Board Thread:Policies/@comment-16461120-20161107075255/@comment-61022-20161109160447

On the Iron Man front, the entire set of circumstances that lead to him getting shrapnel in his chest including the geographical location, conflict, and the opposing force are all topical references. The core elements are that he was out weapons testing, got wounded, became a prisoner of Wong Chu. Everything else should be generalized because it's affected by the Sliding Timescale.

That said, if you look at the Official Marvel Index for Iron Man, all of those different events that apply variants of events are all listed in his chronology. Marvel actually combines them all together and plots out an overall chronology of those events. In essence all of those events can be combined together and generalized enough to form a coherent narrative.

The only issue that really comes up is the recent change from Southeast Asia to the Middle East. Which was only one story, and it was such an abridged telling of Iron Man's origins that it couldn't be anything more than a topical reference.

Conversely....

I'd say the same thing about the conflict between Klaw and T'Chaka, only there are different reasons for the events being topical.

When you take a look at the original origin story, it is dated in that if someone were to write a story like that now it'd be considered stereotypical bordering on racist. Also the fact that Klaw wanting Vibranium and later stories saying he killed T'Chaka for political reasons don't negate each other either. Vibranium is one of the most valuable and rare commodities on the Marvel Universe. To say that Klaw's motivation was strictly one motive or the other is silly. It also wouldn't explain why Klaw would later go back to Wakanda to get Vibranium later (during his first clash with the Fantastic Four) and later being transformed into Klaw.

In fact, if you look at the Chronology Project (who help Marvel produce their Indexes) they actually combine the two versions of the origin (Link: http://chronologyproject.com/b.php#PANTHER )

So really at the end of the day. As I've maintained. Marvel doesn't really Retcon. It combines all versions of events into a generalized telling because the core elements of all the variations is that regardless of what's added, subtracted, or done differently, the end result is always the same.