Retcons/Reboots That Worked

[Deleted]

Apr 22, 2012 18:51:28 GMT -5 King Ghidorah said:

Mortal Kombat.

Oh yes. Though it's not entirely a reboot, given actions from the first timeline led to the second.

[AFN: Judge Shred]

Apr 22, 2012 18:33:21 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

This concept popped into my head the other day while reading my weekly comics. Generally, whenever the words "reboot" or "retcon" are mentioned, the immediate kneejerk response is "FAIL". But there have to be some out there that actually made things better, right?

The character that made me think of this was the Spider-Man villain Rhino. In the past, he was always portrayed as the epitome of dumb muscle, a big lug that was a step above mentally retarded just ramming himself into things. But in the past couple years, he's been changed into a fairly intelligent character with a pretty tragic back-story now. Not only is the character more interesting from a personality standpoint, but he's also been upgraded in a major way as a threat, recently being able to take out Thor with an assist from an Asgardian artifact on his horn. Response to the change in character, especially the Joe Kelly-written issues that rewrote his personality and story, have been pretty widely acclaimed.

So are there any other ones out there that either you personally enjoyed and/or achieved critical acclaim?

Another Spidey villain revamped around the same time by the same writer, Joe Kelly, was Hammerhead. He made them both so awesome and wrote some of the best Amazing Spider-man issues of all time, let alone the past few years.

[JDviant]

I haven't read it and usually Kelly is a strong enough writer so I'm not doubting its quality, but adding tragedy to Rhino takes away his one enduring strong-point, and what makes him actually interesting to me; he's a big dumb guy who commits crime because its what a big dumb guy like him would be good at. Villains today have to be so deep that guys like Rhino - classic one note brutes - become unique. Its not revenge or a complex plot they're part of. They rob a bank because they want money, and money is in a bank. So maybe is was a well-done change, but its one I'm not fond of.

Robotman surviving the death of the Doom Patrol in Doom Patrol 161 had worked out pretty well.

[EvenBaldobombHasAJob]

Apr 22, 2012 22:41:02 GMT -5 Evilution E5150 said:

Lex Luthors change to evil billionaire from generic mad scientist

this. I remember for a bit there after Infinite Crisis DC was trying to change him back, but thankfully everyone ignored it.

[El Cokehead del Knife Fight]

Thundercats reboot worked out fairly well, biggest of all being that Snarf shut the f*** up.

['Foretold' Joker]

All Pirate Movies failed, then the entire genre is rebooted by Pirates of the Carribean.

Yay ... now where is the rum?

[mrsmitty]

Godzilla 1985. It successfully turned Godzilla back into a destructive force of nature

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

The Nolan Batman films

Battlestar Galactica


Star Trek 09' was fantastic. It was easily in my top 5 movies for that year, but holy shit was it not anything like Star Trek. It was to Star Trek as the TNG films were to TNG (Where Picard's solution to things is now a combination of transporters and punches)

[stinger]

Does Doctor Who count as a reboot? I'd say it does since we never see the 8th Doctor regenerate into the 9th Doctor. But, it seems they have left the chronology (as much as their is continuity in the Whoverse) in tact. Anyway, if it qualifies, then Doctor Who is one I thoroughly enjoy.

[Deleted]

Image Comics recently rebooted their Extreme line and two of the comics totally outshined the original versions by a country mile. Prophet and Glory are both MUCH better comics than the 90's versions and the TMNT reboot through IDW has been pretty damn good as well.