History Main / CosmicRetcon

* PlayedForLaughs in ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' with [[PunnyName Rhett Caan]], a [[BreakingTheFourthWall nerd with knowledge of the fourth wall]] with RealityWarping abilities that let him perform this.

* In ''LightNovel/SSSClassSuicideHunter'', protagonist Kim Gongja kills himself 4090 times so he can go back to the past before his killer Yoo Soohan gains ResurrectiveImmortality and kill him.

** ''ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime'', the first sequel to ''Crisis on Infinite Earths'', was the second universe-wide retcon, caused by [[ComicBook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]] and Hank Hall going mad and tampering with the timestream. It created the [[ComicBookTime sliding timescale]] that the DCU has used since and altered the backstories of several characters, most notably ComicBook/{{Hawkman}}, who was ''extremely'' streamlined to deal with his snarl (that partly resulted from ''Crisis'') and the Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes, who got a complete ContinuityReboot.

** In what looks almost like a parody, at the end of ''[[Comicbook/LegionOfSuperHeroes Legion of Three Worlds]]'', he's HoistByHisOwnPetard when he [[spoiler: retcons ''himself'' by punching the Time Trapper, who was his future self. The latter is RetGone outright]].

** Comicbook/DoctorStrange has seen this happen a few times (being pals with Higher Beings will do this). In one storyline he saw the entire world destroyed and recreated except for himself, causing him some psychological distress as he wondered if the people he knew and loved were actually real.

** Played with in ''[[ComicBook/TheUnbelievableGwenpool Gwenpool Strikes Back]]''. Following Gwen's desperate breakdown over her imminent trip to ComicBookLimbo and death, [[Comicbook/MsMarvel2014 Ms. Marvel]] tries to help Gwen by giving her thoughts on Gwen's origin: she's not [[TrappedInTVLand a real person trapped in a comic book world]], but a RealityWarper mutant. The shock of her powers manifesting made her subconsciously change her perception of reality and trick her into forgetting her true self in order to protect her from a power she couldn't fully comprehend. This ends up being the accepted backstory by the universe, and Gwen is retconned into being a mutant all along. Gwen herself knows it's a retcon and still believes in her true origin story, but for all intents and purposes, the universe now treats her as a mutant.

* In the ''FanFic/PonyPOVSeries'',

* In ''FanFic/{{Drakonophobia}}'' [[spoiler: the White Dragon Sotrahkun]] is forced to do this when Alduin screw things up extremely badly. He'd created Tears through time that allowed him to summon alternate versions of himself but in the meanwhile breaking time as we know it. [[spoiler: The [[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Dragonborn, Petra]] is forced to sacrifice herself mend things in the end with the help of Brynjolf, sets the retcon in motion.]] as a result, only [[spoiler: Brynjolf]] remembers the old timeline as [[spoiler: Sotrahkun]] rewrites and actually merges timelines. But it's hinted that [[spoiler: Petra]] will eventually recall everything that happpened, albeit at a different pace.
* In ''FanFic/Flashpoint2AdventSolaris'', the cosmic retcon at the end of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDarkApokolipsWar'' is both a major part of the plot (the entire reason it's happening, actually) and is also undone via another retcon right in the 16th chapter when the villain, [[spoiler:Mephiles the Dark]], transports most of the heroes to the part of the film right before the titular war started in the first place - it's unknown if them preventing the events from happening was intended on his part or not.

* In the ''Videogame/{{Warcraft}}'' universe, the book trilogy ''Literature/TheWarOfTheAncients'' {{RetCon}}s some parts of Azerothean history due to a few people going back in time (most notably the blue dragonflight going from extinct to having enough members to wage war against all other dragons and some mortals at the same time).

* ''Videogame/{{Drakengard 3}}'' uses this trope as [[spoiler:a central plot device. Accord, a cyborg girl from the Old World who serves as the story's narrator, tries to find a branch where [[EldritchAbomination The Flower]] is sealed away and no Intoner survives. The way alternate timelines are handled has been compared to ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate''.]]
* One of the endings of ''VideoGame/SaintsRowGatOutOfHell'' is [[spoiler:Johnny asking God to retcon the universe so that the Earth was never destroyed, creating an alternate timeline where the Saints don't exist and Johnny, Kinzie, and Matt are cops]]. The SpinOff game ''Videogame/AgentsOfMayhem'' takes place in this timeline.
* The weapon of the Chrono Legionnaire in ''Videogame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' does this. The target is locked in a time bubble and slowly erased from existence. More 'complex' (i.e. expensive) units take longer to erase, presumably because every individual component must be written out of history.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3413 SCP-3413]] ("[[ShoutOut Irwin Shrugged]]"), a Website/{{YouTube}} channel known as "Safari Dave's Wild World". The channel's typical format consists of the host, wilderness expert Safari Dave, providing information (some of which is incorrect) about different kinds of animals. Any false statements in Safari Dave's videos become true 30 minutes after being posted, with all relevant information being retroactively altered (even willing [[EskimosArentReal previously-nonexistent animals]], like "sun bears", into existence). [[RippleEffectProofMemory Only people who viewed the videos before the change will remember the original reality.]]

* ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'' works this way for the entire [[WebSite/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Awesomeverse]], explaining any kind of continuity errors in previous stories as [[spoiler:the PlotHole retroactively screwing with reality, and any future mistakes being the result of the Plot Hole merging with the universe as a whole, effectively ''breaking'' reality]]. Best summed up by this exchange:

* In Raven Child's ''Fanfic/TheSmurfetteVillage'' fanfiction series, the events that take place in the fourth story "A Home Through Time" retcon ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs''' ninth season (the time-traveling episodes) out of existence, setting things up for the events that take place in the story series proper.

* ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' [[spoiler:ends with one. [[EldritchAbomination The Nibiru Entity]] is defeated when the crystal sarcophagus it was using to draw power from another dimension is destroyed. This results in the sarcophagus imploding into a black hole and erasing the Entity from existence. As a result, everything is changed to be as if the Curse of Crystal Cove, the very curse that the Entity created, never existed at all.]]

* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean'' ends with [[spoiler:the antagonist Enrico Pucci recreating the universe]]. We briefly see the new universe at the end of the part, with counterparts to most of the main cast. The next story arc, ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun'', is a ContinuityReboot that takes place in the same time period as the first story arc, ''Phantom Blood'', with various counterparts to individual or multiple characters. Despite these two facts, and much fan confusion, the Steel Ball Run universe is '''not''' one that came as a result of Stone Ocean, instead being another universe entirely with no stated connection to the first continuity aside from names and the existence of Stands.

* ''LightNovel/DateALive'': At one point in the series, [[spoiler: Shido goes back in time using one of Kurumi's bullets to when Origami's parents were killed by a Spirit and manages to prevent their deaths. While this does change Origami's history and personality and she no longer has a vendetta against Spirits, [[YouCantFightFate her parents ended up dying anyway]], only in a traffic accident this time]].

* ''Series/{{The Sandman|2022}}'', "[[Recap/TheSandman2022S01E11ADreamOfAThousandCatsCalliope A Dream of a Thousand Cats]]": The Prophet's message is that the nature of reality can be changed more easily than people realize -- if enough people, perhaps as few as a thousand, all dream the same thing at once, that will become reality. It's already happened once, creating the damaged and strife-torn world we inhabit, and the Prophet is trying to gather believers to make it happen again and create a better world (that is, one that's better for cats like the Prophet, probably not great for humans).

*** An altered version of the ''ComicBook/SupermanLoisAndClark'' miniseries is worked into the characters; history, with it being established that Clark and Lois ''did'' still live on a farm during that time, with Lois working as "Author X". However, their civilian friends knew they were away and had had a son, and Superman took a break from the Justice League and operated at night. The reason for this is because Lois' writing on Intergang resulted in her and Clark being targeted, and so they went into hiding. Before, the pre-Flashpoint Clark and Lois didn't ''have'' any friends, and New 52 Superman was still on the League and the pre-New 52 Superman operated in secret just because he didn't want to reveal the nature of the multiverse to the world, and later because he didn't trust the New 52's more cynical worldview.

** ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'' brings ''another'' set of combatants from the original game, both good and bad or alive and dead, to the rebooted timeline, causing many people to have a copy of themselves running around (except for Raiden, whose present self [[RetGone turns to ash]], since there can't be two identical gods). It is later revealed that this, as well as the above case, are engineered by Kronika, a [[AbusivePrecursors Titaness]] who wants to create a perfect world and [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans doesn't care if it means she will have to commit omnicides one after another]]. The original and rebooted timelines are not only canonical, there are in fact ''thousands'' of other alternate timelines where things proceed slightly different. In the best ending, she partially succeeds rebooting the timeline back to the prehistoric age, but Liu Kang and Raiden manage to kill her before she can rewind it further.

* ''Literature/InCryptid'': In ''That Ain't Witchcraft'', [[spoiler:Antimony's defeat of the [[EldritchAbomination Crossroads]] is explained by [[spoiler:the [[GeniusLoci Anima Mundi]]]] as this, since she [[spoiler:went back in time and killed them before they ever took the Anima Mundi's place]]. Somehow, this doesn't cause any temporal paradoxes, and everything [[spoiler:the Crossroads]] did (or "didn't do") still happened and everyone remembers it. It can be quite a MindScrew.

** The ''ComicBook/{{Eternals}}'' are subject to this in the Neil Gaiman miniseries. It’s revealed that some of their previous history and culture was a version rewritten with illusion and telepathic meddling, then reinforced by reality warping.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', Delirium threatened at one point to turn Mazikeen into a "a demon half-face waitress night-club lady with a crush on your boss", and "make it so you've been that from the beginning of time to now and you'll never ever know if you were anything else and it will itch inside your head worse than little bugses". Given that Mazikeen ''already was'' a demon with only half a face working at a night-club, it's unclear if Delirium actually did make a Cosmic Retcon (with the original state never being seen by the reader), or if she was just being her usual {{Cloudcuckoolander}} self.

* Creator/AlanMoore's ''ComicBook/{{Supreme}}'' run starts with the main character finding out that he is not the only Supreme - reality has been revisioned multiple times in history, and all his previous incarnations (be they alternate counterparts, imagined versions or "future" selves) together with all their supporting characters, end up in the Supremacy, a dimension which they turned into a utopia. [[spoiler: Later we find out that his ArchEnemy Darius Dax has a similar thing - all his previous versions go to a dimension called the Daxia.]]

* All the retcons in ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' are explained by the entire universe getting destroyed and then getting imperfectly recreated by Ben in Alien X form in the seventh [[note]] [[OutOfOrder technically fourth]] [[/note]] episode of the series. One of the main changes is that the [[GeniusLoci living planet]] Primus, which used to be a massive DNA storage for the Omnitrix and which played a major role in season 3 of ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce Alien Force]]'', no longer exists. Whether this means Eunice is also RetGone is unclear; she was ''on'' Primus, but her existence wasn't directly tied to it. WordOfGod is that she's "unlikely" to appear in ''Omniverse''. (Basically, complicating things here is that there are a lot of things from past series that the Omniverse writer considers non-canon. You will have a VERY different understanding of this world depending on whether it comes from the show or from WordOfGod. However, actual episodes don't seem to be ''written'' as if we're in a radically different world where only every third episode of the prior series happened. However however, the things the head writer considers non-canon don't show up, either; the closest we get is a non-plot-relevant CallBack to a line from the Primus episode.)
** This came up again in another episode shortly before the series ended, where Ben was put on trial for it. Ben's lawyer defends him by claiming these kinds of changes were previously done all the time by others of Alien X's species, using as evidence Azimuth's [[ArtEvolution appearance]] and/or [[TheOtherDarrin voice]] having completely changed at least three times. This basically means we can blame Celestialsapiens for ''all'' continuity problems and even changes in casting and art style that you wouldn't think mattered in-universe.

* The Wiki/SCPFoundation has [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3413 SCP-3413]] ("[[ShoutOut Irwin Shrugged]"), a Website/{{YouTube}} channel known as "Safari Dave's Wild World". The channel's typical format consists of the host, wilderness expert Safari Dave, providing information (some of which is incorrect) about different kinds of animals. Any false statements in Safari Dave's videos become true 30 minutes after being posted, with all relevant information being retroactively altered (even willing [[EskimosArentReal previously-nonexistent animals]], like "sun bears", into existence). [[RippleEffectProofMemory Only people who viewed the videos before the change will remember the original reality.]]

The Wiki/SCPFoundation has [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3413 SCP-3413]] ("[[ShoutOut Irwin Shrugged]"), a Website/{{YouTube}} channel known as "Safari Dave's Wild World". The channel's typical format consists of the host, wilderness expert Safari Dave, providing information (some of which is incorrect) about different kinds of animals. Any false statements in Safari Dave's videos become true 30 minutes after being posted, with all relevant information being retroactively altered (even willing [[EskimosArentReal previously-nonexistent animals]], like "sun bears", into existence). [[RippleEffectProofMemory Only people who viewed the videos before the change will remember the original reality.]]

** The Scratch is an event that the Sburb game provides players should they find that their game is inherently unwinnable. By physically scratching a magical construct in the game, generally something that resembles a large music-playing device such as a record on a turntable or a music box cylinder, it unleashes a massive amount of energy that completely resets the universe to some unspecified time in the past. However, all the players are replaced by their genetic ancestors who are now their own genetic descendants. It also seems to bring monstrous creatures the Trolls call lusii (''sing.'' lusus) into their iteration of reality.

** In ''ComicBook/AllNewAllDifferentMarvel'', a sentient cosmic cube named Kobik restores the youth and super powers of the original ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, Steve Rogers. However ''ComicBook/CaptainAmericaSteveRogers'' reveal that, in a shocking twist, she has changed retroactively his story making Steve a member of [=HYDRA=] in the process (with things like Cap's mother had been convinced to join HYDRA before Steve's father died). This because, before, the Red Skull has manipulated her and she believed [=HYDRA=] to be perfection. And then it turned out that [[spoiler: she didn't just alter Steve's past, she ''created a whole new alternate timeline'', and brought ''that'' Steve into the main timeline, while the true, would-never-join-[=HYDRA=] Steve was trapped in a limbo created by Kobik. Eventually, good Steve was freed and beat evil Steve, but now there are two versions of Steve Rogers in the Marvel Universe]].

* In season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'', Danny accidentally gets his ghost powers removed by a LiteralGenie, leaving Sam to recreate the event that gave him his powers in the first place, except [[BroughtToYouByTheLetterS she puts a "DP" logo on his suit so that he'll have it in ghost form.]] When she decides it'd be easier to just wish everything back to how it was, she does so, but specifies that the second version of him getting his powers be the canon one, because she really likes how he looks with that logo.

* ''LightNovel/DateALive'': At one point in the series, [[spoiler: Shido goes back in time using one of Kurumi's bullets to when Origami's parents were killed by a Spirit and managed to prevent their deaths. While this does change Origami's history and personality and she no longer has a vendetta against Spirits, [[YouCantFightFate her parents ended up dying anyway]], only in a traffic accident this time]].

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}''
** In the Pokémon Chronicles episode "Celebi and Joy", shortly after entering a big city, Ritchie is sent back 75 years in the past and prevents a boy from being killed in an accident. After Ritchie returns to the present, it's shown that the once-boy is now the mayor of the city, which is now an idyllic valley town.

*** [[spoiler:In the final part of the story, Eggman screws up Sonic's Chaos Control, causing some major rewriting in his world that, so far, shuffles the current position of nearly everyone, integrates some game storylines into the Archie continuity, redesigns a number of characters, [[ExiledFromContinuity exiles]] characters created by writers who weren't working on the comic any longer, including Ken Penders's characters ([[ScrewedByTheLawyers who are entangled in a lawsuit]]), characters who were family members or love interests of game characters and [[AbortedArc abruptly aborts the King Naugus and Mecha-Sally arcs]] Oh, and [[ApocalypseHow the entire multiverse collasping on itself]], leaving only a few alternate worlds and dimensions intact.]]

** The [[Series/LegendsOfTomorrow Legends]] do this from time to time, simply because of their [[TimeTravel line of work]]. Martin Stein's daughter, Lily, is one such example; she didn't exist before he time traveled to meet with his younger self, inadvertently advising him to have a child.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', in which [[spoiler:the ending writes the game out of continuity,]] though Sonic still [[spoiler:has memories of what happened]].

** The events of ''ComicBook/CharlesSoulesDaredevil'' and ''ComicBook/ChipZdarskysDaredevil'' saw [[spoiler:Mike Murdock, an identity Matt created as part of a FakeTwinGambit to throw off people who were to close to figuring out he was Daredevil, become an actual person with his own life and history -- and still alive, as Matt ended the gambit by faking "Mike's" death. Said events also made Mike somewhat responsible for Matt's blindness and the death of their father, Jack.]]