History Retcon / TheDCU

* ''Franchise/TheFlash'':
** Another rather controversial retcon by the [[Creator/GeoffJohns same author]] as the Franchise/GreenLantern example was in ''The Flash: Rebirth''. Barry Allen came back (which was fine) but now instead of the previous "Happy Family" he had, his father was accused of the murder of Allen's mother. Really it was Professor Zoom, who went back in time and killed Barry's mom to ruin Barry's life.
** Another Flash Retcon involved Wally West asking Spectre to erase the memories of his identity from everyone on earth after the new Zoom tried to kill his wife. Spectre did this but left a loophole so that certain characters would remember everything when Wally took his mask off or put it on in front of them. His wife left him for a while, but came back at the end of the arc. HilariousInHindsight when you realize it did the same basic thing Brand New Day set out to do (Make their identities secret and make them single, not that the last part was a reason for doing the Flash arc) and did it better.

* As noted, DC's ''ComicBook/AllStarSquadron'' is the {{Trope Namer|s}}. A book in the '80s, set during World War II, introducing a never-before-mentioned over-arching superhero group. It filled in a LOT of gaps in the continuity of the time, picking up dangling threads and plot holes (Why didn't Spectre & Superman just end the War? for example), and reviving many long-forgotten characters. Writer Roy (& Dann) Thomas had to work a little harder when ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' hit, but still continued with Young All-Stars.

* ''[[ComicBook/{{Convergence}} Convergence: Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters]]'' retcons ComicBook/PlasticMan into being one of Earth-X's ComicBook/{{Freedom Fighters|DCComics}}, when he'd never previously been a member [[note]]Plas and the members of the Freedom Fighters are all Quality Comics characters, so including Plas on Earth-X makes it fully a Quality Comics world.[[/note]].

* ComicBook/{{Captain Carrot|AndHisAmazingZooCrew}} has always operated under cartoon physics, but they were the burlesqued physics of GoldenAge comics, not the outright ToonPhysics of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' as shown in ''ComicBook/TheMultiversity''. No previous incarnation of the character, even relatively recent ones, could possibly have survived [[spoiler:decapitation]].

* ''ComicBook/BatmanSupermanWorldsFinest'', much like it did with Supergirl, undoes changes made to the lure of ''ComicBook/{{Shazam}}'' in the ComicBook/New52, having Billy operate out of Fawcett again and having been a solo hero for a while before the forming of the Marvel family.

* ''[[ComicBook/{{Convergence}} Convergence: Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters]]'' retcons ComicBook/PlasticMan into being one of Earth-X's ComicBook/{{Freedom Fighters|DC}}, when he'd never previously been a member [[note]]Plas and the members of the Freedom Fighters are all Quality Comics characters, so including Plas on Earth-X makes it fully a Quality Comics world.[[/note]].

*** As a consequence, all heroes have aged up, having been active for 15 years, not 5.

** Naturally, the main issue fans had with ''Heroes in Crisis'', [[spoiler:having Wally West accidentally kill his fellow heroes and cover it up]] were themselves retconned with ''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 stating [[spoiler:the attempted cover up was the result of Reverse Flash screwing with that Wally's mind]] and completed by ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright [[spoiler:stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by the Speed Force trying to kick a returning Savitar out of it. The end of "One Minute War" completes the trifecta by saying -- barring Roy due to how close he was and knowing he'd come back, anyway -- that ''no one'' died during the explosion, as Gold Beetle saved them and replaced them with clones.]]

!!Franchise/TheDCU

** Naturally, the main issue fans had with ''Heroes in Crisis'', [[spoiler:having Wally West accidentally kill his fellow heroes and cover it up]] were themselves retconned with ''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 stating [[spoiler:the attempted cover up was the result of Reverse Flash screwing with that Wally's mind]] and completed by ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright [[spoiler:stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by the Speed Force trying to kick a returning Savitar out of it. The end of "One Minute War" completes the trifecta by saying -- barring Roy due to how close he was and knowing he'd come back, anyway -- that ''no one'' died during the explosin, as Gold Beetle saved them and replaced them with clones.]]

** Naturally, the main issue fans had with ''Heroes in Crisis'', [[spoiler:having Wally West accidentally kill his fellow heroes and cover it up]] were themselves retconned with ''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 stating [[spoiler:the attempted cover up was the result of Reverse Flash screwing with that Wally's mind]] and completed by ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright [[spoiler:stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by the Speed Force trying to kick a returning Savitar out of it.]]

* A rather controversial retcon happened in the ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' series. When DC wanted to reimagine the series, Hal Jordan (the Green Lantern) [[spoiler: pulled a FaceHeelTurn and became a super-villain named Parallax, who killed all the other Green Lanterns. Then, he turned back to Face in time to sacrifice himself to save the world.]] After this, Hal was replaced by Kyle Rayner. Kyle brought an upswing in sales for the book for some time, but eventually DC decided to bring Hal back. In order to smooth over his [[spoiler: Face Heel Turn]] with fans, it was revealed that [[spoiler: he never was actually evil, he was possessed by a cosmic being of fear named Parallax.]]
** This change was also another entry in the long list of retcons of the Green Lantern's "yellow weakness." First, Green Lantern was weak against the color yellow because of a necessary impurity in his power, then it was revealed that the restriction wasn't necessary at all, it was something artificial the Guardians imposed on the Green Lanterns to keep them from going power-crazy. When Kyle became the only Green Lantern, the yellow impurity was removed. In ''Green Lantern: Rebirth'' it was retconned so that the yellow impurity was caused by [[spoiler: the alien entity Parallax being trapped inside the Central Power Battery that gave all the Green Lanterns their power, and Kyle didn't have the yellow weakness because Parallax had been set free by Hal.]] Since then, the current manifestation of "the yellow impurity" is that the Green Lantern can only use his power against the color yellow if he knows the (most current retconned) source of the yellow impurity, and consciously overcomes his fear.

* Following ''ComicBook/GreenLanternRebirth'', the colored lanterns of the Emotional Spectrum are introduced to the ''Franchise/GreenLantern'' mythos, having retroactively existed alongside the Green Lantern Corps. Their past can then be elaborated on with flashbacks or time travel, often sharing a history with the Green Lanterns.
* {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in Cary Bates and Creator/GregWeisman's post-Crisis relaunch of ''Comicbook/CaptainAtom'' for DC, in which the eponymous hero (AntiHero? Protagonist?) has one origin, which the military covers up, instead publicizing a "false" origin, which ''was'' Cap's pre-Crisis Creator/CharltonComics origin. Later on, when Cap lost his powers temporarily, he wore the costumes that he had worn in the Silver Age, because, after all, the public in-story would be familiar with those costumes, having been told he used to wear them.
* DC's 1991 event Comicbook/{{Armageddon 2001}} turned out to be a huge mess at the end of the day (isn't it always?) and a major source of CharacterDevelopment for one Hank Hall (Hawk of ''Hawk and Dove''), which continued through Zero Hour until his death in the pages of the 2000s Comicbook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica relaunch. It also had the nasty effect of [[DroppedABridgeOnHim unceremoniously killing off the second Dove (Dawn Granger)]] in a cheap shock scene. However in the later pages of JSA, a big retcon by Geoff Johns would unfold: The woman who the JSA thought was a comatose Lyta Hall turned out to actually be Dove disguised by Mordru in some strange concealment spell (apparently they had to retcon Lyta to Dove at the time due to some issue with Vertigo too). The explanation of the retcon was quite convoluted and Squick: [[spoiler: Monarch did not actually kill Dove, Mordru simply made an illusion to make Hawk think she was dead. Then Mordru possessed Hawk and made him rape the [[AndIMustScream comatose yet still aware]] Dove, impregnating her with his child. So Dove was kept concealed and pregnant for who knows HOW long until she was found by the JSA, disguised as Lyta for some reason who was disguised as yet another woman, and yet she winds up strangely calm and relatively unaffected considering that she was raped and put into such a situation. And the baby? Wound up being a reincarnated Hector Hall. Not surprisingly, little reference has been made to exactly how Dawn cheated death ever since, she just did.]]

** Naturally, the main issue fans had with ''Heroes in Crisis'', [[spoiler:having Wally West accidentally kill his fellow heroes and cover it up]] were themselves retconned with ''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 stating [[spoiler:the attempted cover up was the result of Reverse Flash screwing with that Wally's mind]] and completed by ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright [[spoiler:stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by a returning Savitar.]]

* DC's 1991 event Comicbook/{{Armageddon 2001}} turned out to be a huge mess at the end of the day (isn't it always?) and a major source of CharacterDevelopment for one Hank Hall (Hawk of ''Hawk and Dove''), which continued through Zero Hour until his death in the pages of the 2000s Comicbook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica relaunch. It also had the nasty effect of [[StuffedIntoTheFridge unceremoniously killing off the second Dove (Dawn Granger)]] in a cheap shock scene. However in the later pages of JSA, a big retcon by Geoff Johns would unfold: The woman who the JSA thought was a comatose Lyta Hall turned out to actually be Dove disguised by Mordru in some strange concealment spell (apparently they had to retcon Lyta to Dove at the time due to some issue with Vertigo too). The explanation of the retcon was quite convoluted and Squick: [[spoiler: Monarch did not actually kill Dove, Mordru simply made an illusion to make Hawk think she was dead. Then Mordru possessed Hawk and made him rape the [[AndIMustScream comatose yet still aware]] Dove, impregnating her with his child. So Dove was kept concealed and pregnant for who knows HOW long until she was found by the JSA, disguised as Lyta for some reason who was disguised as yet another woman, and yet she winds up strangely calm and relatively unaffected considering that she was raped and put into such a situation. And the baby? Wound up being a reincarnated Hector Hall. Not surprisingly, little reference has been made to exactly how Dawn cheated death ever since, she just did.]]

** The much-loathed ''ComicBook/HeroesInCrisis'' had a few, including [[spoiler:that Roy's drug problems started with medication, that Doc Magnus loved Platinum, that speedsters have to consciously exert control, and that Wally always remembered his kids when he returned.]]

** ''The much-loathed ''ComicBook/HeroesInCrisis'' had a few, including [[spoiler:that Roy's drug problems started with medication, that Doc Magnus loved Platinum, that speedsters have to consciously exert control, and that Wally always remembered his kids when he returned.]]

** ''The much-loathed ''ComicBook/HeroesInCrisis'' had a few, including [[spoiler:that Roy's drug problems started with medication, the Doc Magnus loved Platinum, that speedsters have to consciously exert control, and that Wally always remember his kids when he returned.]]
** Naturally, the main issue fans had with ''Heroes in Crisis'', [[spoiler:having Wally West accidentally kill his fellow heroes and cover it up]] were themselves retconned with ''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 stating the attempted cover up was the result of Reverse Flash screwing with that Wally's mind and completed by ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by a returning Savitar.]]

** Naturally, the main issue fans had with ''Heroes in Crisis'', [[spoiler:having Wally West accidently kill his fellow heroes and cover it up]] were themselves retconned with ''ComicBook/TheFlashRebirth'' #761 stating the attempted cover up was the result of Reverse Flash screwing with that Wally's mind and completed by ''ComicBook/TheFlashInfiniteFrontier'' Annual 2021 outright stating Wally didn't even kill the heroes at all; the explosion was really caused by a returning Savitar.]]

* [[ComicBook/{{New52}} The New 52]]:

* Another rather controversial retcon by the [[Creator/GeoffJohns same author]] as the Franchise/GreenLantern example was in ''Franchise/TheFlash: Rebirth''. Barry Allen came back (which was fine) but now instead of the previous "Happy Family" he had, his father was accused of the murder of Allen's mother. Really it was Professor Zoom, who went back in time and killed Barry's mom to ruin Barry's life.

* ''[[ComicBook/{{Convergence}} Convergence: Plastic Man and the Freedom Fighters]]'' retcons ComicBook/PlasticMan into being one of Earth-X's ComicBook/FreedomFighters, when he'd never previously been a member [[note]]Plas and the members of the Freedom Fighters are all Quality Comics characters, so including Plas on Earth-X makes it fully a Quality Comics world.[[/note]].