You know what fits that description? The introduction of other Kryptonians besides Superman, that started happening way back in the ’50s, and completely contradicted the concept that Superman was “the last son of Krypton”.

Here’s another bit that fits the above description: the idea that Ben Grimm fought in WW2, which tied the character to a specific event and created several lasting issues regarding Ben’s age. Also: Magneto being a holocaust survivor, which introduced a whole set of priorities and goals that didn’t fit very well with Magneto’s previous Eeeevil characterizations. We could also mention Byrne’s Superman reboot, another case of retroactively “dumping” a different backstory on an existing character (among other novelties, Byrne’s Superman cheated at sports – by playing college football after having learned of his superpowers – which actually contradicts Superman’s whole ethical system, if you stop to think about it).

Really, it’s almost as if this sort of thing has always been done in comics.

Continuity is overrated, and if taken too seriously it becomes an anchor wrapped around the writers’ necks. Telling interesting stories is more important than respecting continuity.

I mean, we already know for a fact that these characters AND their key supporting cast members CAN NOT DIE – so that’s one source of tension that the writers can’t exploit. It would be one thing if only Superman were unkillable, but when we know that Lois, Jimmy and Perry are also unkillable, it becomes hard for the writer to build tension and tell compelling stories. So the characters’ future is pretty much closed for the writers; they can’t explore which job Peter Parker will have next, because we all know he’ll return to taking pictures eventually. They can’t explore the characters’ deaths because nobody believes in superhero deaths anymore (DC are actually publishing a whole EVENT about how easily-reversible superhero deaths are). So the future can’t be explored, the main supporting cast needs to remain frozen in amber, the main villains also have to be preserved for the next creative team… if the writers can’t even explore the characters’ pasts, as new concepts might contradict the longtime readers’ childhood memories, the job would become impossible.

If comics writers were forbidden from “messing with the characters’ histories” by retroactively introducing new story elements, then Supergirl would not exist, Magneto would still be a two-dimensional Bad Guy with no compelling backstory, Captain America would’ve been active during the 50s fighting communists, Tony Stark would have become Iron Man in a war that happened half a century ago, Hal Jordan would still be an irredeemable psychotic mass murderer, Elektra and Donna Troy wouldn’t exist at all, and the Thing would be almost 90 years old by now.

Now, I’m not saying that any retroactive change is good; Spider-Man’s “Sins Past” is a perfect example of a poorly-conceived retcon. But many instances where the characters’ backstories were “messed with” led to GOOD stories and GOOD new characters being introduced.

So from sales it’s a choice between a spin off a top-seller which will do 20k-30k or a new property that will do 10k-20k.

And I was a faithful First Class reader as well (although I always found the way Roger Cruz drew Jean Grey a little creepy for some reason). Untold tales series can be quite good (possibly because the creators *are* so passionate and invested in them), but they’re not big sellers because they’re seen as inessential.

Mary Warner: The same thing bothers me with the Star Wars prequels. It like, I guess terms like “padawan” and “midichlorian” must not be too important, because neither Obi-Wan nor Yoda feels the need to be dropping them to Luke.

I was going to mention Jessica Jones, who supposedly interacted with many characters in the past, but was never mentioned until recently, but Spider-Man #601 shows that she actually did appear in one of those Ditko issues. She just wasn’t very noticable.

As I said, some of the Ultimates stuff has struggled… X-men specifically (a lot of people disliked the Kirkman run), but UFF had some problems (a lot of their reimaginings were totally out there, I’m pretty sure MGK had a bit to say about that a while ago), and Jeph Loeb pretty much threw everything out and started pulling random stuff out of his ass when he wrote Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum.

Really, the problem with the Ultimate line comes down to this:

- Talented writers wrote for Ultimate line
- Ultimate line sold real well, threatening to upstage the more established lines
- Talented writers moved off to 616 writing duty, replaced (mostly) with less talented writers.
- Less talented writers write less compelling stories, causing readership to drop.

Now they’re bringing back the talented writers again, because the readership is flagging too much. And so continues the great cycle of life.

–Rawr

Rawrasaur, the whole Ultimates line was supposed to be an updating of the old, “cheesy, bad” stories. Last I heard they pretty much killed the whole line and are relaunching it to try and generate interest. Take from that what you will.

They tried that with “Marvel Age” before they retooled it into “Marvel Adventures.” Everybody hated it.

–Rawr

Also, to Tenken347, go read Priest’s run on “Steel,” which features a character by that very name (but it’s pronounced “Will-hayne.”)