10 Most Hated Retcon Changes In Marvel Comics
6. Teen Tony/Iron Boy/Brat
The less said about Tony Stark’s retconning into a teenage version of his former self during the mid-1990s, the better, but alas, here we are…
During the 1995 crossover event called The Crossing—funny that—it was revealed to The Avengers that Iron Man had for some decades been a pawn for one thought to be among his greatest adversaries, Kang the Conqueror (or Immortus for short).
When you hear either of those names, you know time travel is involved, and this particular storyline didn’t do anything to dissuade the notion that time travel equals bad things. TIME TRAVEL ALWAYS EQUALS BAD THINGS.
The Avengers of course battled Evil Tony by bringing a teen version of Stark to the present day, and before the saga would end, we would end up with the younger edition replacing his now-deceased older self in the suit.
Whether it was down to poor reception or just because Marvel’s writers got bored again, the Heroes Reborn reboot basically made all of that defunct.
Super-powerful reality-alterer Franklin Richards brought Stark back to Earth 616 as the version he best remembered and—yep, you guessed it—it was almost as if NOTHING HAD EVER CHANGED.
All that stress for nothing, then.