Narrative RetCon & Re-AccentuationRecovering Arête in All-Star Superman

What is re-accentuation

For the word is, after all, not a dead material object in the hands of an artist equipped with it; it is a living word and is therefore in all things true to itself . . . but its meaning-once realized-can never he completely extinguished. And under changed conditions this meaning may emit bright new rays, burning away the reifying crust that had grown up around it and thus removing any real ground for a parodic accentuation, dimming or completely extinguishing such re-accentuation. (419)

RetCon According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the

term retrocontinuity serves as both a noun and a verb.

As a noun, it is commonly seen as “a piece of new information that imposes a different interpretation on previously described events, typically used to facilitate a dramatic plot shift or account for an inconsistency”

Coming Together One way to recapture or explore elements of

Superman’s long 75-year history requires an understanding of how the narrative has been altered via RetCon and just how more contemporary devotes of Superman have allowed and made use of re-accentuation of lost and sometimes altered aspects of the heroes narrative to achieve recognizable and identifiable symbolic responses through this process.

Two Examples

1. Superman’s original origin found in Action Comics #1 (1938) and its re-accentuated version found in the opening of All-Star Superman #1(2006).

2. Depictions of Superman’s power to save lives (and social attitudes towards mental illness) found in Action Comics #9 (1939) and All-Star Superman #.

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