sense. However, putting it all back together broke the character.
For years afterward, no one really knew what to do with the character and there were multiple retcons made to try to make sense of what CoIE had done to the character.
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