Saturday, March 19, 2011

They Fight Crime the Retcon

Retcons, or retro continuity, is now a standard tool in the comics industry. There's some reason for this, after sixty plus years of publishing some characters have a lot of dead weight in terms of out dated villains and such. Some comic book characters are themselves no longer relevant and need a fresh update.  Sometimes though a retcon is done just as a form of publicity.  Other times it is a form of ego massage as new writer takes over and wants to make the character "his."  The upshot is sometimes a retcon can be good, like when Swampthing discovers he was never a human being at all.  Other times it can be very bad like when they took Wonder Woman's powers away and made her dress like Emma Peel.  Mostly though, it doesn't do much one way or the other and just marks time till the next retcon.

With that in mind, I've designed a character that embraces the retcon with a vengeance.  Our hero has variously quantum inspired powers.  One day he wakes up and realizes he's not in his house.  There's a note by the bed that says "If you don't know what the heck is going on play this."  And there is a DVD, except it is square not round.  Our hero plays it and learns the truth:  he has become unstuck in reality.  See, one of the many models in quantum physics is when a particle is faced with a "choice" it splits the universe into two universes so that both choices do occur.  While it is logical most physicists say, "yeah right pull the other one."  Writers though love multiple worlds cause who wouldn't like an evil Spock with a goatee.  Anyway, for our hero the multiple worlds are very real and he has become unstuck and his consciousness now flits between various reality of himself.

On the plus side, people he thought dead might not be dead in whatever reality he's in.  On the other hand, dear loved ones could be dead in the next reality or even bitter enemies.  Sometimes he'll find himself with different powers or even no powers at all.  Other times the whole world will be"crazy" like a world where Germany won World War II.  The real problem is over time our hero faces the problem of alienation.  How can you stay close to anyone when everything changes without seeming rhyme or reason.  Our hero of course would try to find a way to get himself fixed in one reality, hopefully a good one. 

I don't have a name for my hero yet, but I call him the Q'd (sounds like "dude.")

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