Marvel has been telling stories for a very long time and sometimes, changes have to be made. Many of Marvel's most respected heroes were created in the Silver Age and used contemporary events - like the Vietnam war, the Korean War, or WWII - as touchstones for characters or as part of their origins. However, this sort of thing doesn't really work as time goes on as it ages the characters to the extent that some of them would be on death's door.
On top of that, sometimes origins are just retconned as part of a story arc or because a writer came up with another idea. Sometimes, these changes are great and become a part of them, and other times they aren't and are forgotten.
10 Punisher's Origin Had To Changed Or He'd Be On Medicare
Punisher is one of Marvel's greatest anti-heroes, a man who takes the law into his own hands. Using his superb Marine Corps training, Punisher has put thousands of criminals in their graves but here's the thing- in his original origin, he was a Vietnam vet and probably in his thirties when he became Punisher. That wouldn't really fly today - he'd be somewhere in his seventies.
So, in order for the Punisher to work, Marvel's sliding time scale took effect. Instead of being a Vietnam vet, he's now fought in one of the interminable Persian Gulf wars of the last thirty years, keeping him young and spry enough to fight crime.
9 The Thing's Military Service Also Had To Be Adjusted
The Thing is probably the Fantastic Four's beloved member but there are things lots of people forget about him, like his Air Force service. Grimm was chosen by Reed Richards to pilot his rocket because of his time as an ace fighter pilot, a distinction he had earned fighting in the Korean War.
Again, this aged Grimm immensely, so over the years, this was changed. However, unlike Punisher, Grimm was never given a new war that he had fought in. He was still in the Air Force and an ace pilot but Marvel has never really said if he fought in any of the US's contemporary wars.
8 Reed Richards Was Once An Intrepid Cold War Scientist
Another member of the Fantastic Four's whose origin had to be drastically changed was Reed Richards. To begin with, Reed and Ben served together in the military after college, so that had to be changed from Korea to something else. However, the biggest change was Reed's status as a Cold War scientist.
Originally, Reed was all about trying to beat those evil Soviets and rushed the launch of his rocket with its experimental shields in order to do so. This change is rather crucial - it puts Ben and Reed both somewhere in their eighties, so this one was rewritten to launching before the government pulled funding for the project.
7 Apocalypse's Origin Was Retconned To Make Him More Altruistic
Apocalypse became a member of the Krakoan government in House of X/Powers of X, becoming a world leader and ending his attempts to commit genocide against the rest of the world. Now on the side of good, he helped the mutants of Krakoa fight against the forces of Arakko and Amenth, saving the entire world from ruin at the hands of a mutant and demon army.
Parts of his origin were rewritten because of this event - it was revealed that he had lived on the mutant island Okkara, which had split when his wife, Genesis, and their children went into Otherworld to hold back the demon hordes of Amenth. Okkara became Krakoa and Arakko and Apocalypse's survival of the fittest creed was revealed to have come from wanting to build an army that could defeat Amenth and not just to commit genocide.
6 Scarlet Witch And Quicksilver's Parentage Mutates All The Time
Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver began their time as a villainous brother and sister duo of mutants working with Magneto in his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. For a time, they thought their parents were the Whizzer and Miss America, two Golden Age Marvel heroes, but eventually, it was revealed that they were Magneto's children.
This was changed again before their debut in the MCU, for legal reasons, to make them no longer Magneto's children but regular human kids taken by the High Evolutionary and experimented on. However, with Disney's acquisition of Fox and the X-Men film rights, there's a good chance things will be changed back at some point.
5 Bucky Was Changed From A Silly Kid To A Black Ops Specialist
Since his return, Winter Soldier has become one of Marvel's most popular anti-heroes but for anyone who only knew Bucky's original origin, as Cap's slightly silly kid sidekick, his skills were a huge surprise. However, in the run-up to his return, writer Ed Brubaker added an interesting wrinkle to his origin.
It was revealed that Bucky, despite his young age, was actually a highly trained black ops soldier. His job would be to sneak into German fortifications the night before Cap attacked, softening up the targets. This made the eventual reveal of him as the Winter Soldier make more sense - Bucky never seemed to have the types of skills that the Winter Soldier did until this retcon.
4 Moira MacTaggert Was Made Into A Mutant
Moira MacTaggert had worked with the X-Men for years. An evolutionary biologist, Moira was one of Charles Xavier's earliest allies and helped the team with issues with their mutations and any other medical needs. However, writer Jonathan Hickman had big things in store for the woman everyone always thought was a human.
It was revealed that she was a mutant, one with a unique power - every time she died, her life started over again, rebooting the entire timeline and allowing her to affect things. At this point, she's on her tenth life and she's used all of her experiences in her past lives to help Xavier and Magneto form the nation of Krakoa.
3 Iron Man Is Now The Stark's Adopted Son
For years, everyone thought Iron Man was the son of Howard and Maria Stark. Recent years, though, have led to a change in that status. Though he definitely inherited the Stark wealth, he was no longer the biological child of Tony and Maria. Instead, it was revealed that he was adopted.
His parents were deep cover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, Jude and Amanda. Jude secretly worked for Hydra for a time and when he revealed that to Amanda, she killed him. Nick Fury helped hide her and after she had the baby, Howard adopted him, setting him on the path to becoming Iron Man.
2 The Source Of Spider-Man's Powers Was Changed
Spider-Man's origin is one of those that is up there with Batman's as being pretty unassailable - because of his negligence, his Uncle Ben was killed and his guilt caused him to embrace using his powers to help others. This is always the same but one thing that has changed is his powers and their origin.
While he was still bitten by a radioactive spider, the real source of his powers was mystical in nature, as he became part of a tapestry of animal spirits and the holder of the Spider totem. This would make him a target of the energy vampire Morlun. While this change may seem like something that would be temporary, it's stuck around, even if it's not brought up very much.
1 Wolverine's Origins Are In A Constant State Of Flux
Wolverine is one of Marvel's greatest heroes but the Canadian mutant has never had a concrete origin. For years, this was part of his charm - he was the ultimate mysterious loner. Over time, pieces of his origin have been played out to readers, and sometimes, some pieces contradicted others.
One of the best examples of this was when it was revealed that Wolverine worked with Romulus, Remus, and Sabretooth and willfully joined the Weapon X Program. This was a huge change from what readers had seen in the past and is just one of many examples of Wolverine's origin changing.
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