15 Most Controversial DC Retcons Of All Time

By Bryant Lucas /

11. Four Robins In Five Years

When DC decided to reboot their universe in 2011 with their New 52 initiative, they wanted to de-age many of their main characters in order to keep them young and spry. Thus at the opening of Justice League #1, the superheroes had only been around for a total of five years. This wouldn€™t have been a problem if DC actually did a proper reboot and started from square one; however, they wanted to keep some of the more popular elements of their previous universe €“ specifically the Batman and Green Lantern franchises. The five-year timeline was particularly problematic for Batman due to the number of Robins he€™s trained over the years. This meant that DC had to scramble to find a way to explain this, as the time line didn€™t make sense. Apparently, while Dick and Jason where actual €œRobins€, Tim Drake was never called Robin but rather €œRed Robin.€ Fine. Whatever. (The timeline still doesn€™t make sense). Things got a bit more creative when it came to Damian, the 10-year-old son of Batman and Talia al Ghul who became Robin only a few years before The New 52 began. Grant Morrison addressed this issue in the second volume of Batman Incorporated, where it was retconed that Damian was bio-engineered from Bruce and Talia€™s DNA. All of these retcons were un-necessary had DC not rushed their reboot and took the time to plan things out.