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View 3:
“John Byrne was a good artist but his retcons stink.”
There is a view, argued by “John Jones” in “Crapping on the Shoulders of Giants” that John Byrne “wrecks the essential qualities of everything he touches.” If you do read that article, please note he uses strong language, and the actual evidence does not appear until half way through the essay. I will focus only on the retcon examples, to see how they might influence a critic’s view of the Lockjaw story.
- Byrne’s early work included making heroes act out of character to be more violent. “The very first time we ever noticed his input into a plot he was drawing was when he changed things so that a particular, supposedly heroic, character snuck up behind a villainous guard and killed him, rather than just knocking him out, as had been directed by the putative writer of the series.”
- When he wrote his own series, the Fantastic Four, he returned the Thing to the appearance and attitude of hating his body, although he had got past that stage years ago. More seriously he had Alicia dump The Thing, another change that later writers saw the need to reverse. I should note that this one, while apparently out of character, and removing one of comicdom’s great tragic themes, was not strictly a retcon. It is entirely possible that Alicia had been losing interest in Grimm for years but just never mentioned it. Personally I am more concerned with the more blatant retcon that said this Alicia was a Skrull. But I can see how Byrne’s plotline is out of character and could be seen as part of a pattern.
- Byrne’s reboot of Spiderman made him less sympathetic character and ignored much of what made him a beloved character. The retcon later had to be reversed by other writers.
- Byrne’s reboot of Superman turned him “into an arrogant yuppie” and was ignored by later writers.
- He turned the Submariner into “a manic-depressive schizoid, instead of just a hot-tempered young mutant with a legitimate grudge against the surface world.” Again, this character change seems to have been reversed by later writers. For the record I strongly support changes that stay changed, because that’s more realistic. But unexplained or frequent changes in character are not realistic, and in character driven drama that’s the greater of the two crimes.
- Similar things are said of his Batman work, but in less detail.
- Byrne’s retcon of The Vision earns an entire essay, arguing that the original story was carefully crafted over many years by some of the greatest writers in the business, to show that the machine had a soul, and to follow his life and emotional development through twenty years and popular miniseries. Then Byrne swiftly and systematically reversed it all, which required characters to deny precious statements and even act entirely out of character. This was all to say that the Vision had been basically just a “toaster” all along, and the Scarlet Witch must have been mentally disturbed to marry him. The retcon later had to be reversed by other writers.
I’m just reporting what others say (apart from the Fantastic Four stuff I didn’t see this first hand) but you can see how the Lockjaw story appears in this light. “Well loved pet suddenly becomes a talking, deformed inhuman, implying that other Inhumans are immoral. Most comic professionals hated the idea and reversed the story at the first opportunity.”
If Byrne was evil, then what?
Let’s assume, for sake of argument, that the critics are right. Let’s assume that Byrne was rubbing his hands with glee, saying “here is a noble race and a cute dog, how can I turn it all upside down? (evil cackle)” Let’s assume that Byrne really is the devil incarnate. Where do we go from here? The story exists. Even the fiercest critics accept that the retcon to the retcon wasn’t an ideal solution (Gorgon and Karnak as pranksters? That’s hardly in their noble character either.) Is that the only solution?
Let’s go back to the disastrous story, and see if we can rescue it without doing any further damage to characterization or continuity.
FIRST, we notice that Lockjaw never said he was once a regular Inhuman. He only implied that an inhuman might be turned into something strange by the Terrigen mists. It was Ben Grimm who assumed that Lockjaw was once humanoid, but it was only a hunch. Hunches can easily be wrong. So straight away we have removed the biggest crime. Lockjaw started off as a dog. He acts like a dog, he likes being a (superpowered) dog. So the Inhumans are not jerks.
SECOND, we notice that Lockjaw isn’t like the Vision or Spiderman or Superman. He never had his own comics, he doesn’t appear in hundreds of other issues. Very little was ever said about him. In many ways he is a blank canvas. We can afford to cut some slack here. So he can maybe talk? Big deal. So can Ant Man’s ants. But he never spoke before? Well we never had a Lockjaw comic series so we never really explored the possibilities. The explanation in the comics is perfectly reasonable. It’s very painful, he never had anything to say, and its a secret anyway. What’s so bad about that?
THIRD, let’s examine our indignation that the Inhumans would treat Lockjaw so badly. But did they ever treat him badly? Did they? Where? Show me. Take a look back at all the previous stories that involved Lockjaw. They never treated him badly. Sure, they treated him like a dog. He is a dog! A superpowered dog. And yes, they treated him like a servant. But well duh, they’re a royal family. That’s what royalty do. But they never treated him badly. Take a look back at those early Fantastic Four issues. It was Wyatt Wingfoot (and to a lesser extent Johnny Storm) who acted like jerks. They treated him like an idiot, but the Inhumans never did.
So no crime has been committed. The Inhumans are still innocent.
FOURTH, does he have the intelligence to recognize danger (in this case the danger of the Terrigen mists)? Does he recognize the names of his friends? Does he understand what they are saying? Can he reason enough to warn someone of what might happen? Sure he can. Just look at all his adventures.
Finally, what about the coincidence that Byrne wrote so many other terrible retcons? Isn’t it unlikely that this one would be good when the others are bad? Well even a broken clock is right twice a day. And this story wasn’t drawn by him, and it was fairly early in his writing career. Even the critics admit that his earlier Fantastic Four work was passable. And the Thing story came from only issue two of the book. Maybe Byrne was still trying hard at that point. This story (unlike the others) does have a good number of fans who actually like the story. Maybe this was the early retcon, the one accidental success, that inspired him to think he could make a living out of dark dramatic retcons?
My point is, it is possible to see John Byrne as the spawn of Satan yet still have a talking Lockjaw. The two scenarios are not mutually exclusive.
Please note: I am playing devil’s advocate here. I personally do not think that Byrne has horns. Nor do I buy everything he ever does. I’m just a Fantastic Four fanboy who likes Lockjaw.
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