When hundreds of comic creators tell stories starring the same cast of characters across decades, they are bound to inevitably contradict and even overwrite each other. But these changes have a habit of being overwritten themselves, whether they get reversed or replaced with an even newer explanation. In the new issue Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality #5, the Peter Parker's comics knowledge to battle a universe-destroying retcon, and comes to a conclusion for why even the most harshly enforced ones are doomed.
'Retcon', short for 'retroactive continuity', is a comics industry term to describe events in past comics being revised or negated by newer stories. For example: when Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont used Doctor Doom in a guest appearance, Fantastic Four writer John Byrne disliked the way X-Men villain Arcade treated Doom so much that he wrote a scene revealing that the Doom in Uncanny X-Men was has had its share.
Symbiote Spider-Man: Alien Reality is a miniseries, written by Peter David and illustrated by Greg Land, that pits Spidey against a magical in-universe retcon that has changed the entire universe. Using the Word of God, a magical artifact containing the power of the Divine Creator, the evil sorcerer Baron Mordo and the Hobgoblin have rewritten the world so that Mordo is Sorcerer Supreme. Hobgoblin has teamed up with him in a convoluted plan to make Doctor Strange and Spider-Man suffer. They then used the Word of God to destroy itself, leaving Spidey and Strange with no way to make things right. Also, this story takes place when Peter was wearing the black Spider-Man costume that would later become Venom.
In issue 5, the symbiote uses Peter's intimate familiarity with comics to hatch a plan. He says that the Word of God is essentially a retcon, but 'the thing with retcons is, they aren't real. People always . Always.' He deduces that the moment of creation, if it ever existed, cannot be removed from humanity's collective memory. Stephen Strange helps him access that realm, where he reconstitutes the Word of God in Mordo's sanctum, then jumps out of it and smacks Hobgoblin in the face.
Is there a lesson to be learned from this? Perhaps it's that fighting the history of a character or a story is like fighting a river current: you can walk against it, but it will always flow through and over any chance it gets. It's impossible to know what ideas will take root in the minds of readers, and future creators, until they're released into the world.
Ten years from now, will anyone that Venom was forged in the darkness of space using the including a dragon? Given that he was originally just a cool suit that came out of a machine, we know some retcons do stick after all.
