Retcon #1 Reviews 

“Retcon” #1

By | September 14th, 2017
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Journey down a rabbit-hole of rewritten continuities and supernatural complexity in the latest debut from Image Comics. Read on for our review of “Retcon” #1, which contains mild spoilers

Cover by Toby Cypress

Written by Matt Nixon
Illustrated by Toby Cypress
Lettered by Matt Krotzer

NEW ONGOING SERIES! ‘TPTB,’ Part One-The reboot of a comic book miniseries that has never existed begins with an all-new, all-different issue #1! Time to travel back and jump in on this comic while it was new!

With a solicitation that promises the highest of high concepts, “Retcon” #1 promises to be an extremely weird ride. In the back matter to this debut issue, the creators involved in bringing this book to life seem entirely too self-aware of the unique qualities of the comic book medium and seem determined to explore those qualities in this series. While the high concept promised isn’t fully realized in this issue, this debut chapter provides the groundwork for the insanity to come.

The idea of retconning a story isn’t a new one, and while it’s not exclusive to comic books, they’ve certainly used it the most, especially in the serialized soap opera that is the superhero genre. Retroactive Continuity is where some aspect of a character or storyline is changed after the fact in order to service the continuing narrative in some way. Most often, it’s the unfortunate byproduct of decades of continuously produced fiction in a massively shared universe, and very rarely is it the purpose of any given occasion where it’s used. “Retcon,” however, is a book that looks to not only perform this narrative surgery as often as possible, the solicitation hints that it’s already been done before the series even starts.

The story is narrated by Brandon Ross, who tells us he was a simple barista before becoming entangled in a covert organization that tackles the occasions where paranormal entities are utilized as weapons of mass destruction. Of course, with a premise like “Retcon,” it’s hard to know if anything he tells us is entirely reliable, but at least, for the most part, he’s telling us his version of the truth. In time, it might come unraveled to the point where the real truth is altogether pointless, but the ‘in media res’ nature of this opening issue is such that the reader needs to cling to whatever they can in order to make sense of the frantically paced plot.

The action piece centers around Chris “The Animal” Dodge, whose revealing confessionals at a local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting is compromising national security. His unique “gifts” present themselves, and it’s up to Ross and his partner (the grossly titled Skinwalker) to use their own metahuman talents to bring him down. It’s a bonkers free-for-all of a plot, and attempting to keep up with it is dizzying, but by the end of the issue you’re left feeling the same giddy high as coming off a roller-coaster ride: you’re not sure what exactly happened as you were flung around, but it was very enjoyable.

The art of Toby Cypress (both pencils and colors) adds to the frenetic drama of the issue. Calmer moments are more realistically portrayed, giving way to exaggerated mayhem when the action hits. There’s a punk, grindhouse feel to his style that suits the story, and his coloring is less realist and more impressionist, capturing the sickly scenes with a green tinge, and drenching the panels in red when death is present. As the fight between Ross and Dodge develops and they both mutate into something more absurd, the background disappears, replaced with the mere concept of a room. There are also some fun stylistic choices in depicting a nanite swarm, which starts off looking like a glitchy, blocky computer screen and ends with an explosion of Kirby crackles. The end result is an issue that feels like a direct descendant of cosmic Marvel at its ‘70s, psychedelic best; a stylised Steranko or a grunge-infused Ditko.

The concepts explored and the characters used to explore them have a strikingly original quality that feels like Mignola meets “Umbrella Academy”, mixed with Moore’s “League of Gentlemen.” “Retcon” is establishing a world where anything can happen, and following the people in charge of policing that. Where the series deviates into its own unique thing, however, is in the unreliability of its own narrative.

Continued below

Deliberately designed to obfuscate the reader’s attempts at clarity, “Retcon” drops you in a world that’s been twisting and turning before you arrived, and while the retcons of the title are not explicitly labeled in this debut issue, the signs are all there. Even the art feels like worlds on top of worlds, styles on top of styles, layered up like trying to read multiple similar but different versions of the same issue. “Retcon” #1 is no doubt designed to be returned to, each new discovery leading to a different interpretation of the same issue, before rendering the whole affair pointless as the narrative writes it all out of continuity anyway.

There’s almost a juxtaposition of both too much and not information when you read “Retcon” #1. You’re given enough to understand what’s happening in the immediate situation, but not what it all means. That disorientation feels very deliberate, and any ideas of passively reading the issue are laughed off within a few pages. “Retcon” doesn’t, and perhaps never could live up to the promises made in the solicitation, not yet anyway. The layered structure of this issue, along with the tantalizing idea of reliving this situation over and over perhaps makes this a deeper, richer chapter than we can possibly realize at this moment, but there’s enough here to demand your attention moving forward.

Final Verdict 8.1 – A promisingly insane opening chapter to a psychedelic, self-aware roller-coaster.


Matt Lune

Born and raised in Birmingham, England, when Matt's not reading comics he's writing about them and hosting podcasts about them. From reading The Beano and The Dandy as a child, he first discovered American comics with Marvel's Heroes Reborn and, despite that questionable start, still fell in love and has never looked back. You can find him on Twitter @MattLune

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