Are Dragon Ball Super's Bardock retcons becoming a problem, or is this something fans should expect by now? Goku's Saiyan heritage remained unknown to Dragon Ball fans until Raditz's arrival brought the hero's origins to the surface. It wasn't until 1990's Dragon Ball Z: Bardock - The Father of Goku, however, that another family member was unveiled. Bardock then made a time-bending appearance in 2011's Episode of Bardock, and has enjoyed even greater prominence thanks to Dragon Ball Super's numerous flashback sequences.
As a fan-favorite character for over 30 years, more Bardock in Dragon Ball Super is no bad thing. Essentially a more rugged, angrier version of Goku, Bardock has a chip on his shoulder and the hardened battle experience of Vegeta. The problem lies not in Dragon Ball Super giving fans more Bardock, but in how Dragon Ball Super has altered Bardock's characterization. In his early Dragon Ball Z era stories, Bardock was depicted as a Saiyan in the classic mold - brimming with unadulterated rage, merciless when destroying planets, and prideful to a fault. In the Dragon Ball Super era he's... not.
2018's Dragon Ball Super: Broly flashbacks showed Bardock adopting a more caring attitude toward his family - still a warrior, but lacking the traditional bloodlust of his Saiyan brethren, and no more deadbeat of a dad than Goku himself. At the very least, Bardock loved his family enough to "Jor-El" Goku safely to Earth in a pod. The Dragon Ball Super manga, meanwhile, has made Bardock's personality even softer around the edges, with the Granola the Survivor arc revealing how Goku's father once saved a mother and child from Frieza's goons upon being reminded of his own family back on the planet Vegeta.
Dragon Ball Super is clearly breaking Bardock's continuity in order to repaint Goku's father as a hero - and this isn't a huge problem in itself. Bardock's backstory is told only via the 1990 movie special and Episode of Bardock, which was already standing upon shaky canonical ground. Given his limited presence in the Dragon Ball franchise, morphing Bardock from savage Saiyan to reluctant antihero isn't an especially significant rewrite. Dragon Ball Super's Bardock retcons actually become problematic because of how Goku's story changes as a result. Ever since Goku's Saiyan lineage was revealed, Dragon Ball mythology has spun a tale of how the protagonist's innate warrior instincts were quashed after a bump to the head. Grandpa Gohan then instilled morals and kindness into the young boy, turning Goku into the character Dragon Ball fans know and love.
Now, Dragon Ball Super is reframing Goku's backstory, attributing the past 35 years of heroics to a biological trait inherited from a father he never knew. That flips the reason for Goku's journey into nature, rather than nurture - suggesting that even if the young Saiyan didn't get a bump on the head, and never met Grandpa Gohan, he still would've turned out the same man because of Bardock. Not only is Dragon Ball sticking a giant middle finger up at Grandpa Gohan's parenting, but the rewrite means Goku never chose his path - it was predestined. Whether or not that retcon weakens Goku's character is entirely subjective, but there's no denying Dragon Ball has changed its protagonist's reason for being a protagonist in the first place.
Dragon Ball creator, Akira Toriyama, is no stranger to a retcon, from Goku and Vegeta's beards to Super Saiyan tingles. Most of those deviations are superficial at best and annoying at worst, but tracing Goku's inner goodness back to Bardock represents a fundamental rearrangement of Dragon Ball mythology.
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