retcon
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retcon: /ret´kon/

  [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. —ESR]

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