retcon

/retkon/ [short for retroactive continuity , from the Usenet newsgroup
rec.arts.comics ] 1. n. The common situation in pulp fiction (esp. comics or
soap operas) where a new story reveals things about events in previous
stories, usually leaving the facts the same (thus preserving continuity)
while completely changing their interpretation. For example, revealing that
a whole season of Dallas was a dream was a retcon. 2. vt. To write such a
story about a character or fictitious object. Byrne has retconned Superman's
cape so that it is no longer unbreakable. Marvelman's old adventures were
retconned into synthetic dreams. Swamp Thing was retconned from a
transformed person into a sentient vegetable. [This term is included because
it is a good example of hackish linguistic innovation in a field completely
unrelated to computers. The word retcon will probably spread through comics
fandom and lose its association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for
the record, it started here. ESR] [1993 update: some comics fans on the net
now claim that retcon was independently in use in comics fandom before
rec.arts.comics , and have citations from around 1981. In lexicography,
nothing is ever simple.

