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49-477: Due to a recent retcon , Dan Turpin was made the adult version of Jack Kirby 's Golden Age "kid-gang" character Brooklyn, of the Boy Commandos . In Turpin's first appearance, he is one of the few citizens of Metropolis aware that a secretive war is taking place in the city between super-powered beings. When this war turns violent, Turpin's boss tries to take him off the case, but Turpin ignores him. Turpin leads

98-478: A collection of science fiction short stories originally published in Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction from 1940 to 1950. Compiled into a single publication by Gnome Press in 1950, the collection features a framing sequence in which the stories are told to a reporter by Dr. Susan Calvin , chief robopsychologist at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men , Inc. Changes necessary to fit

147-504: A daughter named Hyppolyta Trevor (who became a hero called Fury and joined a team of heroes known as Infinity, Inc. ). The 1970s revival of All Star Comics involved some flashback stories, but most of the issues took place in the modern day, showing the Justice Society members as older heroes decades after World War II. Conway also included younger heroes in the group, such as Power Girl (an Earth-Two version of Supergirl ). His hope

196-521: A fictional work is in All-Star Squadron #18 (February 1983) from DC Comics . The series was set on DC's Earth-Two , an alternate universe in which Golden Age comic characters age in real time. All-Star Squadron was set during World War II on Earth-Two; as it was in the past of an alternate universe, all its events had repercussions on the contemporary continuity of the DC multiverse. Each issue changed

245-623: A new, unified reality with a revised history. The heroes of World War II now existed in the same timeline as modern heroes, simply operating at an earlier time. While it was not a major problem to establish that certain characters such as the Golden Age Flash (a man named Jay Garrick) and the later Flash (a man named Barry Allen) could co-exist and both operate during different time periods, this explanation didn't work for heroes with direct counterparts. Golden Age heroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman , Robin , and Green Arrow all of whom had

294-572: A series' continuity. Later stories may contradict the previous ones or explicitly establish that they never happened. A notable example of subtractive retconning is the X-Men film series . After X-Men: The Last Stand faced criticism for abruptly killing off characters such as Cyclops and Jean Grey , its sequel, X-Men: Days of Future Past , features the character Wolverine traveling back in time to 1973 to prevent an assassination that, if carried out, would lead to mutant extinction. The result of this

343-517: A visit from the Female Furies convinces Turpin that the islands need an SCU. In current Superman titles, Turpin is extremely loyal to Maggie Sawyer before her transfer to Gotham City . His romantic feelings for her fall apart when he learns she is lesbian . Turpin has a daughter named Maisie. He has spent a long time fighting threats in Metropolis; such as the rampaging group of mutants called

392-631: Is a new timeline where Jean and Cyclops never died. Retroactive continuity is similar to, but not the same as, plot inconsistencies introduced accidentally or through lack of concern for continuity; retconning, by comparison, is done deliberately. For example, the ongoing continuity contradictions on episodic TV series such as The Simpsons (in which the timeline of the family's history must be continually shifted forward to explain why they are not getting any older) reflects intentionally lost continuity, not genuine retcons. However, in series with generally tight continuity, retcons are sometimes created after

441-432: Is so common in superhero comics that the term " comic book death " has been coined for it. An early example of this type of retcon is the return of Sherlock Holmes , whom writer Arthur Conan Doyle apparently killed off in " The Final Problem " in 1893, only to bring him back, in large part because of readers' responses, with " The Empty House " in 1903. The character Zorro was retconned early in his existence. In

490-502: Is suddenly announced that "Oceania was not after all in war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia and Eurasia was an ally" (Part Two, Ch. 9), there is an immediate intensive effort to change "all reports and records, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks and photographs" and make them all record a war with Eastasia rather than one with Eurasia. "Often it was enough to merely substitute one name for another, but any detailed report of events demanded care and imagination. Even

539-610: The 1939 New York World's Fair . The Perisphere contained the Squadron meeting hall, while the Trylon was retrofitted as an aircraft hangar/vertical launch platform. The All-Star Squadron had a robotic butler named Gernsback , based on the Elektro robots from the fair and named after science fiction publisher Hugo Gernsback . During the 1985-86 series Crisis on Infinite Earths , Earth-Two and Earth-One, along with some other realities, merged into

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588-482: The Freedom Fighters traveled from Earth-Two to Earth-X , an event indicated in an earlier Justice League story. With so many characters to choose from, the creative team decided to concentrate on "quite promising characters who have been ignored or underplayed for years", instead of only those Earth-Two characters who had popular counterparts on Earth-One. For examples, All-Star Squadron did not focus much on

637-550: The Golden Age of Comics (roughly 1935–1951), several comic books featured crime-fighters, "mystery-men", adventurers, and superheroes. DC Comics began publishing the anthology series All Star Comics (sometimes referred to as All-Star Comics ) in 1940. In issue #3, DC had many of their superheroes join together for dinner and share stories, declaring the gathering to be the first meeting of the Justice Society of America . The JSA

686-573: The Justice Society of America (JSA). The last series to do so was the second volume of All Star Comics , which lasted only seventeen issues from 1976 to 1979. As Roy Thomas put it, DC management gave him "a chance to write a return of the JSA". Instead of writing stories in the modern era of Earth-Two, Roy Thomas chose to set the series during World War II. Roy Thomas decided to include other Golden Age era characters that weren't published by DC Comics during

735-485: The 'Underworlders'. In Final Crisis , Turpin investigates the case of several missing children and Orion's death. He is possessed by Darkseid , but freed after Batman shoots him with a poisonous Radion bullet. Dan Turpin appears as a character summon in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure . Retcon Retroactive continuity , or retcon for short, is a literary device in which facts in

784-633: The 1930s and 40s but were acquired by the company in later years, such as the Quality Comics characters. All-Star Squadron established that most of these characters co-existed with the Golden Age DC heroes on Earth-Two. In a nod to the original JSA adventures in All Star Comics , writer Roy Thomas tried to include at least a cameo appearance by the Golden Age Hawkman in every issue, since he

833-675: The 1930s and 40s occurred in a parallel reality called Earth-Two . While the Golden Age Superman , introduced in 1938, had lived through World War II, the Earth-One Superman had not even been born until long after the war was over. While the modern-day Earth-One Wonder Woman was a superhero in her prime, new stories revealed that the Golden Age Wonder Woman of Earth-Two had fought Nazis during World War II, then later semi-retired, married her dear friend Steve Trevor, and had

882-464: The 1980s, its self-titled series took place in the 1940s, retroactively inserting their narratives into the fictional history of the DC Comics superheroes. The team included many of DC's Golden Age era characters, new characters, and other World War II superheroes which DC did not own during the 1940s but later acquired. The name "All-Star Squadron" was creator Roy Thomas' reference to All Star Comics ,

931-686: The Earth-Two versions of Superman and Wonder Woman, nor on the Golden Age version of the Flash, Jay Garrick, whose counterpart Barry Allen was very popular as the Flash of Earth-One. Roy Thomas wrote: "If we lost the original GL , we gained the Earth-Two Robotman ; if we dropped Jay (Flash) Garrick , we picked up on Johnny Quick ; Liberty Belle could stand in for Wonder Woman till more super-powered ladies came along. We even tossed in an Earth-Two version of

980-577: The Justice Society members had been captured by the time-travelling villain Per Degaton with the help of JSA foes he had pulled back in time, but the available heroes were asked to first guard against a potential attack on the West Coast of the United States . Degaton himself used some stolen Japanese planes with hypnotized troopers to launch such an attack on San Francisco, hoping to change history by making

1029-553: The Marvel Comics series Invaders in a similar way to address and revise official Marvel fictional history. Several issues of the series offered detailed origin stories of various characters, sometimes with revised details. Characters who had origin issues dedicated to them included Amazing-Man , Starman , Doctor Fate , Liberty Belle , Robotman , Johnny Quick , and the Tarantula . The story arc in issues #32-33 detailed how

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1078-550: The Squadron in combat situations in the European or Pacific Theaters of War was that Adolf Hitler had possession of the Spear of Destiny , a mystical object that gave him control of any superheroes with magic-based powers or a vulnerability to magic (including Superman , Green Lantern , Doctor Fate and others) who crossed into territory held by the Axis Powers . At the time, many of

1127-689: The US from invasion, super-villains, spies, and sabotage rather than risk their minds being controlled by the Axis Powers if they operated overseas in Europe or Asia. After their introduction in Justice League of America, the team starred in the series All-Star Squadron which ran from 1981 to 1987. At different times, the organization's chairperson was Liberty Belle or Hawkman . A spin-off series entitled Young All-Stars began in 1987 and published 32 issues. During

1176-399: The United States fight to a stalemate against Japan, enabling him to take over the world, so the new Squadron's first major mission was to stop the attack and rescue the captured heroes, who also became part of the new group. Due to Per Degaton going back in time after the JSA were freed they forgot his involvement, though the events were not wiped. America's entry into the war caused several of

1225-465: The best name for it a few months back: 'Retroactive Continuity'. Has kind of a ring to it, don't you think?" Retcons sometimes add information that seemingly contradicts previous information. This frequently takes the form of a character who was shown to have died but is later revealed to have somehow survived. This is a common practice in horror films , which may end with the death of a monster that goes on to appear in one or more sequels. The technique

1274-493: The canon of DC Comics, the Axis Powers used the mystical Spear of Destiny to create a "sphere of influence" over their occupied territories and surrounding areas during most of World War II. This sphere of influence caused superhumans, magically empowered people, and magic-users to fall under Hitler's control and take on some of his personality traits. For this reason, the All-Star Squadron focused its activities on protecting

1323-612: The changes are unimportant to the audience compared to the new story which can be told. Retcons can be diegetic or nondiegetic. For instance, by using time travel or parallel universes , an author may diegetically reintroduce a popular character they had previously killed off. More subtle and nondiegetic methods would be ignoring or expunging minor plot points to remove narrative elements the author doesn't have interest in writing. Retcons are common in pulp fiction , and especially in comic books by long-established publishers such as DC and Marvel . The long history of popular titles and

1372-455: The end of Season 8, to be still alive when actor Patrick Duffy wanted to return to the series. This season is sometimes referred to as the "Dream Season" and was referred to humorously in later TV series such as Family Guy as a "gas-leak year". Other series such as St. Elsewhere , Newhart , and Roseanne would notably employ the same technique. Unpopular stories are sometimes later ignored by publishers, and effectively erased from

1421-523: The evil New Gods . On the day of the bombing of Pearl Harbor , President Franklin Roosevelt gathered available superheroes—including members of the Justice Society of America , Freedom Fighters , and solo heroes—at the White House. He asked them to band together for the war as the All-Star Squadron to battle sabotage and keep the peace on the home front during World War II . The rationale for not using

1470-499: The fact to explain continuity errors. Such was the case in The Flintstones , where Wilma Flintstone was mistakenly given two separate maiden names over the course of the series: "Pebble" and "Slaghoople". Though the term "retcon" did not yet exist when George Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four , the totalitarian regime depicted in that book is involved in a constant, large-scale retconning of past records. For example, when it

1519-472: The fight against the rampaging Kalibak , using the city's energy to assist Lightray and Orion in defeating him. Turpin is injured, but survives. He keeps his job and becomes Lieutenant Inspector of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit . In the third Superboy series, Turpin is sent to Hawaii to investigate whether they need a Special Crimes Unit of their own. While initially skeptical,

Dan Turpin - Misplaced Pages Continue

1568-473: The following month with the creative team of writer Roy Thomas , with artists Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway . The comic book series lasted 67 issues from September 1981 to March 1987, with three annuals published as well. In All-Star Squadron #1, series writer Roy Thomas published "An Open Letter to the Readers" wherein he described the impetus for the series. Namely, DC wanted a comic book telling tales of

1617-470: The geographical knowledge needed in transferring the war from one part of the world to another was considerable." See historical revisionism (negationism) . All-Star Squadron The All-Star Squadron is a DC Comics superhero team that debuted in Justice League of America #193 (August 1981) and was created by Roy Thomas , Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway . Although the team was introduced in

1666-540: The history of the fictional world in which it was set. In the letters column , a reader remarked that the comic "must make you [the creators] feel at times as if you're painting yourself into a corner", and, "Your matching of Golden Age comics history with new plotlines has been an artistic (and I hope financial!) success." Writer Roy Thomas responded, "we like to think that an enthusiastic ALL-STAR booster at one of Adam Malin 's Creation Conventions in San Diego came up with

1715-519: The members of the JSA to enlist, or be drafted in their civilian identities. These included Alan Scott , Starman , Hawkman , The Atom and Johnny Thunder . In the pages of " The New Golden Age ", the Prime-Earth version of the All-Star Squadron is revealed to exist as the bio for the Golden Age Aquaman mentions that he was briefly a member of this group. Mister Terrific also mentioned that

1764-559: The new version included the name of the company (originally the Finmark Robot Corporation), new, earlier references to the Three Laws of Robotics , and new interpolated scenes featuring Dr. Calvin herself. The TV series Dallas annulled its entire Season 9 as just the dream of another character, Pam Ewing . Writers did this to offer a supposedly plausible reason for the major character of Bobby Ewing , who had died onscreen at

1813-404: The number of writers who contribute stories can often create situations that demand clarification or revision. Retcons also appear in manga , soap operas , serial dramas , movie sequels, cartoons , professional wrestling angles , video games , radio series, and other forms of serial fiction . They are used in role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons . An early published use of

1862-645: The only issue of the series where he does not appear. The All-Star Squadron team is an example of " retroactive continuity " or "retcon", since the team itself was retroactively inserted into the history of DC superheroes and the series rewrote portions of already-established DC canon published during the 1940s. The first known use of the term "retcon" was by Roy Thomas in the letter column of All-Star Squadron #20 (April 1983). Several story lines ironed out continuity errors, fleshed out characters' origins, explained inconsistencies in character development, and resolved lingering questions and plot threads. Roy Thomas had used

1911-426: The original 1919 novel, The Curse of Capistrano , Zorro ends his adventures by revealing his identity, a plot point that was carried over to the 1920 film adaptation The Mark of Zorro . In order to have further stories starring Zorro, author Johnston McCulley kept all the elements of his original story, but retroactively ignored its ending. One notable example is Isaac Asimov ’s 1950 fixup novel I, Robot ,

1960-401: The phrase "retroactive continuity" is found in theologian E. Frank Tupper's 1973 book The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg : "Pannenberg's conception of retroactive continuity ultimately means that history flows fundamentally from the future into the past, that the future is not basically a product of the past." A printed use of "retroactive continuity" referring to the altering of history in

2009-434: The same secret identities, same basic origin stories, and largely similar supporting casts as their modern day counterparts. For this reason, these particular Golden Age heroes, and some others, had to be removed from the history of the new, unified timeline. This also meant the canon of several recent All-Star Squadron stories was now questionable, since the Golden Age versions of those same heroes made multiple appearances in

Dan Turpin - Misplaced Pages Continue

2058-703: The series since its start, became the series regular penciler starting with issue #19 (March 1983). He and Thomas then co-created the Infinity, Inc. team, introducing it in All-Star Squadron #25 (Sept. 1983). All-Star Squadron #31 (1984) featured the group's first "full roster" general meeting, taking place at their headquarters. The All-Star Squadron HQ was depicted as the Trylon and Perisphere , actual structures in Flushing Meadows , Queens, New York, constructed for

2107-448: The series that introduced the Justice Society of America, the first comic book superhero team. According to the series All-Star Squadron , US President Franklin Roosevelt creates a "superhero draft" called Article X during World War II. Article X asks all active American masked crime-fighters and superhuman adventurers to join forces as a single war-time organization, just as many American labor organizations did during World War II. In

2156-422: The series. To clear the slate after Crisis on Infinite Earths and re-launch the franchise, All Star Squadron ended with issue #67 and the series was succeeded by Young All-Stars . Since then, the All-Star Squadron has appeared in sporadic stories published by DC Comics. Article X was used again during the crossover Final Crisis when Earth's superheroes needed to unite against the forces of Darkseid and

2205-493: The venerable Plastic Man , whose series in [ Adventure Comics ] was just folding..." When Rich Buckler left the series after the fifth issue, editor Len Wein hired artist Adrian Gonzales as a replacement and notified Roy Thomas with a note stating "You're going to like Adrian Gonzales". He drew the series for 13 issues, during which the team had a crossover with the Justice League of America . Jerry Ordway, who had inked

2254-405: The world of a fictional work that have been established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work that recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former. There are various motivations for applying retroactive continuity, including: Retcons are used by authors to increase their creative freedom, on the assumption that

2303-467: Was the first comic book superhero team and became the main feature of All Star Comics until it was canceled with issue #57 in 1951. Writer Gerry Conway revived the All Star Comics series in 1976, continuing the original numbering by starting with issue #58. By this time, DC had established that its modern day adventures took place in the universe of Earth-One, whereas DC's Golden Age stories during

2352-433: Was the one hero to appear in every Golden Age issue of the original All Star Comics series , including the two issues that predated the formation of the Justice Society of America. Although Hawkman did not appear in every issue of the second All Star Comic series, Roy Thomas wanted to create a new streak for the character in All-Star Squadron . The artwork for issue #49 was printed without Hawkman's cameo included, making it

2401-519: Was to later have the younger members star in a spin-off series of their own, forming a team that could be called the All-Star Squadron. Management at DC worried that the team's name would be abbreviated as A.S.S., and so the group's name was changed to the Super Squad. A team known as the All-Star Squadron debuted years later in a special insert in Justice League of America #193 (August 1981). The team's official series All-Star Squadron then began

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