Who do you trust? Elder statesmen and distinguished adjudicators? Once campy performers, now in their solemn and stern second act as champions of liberty? Hank Pym? John Conyers? Roy Moore? Steve Rogers? Al Franken? Apparently none of the above. Monsters all. Slimy, green, two-faced monsters. In fact, you’re probably one too. You just don’t know it yet.

This is the general narrative that, just as it did to the Marvel universe in 2008, has been swirling in our public discourse for the last few months. Much like Harvey Weinstein’s tumble from the top raised the specter of other possible sexual predators lurking in our midst, the death of the villain thought to be Elektra alerted Earth’s mightiest heroes to the probability of a hidden army of shape-shifting aliens called Skrulls when her body reverted to its less flattering form. Hell, there was even a guy called Ronan involved in both reveals. Neither encounter was the first, but this time something was different that touched off a paranoia that soon reached a deafening crescendo, drowning out reason, cherished principles, and even decades-old loyalties.

When in the past abusers had been outed or accusations lobbed, there had always been a sense that it was an isolated incident. However shocking the allegations, hindsight filled in the blanks like the recollected moments of foreshadowing peppered throughout a story that cinch together its twist ending. The signs were there, we just didn’t put it together at first. But with the Skrull’s Secret Invasion, there were no signs. After learning of their chameleon-like ways way back in the Kree-Skrull War of the 60s, heroes knew such infiltration was a possibility, that they must scan, sniff, or divine for anything amiss. It was the fact that not one of these senses raised any red flags in Skrullektra’s presence that signaled a paradigm shift. This was no mere inline twist. This was a full-blown retcon.

Retroactive continuity, or retcon for you savvy lot, occurs whenever new facts come to the fore that recast existing events and characters in a new light. In essence it’s a new set of rules that we all have to play by now. Think Wolverine should have smelled a traitor? Think you’d know if your friendly morning news anchor was a sexual predator? Think again. Turns out there have been means of interfering with those instincts for years. It’s this sweeping potential to make us doubt what we know that presents the most troubling aspect of the movement. While virtutally no one is mourning the passing of business as usual on the proverbial casting couch, there have been concerns raised that the MeToo and Time’sUp movements have overplayed their hands.   Criticisms have ranged from the solemn condemnation of the court of public opinion’s wholesale abandonment of innocence until guilt is proven, to bemoaning the stifling of innocent flirtation and good ole fashion consensual hedonism. While others have had their say on these aspects, there is far less said about the alarming notion that consent can now be withdrawn after the fact.

Like a comic writer compensating for out-of-character story arcs, consenting adults can now retroactively determine that they did not in fact exercise their free will to engage in certain acts, or decide not to mount any meaningful resistance or lodge any complaint at the time. It is now possible to pass culpability back to the other party like a toxic hot potato simply because one, even if only in retrospect, felt intimidated or pressured. What once was deemed acceptable on some level to all parties involved, now can be deemed monstrous with nary a complaint, lest the complainer be accused of victim shaming. Of course, such attempts to revoke consent are nothing new. They are essentially the underpinning of the entire concept of date rape. Likewise, legitimate crimes may go unreported for years for any number of psychological reasons. However, the current trend is less about seeking justice for wrongs that have been obscured or hidden and more about redefining the very concepts of right and wrong.

Whereas in the past, knee jerk reactions assuming the guilt of the accused in allegations of sexual assault have been generally limited to a vocal minority of ardent feminists, the current climate has expanded this base virtually society-wide. Those on the political right, who in the past could generally be counted on to pump the breaks in such situations, now find themselves reveling in the self destruction of so many leftists who are drowning in their own sexual proclivities. But while they chuckled with apparent vindication as media and political icons twisted in the wind, they became complicit in the normalization of the “toxic masculinity” narrative against which they had for so long been the last bulwark. Gone is the rational understanding that movements, by definition, have agendas and, as such, should be met with a degree of scrutiny at least proportionate to the severity of their claims. Gone is the cautious skepticism befitting a confrontation with known belligerents on both sides. Society as a whole seems to have embraced one side of a grudge with roots in antiquity, bringing it to bare indiscriminately in the misguided hope that so wide a dragnet will actually catch some true predators. It’s as if the Skrulls’ old intergalactic nemeses, the Kree, suddenly landed amidst the Secret Invasion and started claiming people left and right were in fact Skrulls, clouding the very real issue with wild, unsubstantiated accusations.

Neither the Skrulls nor the limited number of unscrupulous, manipulative, and abusive men among us deserve the protection of society at large, but failing to vet the biased claims of a group with an axe to grind does more to allow these threats to blend in than it does to call them out by failing to distinguish between them and the population in which they’re camouflaged. Foregoing consideration of unique circumstances and individuals in favor of generalizations about entire swaths of the population is practicality the very definition of prejudice. In this, feminists too are in danger of sacrificing the war to claim victory in the battle. Beyond simply endorsing two wrongs making a right, they undermine their objective of empowering women by insisting that any time a man exerts his influence a woman’s free will and agency account for nothing. By insisting on solidarity with those for whom MeToo is–as it name so ironically implies–merely a platform to rise from obscurity, they compress the true atrocities of sexual predation into so much white noise. By rewriting every sexual encounter with the male as aggressor, they fall victim to the paranoia that fails to single out the individuals and apparatuses that enable the Weinsteins and Skrullektras to go unnoticed.

Retcons can be very productive experiences, helping to flesh out backstories, solidify motivations and character arcs, and pave the way for richer stories going forward. Think retconning Batman’s alleyway origins after his initial ambiguous introduction or Superman’s silver age power set eclipsing his golden age limitations. Without judicious use, however, they can have the unintended consequences of cheapened experiences and strained credibility. Used organically, where their revision holds up to scrutiny, retcons can provide depth to fiction or enrich real world relationships by weeding out predators from our midst and reinforcing mutual respect. As a hashtag, though, used because they are edgy or a trendy, they just might ruin the whole story.