Thread:Undoniel/@comment-3406131-20160105150003/@comment-61022-20160106154356

Another option that might work better would be having a heading for origins and then subheadings describing the different accounts. I did that with a lot of World War II characters who say a resurgence during Marvel's 75th anniversary when they went back and retold their origins in a more contemporary way (Characters like the Young Allies, Slow Motion Jones, Firey Mask, the original Black Widow etc.) In those cases Marvel had a simple answer to explain the differences: the original Timely stories from the 40s were "based" on the "real" events of these characters that were adapted into comic books as part of some wartime propaganda.

With Klaw and T'Chaka there isn't that sort of easy explanation to explain why there are the two different accounts.

Also, from what I can tell about the retconned origins, it basically throws out the notion that Wakanda was a closed off society and Vibranium was virtually an unknown commodity when the Fantastic Four first meet the Black Panther. The modern Black Panther/Klaw origin story originally presented has been retold a few times. comes to mind in particular as a story that retells the original account from. T'Challa has referenced the original account a number of times as well. Particular issues aren't coming to mind right now.

Now when I think of it, the person who recounts the original version of the story is T'Challa himself, during a period where Wakanda purposely cut itself off from the outside world and T'Challa himself was a relatively new leader of the Wakandan people. Perhaps the original accounts are some kind of deception, or embellishment to make the Black Panther sound more legendary or honorable to the outside world during the early days of his career. Perhaps the alternative story was a way of gaining trust from the super-hero community during it's heyday.

Of course these reasoning's, in lieu of an official explanation, are speculative.

However I do recall that when there are contrary reports of a specific event or point in time depending on who is telling the narrative, usually the Handbooks mention both accounts, and states their sources. (Deadpool's differing accounts of his childhood and family life growing up being a good example. In all the recent handbooks that go into his origins they reference all the different accounts -- made by Deadpool himself in most cases -- and how they contradict one another and provides a slightly speculative explanation as to why those different accounts exist (in that case, they usually cite the Weapon X program's memory implants, and the fact that Deadpool's not exactly the sanest individual) but posits that there is at least an air of truth behind all the accounts.

Taking this all back to the retconned history of T'Chaka/Klaw/T'Challa, I haven't read that story as yet, but if it's coming from a different narrative point of view (Example: Black Panther is not telling the story, or perhaps reflecting back on it in a different way -- for example instead of telling his fellow heroes about what happened, he is merely thinking back on the real events)

So perhaps something to the tune of:

Origin
There are two conflicting accounts as to how Klaw obtained his powers.

Original Account
Based on accounts made on at least two different occasions by T'Challa, events occurred as such.....

Subsequent Accounts
Subsequently, another account of events has recently been revealed which state that events were....

At this present time there are no explanations as why two different accounts have been given. --

That way you get both versions of the stories, and at least explain that two versions exist. Readers can accept whichever origin they want to accept as the "real" one. It also saves us later edits in the event that writers flip-flop over those origins, we don't have to remove or add anything except for the minimum edits to cite additional references and whatever new information can be gleamed from future accounts.

I think excising the original origin story because it's not new or current could create potential headaches in the future when it comes to trying to be as complete as possible. The best example I can give for retcon headaches is the disaster the DC Wiki has become since Convergence. For years people have been writing off certain retcons because some characters were not really all that affected by whatever retconning was done (Green Lantern, the Atom, the Flash etc) instead of separating different profiles for the different Post-Insert-Name-of-Crisis-Here. Now they're in a situation where they've massive 70+ year gaps in information depending on which character has now had their retconned history unretconned visa-vie an undoing of Crisis on Infinite Earths and later big events.

The whole Klaw/T'Chaka thing is small potatoes compared to the mire that DC Continuity is, but I think we should use that as an example to try to avoid excising "retconned" material, because it can always come back.

The closest thing I can provide as an example for Marvel for sticky continuity is with the three men who were the Destroyer in World War II Kevin Marlow, Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey. Back in Invaders Vol 1, they tried to completely retcon Marlow out of continuity, stating that Marlow was merely a cover, and that Aubrey took over when Falsworth took over as Union Jack. Later handbooks (again when Marvel was celebrating their 75th) released handbook that actually went back and stated that Marlow was real and then painstakingly explained which times during World War II which version of the Destroyer was active at what time and when, covering all three men. There was also the Destroyer MAX series and a Marvel 75th Anniversary special that featured Marlow as the Destroyer. Even after all that, Ed Brubaker went back to the "there was no Kevin Marlow" story in the Marvels Project Vol 1. Not a big mess, but it certainly shows that a flipflop can happen.