10 Unbelievable Retcons That Changed Comics For The Better
1. The DC Multiverse
The DC Multiverse is the single greatest retcon that changed comics for the better.
The Silver Age of Comics brought about a total reboot to the known works of DC, beginning with a new Flash, Barry Allen, in Showcase #4 in 1956. That success brought about Silver Age versions of older established characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, but they weren’t the same as their Golden Age counterparts. In fact, in Barry Allen’s case, the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, was just a comic book character. All that changed in Flash #123, Flash Of Two Worlds!
Flash of Two Worlds introduced the concept that the Jay Garrick wasn’t just a fictional comic character, but was in fact an active hero on a parallel Earth, dubbed creatively Earth-2. This comic became a massive success and suddenly yearly crossovers between the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of Earth-2 became the norm. This exploded out into other universes, such as Earth-3 with the villainous Ultraman and the Crime Syndicate of America, or Earth-X, where the Quality Comics characters would stay battling in a world where Nazis won World War II.
The Elseworlds that came out of it, the legacy heroes that became so integral to the universes and even the Crisis events that would alter the Multiverse, even erasing it so Hypertime is a thing at one point, and so much more have shaped the DC Comics, and comic history as a whole that is the greatest retcon that has changed comics for the better!