Retcons

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“	Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which facts in the world of a fictional work that have been established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work that recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former.	„
	~ From Wikipedia

Gorillaz are no strangers to retcons within their virtual lore, as many changes have had to be made over the years to accommodate differences in direction or writing adopted by their various writers, or to correct inconsistencies that arose as the story progressed.

This article aims to list all retcons that have ever been made regarding Gorillaz' fictional lore, and explain them in detail to clear up any confusion that may arise, as well as which versions of those stories are currently deemed 'canon'.

Murdoc's Deals with Satan and the Boogieman

Murdoc's deal with Satan was first addressed in Rise of the Ogre. In it:

• Murdoc was introduced to Satanism by his friends at 16 years old, through the music of Black Sabbath^W, the writings of Aleister Crowley^W, a 'do-it-yourself' A.C.M.E. Satanist kit and some leaflets being distributed around the Stroke-On-Trent Arndale Centre^W (which does not exist in real-life) promoting a life of 'sexual gluttony' and 'alchoholic excess' associated with the practice, which immediately got his attention.
• After he graduated from his local college, Sodsworth Comprehensive, upon completing his only legitimate qualification, an International Baccalaureate in Anti-Social Anthropology, still in his early-mid 20s, he decided on becoming a famous musician and leaving Stoke-On-Trent.
• To achieve this, he began negotiating with the Devil himself and reached an arrangement: if he became a famous rock star, he would offer his soul in return. When the deal was finalised, Murdoc acquired Satan's very own bass guitar, the 'El Diablo', and changed his middle name from 'Alphonce' to 'Faust' as a pledge of loyalty.

This version, written during Phase 2, was the first retcon experienced by the Gorillaz lore, as Murdoc never employed El Diablo during Phase 1, and the first time he was ever seen with a Flying V bass was during the BRIT Awards performance of Clint Eastwood. During Phase 3, this story was expanded upon with a second deal, this time with the Boogieman, a demon described as being "the embodiment of all the evil in the world".

• After Murdoc broke out of jail in Mexico in 2004, he was met by the Boogieman, who had been sent by Satan himself to collect his soul and pay the debt.
• Instead, Murdoc managed to 'extend' the deal with the Boogieman: in order to get a second shot at a career at the top of the music charts and to get rid of some unwanted people, he would offer him access to "various souls of innocent kids and stuff", though the entity would still return years later to finally take his soul — to which Murdoc would make sure to not be around for, as stated in a blog post.
• It is possible that Noodle was one of the "innocent kids" whose souls he bartered, hence why she was dragged off to Hell by the Boogieman after the El Mañana incident.
• Years later, during the FreeMurdoc campaign, he revealed the first deal he made was technically null and void, as the contract had actually been written using pig's blood from a pouch he kept taped under his testicles. The deal with the Boogieman, on the other hand, was shown in the storyboard film for Rhinestone Eyes to have been firmed in the form of a handshake.

Murdoc's Arms Deal & The El Mañana Incident

In the original version of events, told during Phase 2:

• Upon breaking out of jail in Mexico, Murdoc proceeded to take the first flight he could back to England — somehow without being noticed by the Mexican authorities — to reunite with Noodle and Russel at Kong Studios.
• The destruction of the Flying Windmill Island during the shooting of the El Mañana music video was staged by him, Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland to get rid of Jimmy Manson (which was achieved successfully).
• Noodle, meanwhile, had parachuted off to safety and used the royalty money from Demon Days to go in a holiday to the Bahamas as she had been planning to leave the band for a while.

Following the release of Rise of the Ogre, however, a distress signal sent by Noodle herself was picked up at Kong, and the story changed for the first time:

• The choppers which shot down the island were different from those used in Feel Good Inc., as these were actually late to the shooting of the video. The identity of those unknown choppers, however, remained a mystery.
• Instead, the destruction of the island was genuine, and upon parachuting off of it, Noodle was dragged down to Hell as compensation for Murdoc refusing to give up his soul after the aforementioned pact with Satan.
• He was able to track down the coordinates of the transmission and went off to a six-month trip to the depths of Hell in an attempt to bring Noodle back, but came back seemingly empty-handed as he could not find her anywhere, and assumed she had escaped on her own.

After Phase 2 concluded, a series of disastrous financial decisions led Murdoc to run out of money entirely, and he began looking for ways to make a quick buck:

• Murdoc started selling old and broken weaponry and firearms repainted to look brand-new to various underground networks, making a profit out of it.
• Unfortunately for him, some of the damaged goods he sold were for an entity named 'Malthus', a devil with a large interest in guns and weaponry.
• Realising he had been scammed by Murdoc, he sent off an underground network group of mercenary pirates known as 'The Black Clouds' after him.
• Knowing this, Murdoc burned down the remains of Kong Studios, cashed in on the insurance money and fled the United Kingdom, finally arriving at Plastic Beach, an island made entirely of garbage located at Point Nemo, the furthest point from any landmass on Earth.

Once the promotion cycle for Plastic Beach began, this story was edited and expanded to connect it to the El Mañana incident:

• Murdoc actually became a gun-runner back in 2004 after breaking out of jail in Mexico with his (in)mate Pablo.
• There, he sold Malthus and his network cheap weapons which would quickly malfunction. After failing to comply with their demands for compensation for the next couple of years, they became aware of the shooting of the video and appeared uninvited to shoot down the island.
• In an attempt to pacify the pirates, Murdoc made a new deal with them and offered actual brand-new guns, supposedly acquired with the royalty money. This, however, was just another one of his stunts, and the weapons were instead rusted and broken, but painted to look brand-new, reigniting their pursuit of Murdoc.

For months after Noodle was spotted in the music video for On Melancholy Hill, Murdoc and 2-D were confused as to how she had got out of Hell. She answered this in detail after arriving on the island on Russel's mouth following the events of Rhinestone Eyes:

• The Boogieman was the one responsible for dragging her down to Hell, where she was forced to play the guitar for all eternity in a one-person band known as 'Noodle in Chainz' (the name being a reference to the band Alice in Chains^W).
• While Murdoc was unable to locate her, he did inadvertently trick her captors into releasing her, duping Satan's acolytes for a second time. After returning to the surface, Noodle had to go into hiding and used her earnings to purchase the M. Harriet. How exactly he did this, however, was left ambiguous.
• The demons, now left with neither Murdoc nor Noodle's souls, sent off the Boogieman to track down their whereabouts, who aligned with the Black Clouds as both parties had common objectives.

This version of events remained 'canon' for over a decade, until the release of The Gorillaz Art Book:

• The book now appointed the recently introduced Department of Musical Corrections, a secret organisation operating within the music industry, as the ones responsible for shooting Noodle down.
• The DMC had kept a close eye on the band ever since their first gig at the Camden Brownhouse, as they deemed Gorillaz to be a threat to their 'sacred values of harmony, obedience and order'.
• While little action appears to have been taken during Phase 1, as the group disbanded just a little over a year after the release of the debut album, they had grown stronger and more influential following Demon Days.
• By that point, Noodle was the only thing keeping the band together, and therefore neutralising her would be the easiest and most effective way of getting rid of them for good.

It is unclear if, with this new retelling of events, Murdoc actually partook in arms trafficking before Phase 2, though regardless of what he did in Mexico, he appears to have not angered Malthus and The Black Clouds until after Gorillaz disbanded in 2006.

Knowing Murdoc is an infamously compulsive liar and, therefore, an unreliable narrator^W, it is most likely that he only got involved in arms deals after he ran out of money following the release of D-Sides, and made up the story about the Black Clouds destroying the flying windmill island on the spot as he was not sure either who was actually responsible for shooting it down.

The Book of M.A.N./Murdoc's Immortality

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The Destruction of Plastic Beach

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The Ending to Phase Three

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The Book of Noodle

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Cyborg Noodle's Fate

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Cortez's Death

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