How do you feel about Legacy Characters? Good? Bad...

How do you feel about Legacy Characters? Good? Bad? Does them being given a new unique identity later on somehow indicate that they're a failure as a legacy character?

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It's good if done right. Starman was heavily about legacy, and it was great.

they cheapen the original hero on whom they are based

Are Barry Allen/Wally West the greatest legacy characters?

How? Does it somehow blank the stories published about the previous hero? Does Jaime Reyes literally come to your house and burn any comics with Ted Kord in them?

There's nothing wrong with the concept though sometimes there are poor portrayals

>Does them being given a new unique identity later on somehow indicate that they're a failure as a legacy character?

Not necessary, but this usually only happens when the original returns anyway so it's hard to say. I can't think of a time where it was just a natural progression.

>stories about exceptional individuals
>they aren't exceptionals at all but they are just one of many

I wouldn't call Barry a legacy since it was an alternate universe. He was inspired by Jay but you don't have the thematic pressure of having to publicly prove your worth.

makes heroes feel like they have an effect on their world
maybe DC should cut the crap and let legacies exist instead of not letting characters age
maybe then their sales would improve

If there is a legacy character they should end the run of the one he is representing. There is no substance if they are both around. People will bitch and moan so whatever but I think they should do it that way.

Yeah, pretty much.

I don't mind legacy characters. They're awesome. They contribute to "world-building" and a greater cast of well-defined characters (legacy or not) is usually a good thing for serialized fiction.

Another cast of legacy characters I enjoy are the Robins (Dick, Jason, Tim, et al...) Part of the reason why the Robins are so awesome is because each one of them has a distinct personality, and adds a different take to the legacy.

>Wally West puts on a blue jumpsuit and calls himself Blue Flash, but everything else is unchanged
>Somehow this makes both he and Barry more exceptional than if Wally had called himself The Flash.

Dickbats is BEST bats

But Marvel has the numbers that proves them NOT cutting the crap (Spider-marriage, Death of X-Hero) actually pushes books.

Depends on the bond. Random boy/grill finding an artifact to become the hero or just steals the name is meh
Barry & Wally deal is famous because Waid laid out a thrilling father-son relationship between them. Both of them truly care for each other and their feelings go beyond time and space.(as evidenced in rebirth too) Add on that Wally's struggles to live up to Barry's name, and his hero worship that blinds him from his own potential makes a compelling story.

For example I like Kamala but I don't see her as a legacy carrier. Wally however , is a different matter altogether.

Yeah, the character with barely two complete stories unders his belt is the best version of that character.

Fuck off, you Dickfags are so fucking annoying.
Even Bat-Gordon was more interesting

>Name my son after myself
>Now we have the same name and we aren't exceptional individuals god what have I done

I dislike legacies when it feels like the predecessor is deliberately getting fucked over just so they can introduce a legacy

If a writer picks up an older death or plot thread or weaves a legacy into the predecessor's story then I enjoy them MUCH more

For you. I disagree though.

agreed

Status quo and 75-year long inertia makes introducing legacy characters a bitch, but honestly it'd be so much better for the stories narrative-wise if this were done more often.

>Random boy/grill finding an artifact to become the hero (...) is meh

Jaime's first Blue Beetle run was good though

But they did almost immediately connect him to the Garretts

They are the ones who fullfilled the idea, yes.

DC tried to make it "one man" like Batman or Superman with New 52 but when you cut out legacy, Flash is just guy who runs fart with generic stories.

> fart

dammit i meant fast

MY NAME IS BARRY ALLEN AND I AM THE FARTEST MAN ALIVE

MY FART IS MY LEGACY

That's not how you spell Terry McGinnis.

>My name is Barry Allen, and I am the gassiest man alive. To the outside world, I have an ordinary gastrointestinal tract, but secretly, with the help of my friends at F.A.R.T. Labs, I fight my wind and find other tooty-humans like me. I hunted the man who dutch ovened my mother, but in doing so, I opened up our world to new smells. And I am the only one flatulent enough to stop them. I am... The Gas!

Nah. The Batsquad has interesting family dynamics, but it's not about legacy with them. DC is constantly trying to put one over another and all the fans (and even the writers) have their favorites.
The last few years have been all about how great Dick is.
In the beginning of the New 52 it was all about Damian.
From the 90's through to the late 00's Tim was the golden child of the Robins. His run in the spotlight was so long people are still upset about it.
Jason has his own niche, thankfully. He might be boring, but at least he misses out on the dick-measuring contest.

The Flash legacy has never been like that. Until they tried to write Wally out of existence, the Flash books were always very inclusive. Everybody was somebody.

Some times they can be good, but a lot of times they're just annoying.
I really hate it when the original is humiliated just for the sake of making the legacy character look better

mah nigga

The problem with Legacy is that people will always love the original which means it'll all go back to him again. This especially happens in western comics and why we have a sliding timeline and no matter what happens in DC/Marvel today, 30 years from now we'll still have Bruce Wayne Batman and Clark Kent Superman with the rest of the main heroes.

Japan does Legacy characters a little better but even then you can see in shows like Kamen Rider and whatnot that the original always comes back and sure the new hero always gets plenty of action but since they get replaced every year or so it means all the legacy characters that isn't the newest one is forgotten.

Legacy characters are usually pretty good if you actually, you know, HONOR THE LEGACY.

Two of my favorite characters (Wally West and BuckyCap) were legacy characters. And in Wally's case he was the Flash for more of contemporary history than Barry ever was.

Terry's entire personality was basically Dick Grayson with a juvie record attached to it.
He was successful with women, younger then Bruce, irreverent as fuck, found the balance between personal life and his work, didn't become totally obsessed like Bruce did, and made an excellent Batman when his time came to be one.

Dick did ALL of these things, but the DCAU version didn't because Dick pretty much didn't get to have any character development at all, especially not the development from New Teen Titans that basically turned Dick into the character he is today and thus effectively skipped ALL character development he had entirely in favor of MOAR BATMAN.

I'd like it better if the company would actually go through with it. New character, new adventures, new adversary to overcome, yet still the same mission of defeating evil and protecting people.

Basically I want this.

...

Also, part of what helps sell Legacy characters is a GOOD STORY. Things like CoIE and Death of Captain America, and Emerald Twilight and To Steal An Ant-Man are all good storylines that usher in a new character to take up the mantle.

Nowadays though most "Legacy" characters are introduced to fill a diversity quota.

Legacy characters can also be bad news if they fail too many times.

Ant-Man is a perfect example. At his introduction Scott Lang was an interesting enough character with a unique sort of background, but over the years he was never really used all that much and he was eventually killed off because they knew no one would really care.

Then you had O'Grady who was actually pretty great as Ant-Man, but they couldn't decide if they wanted him to be a good guy or a bad guy and he eventually was also killed off for drama.

Now Scott is back as Ant-Man you've got a Literally Who as the new Giant-Man, AND now a Teen Girl Wasp. It's all very cluttered and half of these characters are nobodies that will also be killed off in an event five years down the road for spring cleaning.

Has Marvel ever done a good legacy character who managed to stick around for a while? Miles might go the distance. And I suppose there's Nova too, but I can't think of any others.

Ninety percent of the problem is DC spamming the holy fuck out of the Bat-cast by giving them all a book or three to appear in like they were Wolverine in the late 90's and early 00's.
If a genuinely GOOD author took up the reigns to Batman he could include all of Batman's cast, write all of them well and all with distinct personalities, and wouldn't fucking need to add YET ANOTHER "OC Donut Steel" Bat-cast member like seemingly every goddamn Batman writer has been unable to restrain themselves from doing for the last sixteen goddamn years.

I cannot wait for the current crop of comics writers to literally, not figuratively but LITERALLY die so they can get new people, because all we've seen demonstrated for this generation is that none of them have any self control whatsoever.
If I wrote even fucking ONE Big Two comic I'd remind myself over and over that no matter how much I write them I do not "own" any of these characters and my objective is not to "make my mark" on the franchise by adding yet another fucking character out of nowhere into a crowded cast, but is instead to write an entertaining story with the characters and tools I have.

Fucking manchildren who can't let go of status quo have stifled the comic industry's progress for decades now. It's amazingly frustrating.

Is it a problem that we have characters that are better batman than batman?

Cry about it, Dickfag.

>Miles might go the distance.
Nobody likes him outside Bendis.
When cancer or diabetes or heart attacks or whatever takes his life, he'll be gone.
>And I suppose there's Nova too, but I can't think of any others.
Nova is in the same boat.
Wasn't created out of need or a desire to write a good story, was created out of desire that was related entirely to the author.
If literally everyone hated Nova or Miles and the fan response was 100% negative, they would still write them because neither of the writers who created them actually care about your opinion when it comes to their OC's.

Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider?

Pretty much this. Unless it was editorial mandate I'd use all existing characters. Maybe a new villain if it is necessary for the plot.

If given the chance to write an entirely original hero for the Big Two then that'd be great, but when was the last time we got a really truly new hero that doesn't have ties or callbacks to any previous ones?

Oh right, fucking duh.

Still, one character over 70 years as a real effective legacy character is pretty poor.

I guess Captain Marvel too, Danvers stuck around long after Mar-Vell bit the bullet.

No.
If Batman's entire character was about "BEING THE BEST" then he failed at it over forty years ago when it was made abundantly clear that he was not perfect and could not win everything forever by the writers to began to turn him what he is today.

The desire for Batman to be the best is purely a result of fanboyism turned into corporate policy.
What I've stated is fact, so I don't need to cry about it at all; it's true even if I say nothing.

And think about it; even if I DID need to cry about it, Batman Beyond ended fifteen years ago now and Dick is still around but that show isn't.

I LOVED Batman Beyond by the way, by far one of the best DCAU shows.
Maybe THE best by episode quality.

You DO realize that Grant Morrison basically did that, right? Yes, he added Damian, but his run, RIP - Reborn - Incorporated, gave every major Batman supporting character at least one issue in which to shine, and dusted off dozens of old, forgotten gems. Morrison's work is the gold standard.

>I'd like it better if the company would actually go through with it. New character, new adventures, new adversary to overcome, yet still the same mission of defeating evil and protecting people.
Thiiiiiiiiiiiis. We can only blame comic fans for the reason why the Big Two have stagnated so much. If people weren't so attached to Muh-Bruce Wayne, Dickbats would have stuck around and the world would have actually felt like it was moving forward. The characters that we had 60 years ago are going to be the same characters we have 60 years from now, yet nobody seems to care about how awful that is from a storytelling perspective because they just want to see Superman wrestle with Parasite for the hundredth time.

fine as long as the replacement is white

Yeah, for which I thank him for every time I re-read his run. Morrison managed to use every single existing character and supporting character and though he certainly created Damian, he didn't just forget everyone except for his new character.
But unfortunately, he's the exception that proves the rule rather then the rule itself.
I have a lot of difficulty with Batman and Superman and Spider-Man and the like because it seems my favorite characters are destined to be written by idiots who are trying WAY too hard.
Shit, even Dan Slott wrote some good comics (his She-Hulk was was fucking hilarious) before he got onto Spider-Man, then suddenly his work was nothing but OC's, horrible plots that lasted forever and shit that was just constantly awful and overwritten and inconsistent and nonsensical.

I don't know WHY this keeps happening, but it does for some goddamn reason.

Its ok when done right but they pump out too many of them such as with Batman

I don't give a shit what race or gender a replacement is as long as it's handled well and chosen for reasons that make it worthwhile.

>We can only blame comic fans for the reason why the Big Two have stagnated so much.
Well, that and an increasingly stagnant readership and market difficulties.
The USA is the largest buyer of Big Two comics, but a little bit less then 1% of the population of the US even buys them anymore. Even when new movies showcase new characters the number of actual subscribers and buyers of comics remains relatively consistent with very slight uptick in new buyers; what actually happens is that people ALREADY into comics check out a character otherwise they wouldn't have cared about.
That's why you see a lot of "where do I start with this character" threads that actually aren't "new" comics readers, just old ones unfamiliar with Superman or Black Panther or whoever the fuck is catching their attention.

Shrinking business margins and declining readership makes the desperate, reckless, and even lazy as sometimes they just stop trying to do anything new and accept that nothing they can do will change anything.

No? Bruce is supposed to be worst boy

Toppest kek ever

Love hate relationship. I love the concepts of legacies, but it essentially a wasted concept in the big two as they are just incapable of letting some characters run their course.

Terry worked so well because all of batman Beyond is about "legacies"

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I imagine the internet has something to do with it as well. you can pirate comics now. or just read a storytime on Sup Forums

Generally, I'm ambivalent towardthem in most cases. In a specific case though, I dislike legacy characters of Spider-Man. Thisis because Spider-Man was a big part of my life as a child and is my favorite hero, and it is inherent in legacy characters that they're replacing the one they're a legacy of. I admit I don't like the idea of Spider-Man dying or getting too old to be Spider-Man, which is why I've never been a fan of Miles, Mayday, or Miguel.

And I've never realized that all of their names start with M, holy shit. M DAY

>muh spidermang
And this is why comics will never progress. Status quo clung to deaperately by manchildren.

Those stories you loved as a kid? Hell, those 40-50 years of Peter Parker stories? They'll still exist if a newcomer takes up the name and the costume.

Dick and Wally are the DCU. They are legacy.

Sure, Dick is the best Robin and best Batman, but that's only because Dick himself is the best as a character. Same goes for Wally, he's the best Flash because he's the best around. They are the best.

>Dick is best Robin
Sorry, but Tim is best Robin. Dick is probably second best though. And Dickbats is pretty great. I'd happily read about Dickbats' ongoing adventures once Brice retired.

But then I guess I'm not autistic and trapped in a nostalgic cage that prevents my life from moving on to the next adventure.

This is why reasonable discussions are so hard to come by.

But just how old do you think I am? I grew up with JMS and Ultimate Spider-Man.

But the point of them still existing is like saying that "The golden age of Simpsons is STILL THERE, so what if the new ones are shit?" The point is, along with that line of reasoning, you'll never get to see new adventures with your favorite character again.

Because we've seen so many new stories with the characters recently? It's all rehashes. After 40-70 years the majorty of themes and character angles that can be delved into are fairly wiped out.

Tell you what, let's get a Batman-becomes-a-cripple thing that doesn't get undone. He has to just fucking deal with being in a wheelchair. Permanently.

That's unexplored territory.

>Tell you what, let's get a Batman-becomes-a-cripple thing that doesn't get undone. He has to just fucking deal with being in a wheelchair. Permanently.
>That's unexplored territory.
But does being unexplored simply make it worth exploring? Do a significant amount of people actually want to read about Bruce being crippled permanently?

Can't be any worse than the crap we get from the Batfamily since the 90s.

What if, one day, someone (or some people) write superhero stories with beginnings, ends, and legacies?

For example: A Batman run that starts with BruceBat and DickRobin, goes through the Robins and their stories, continues with DickBat and DamianRobin, then DamianBat and finally Beyond? It could make for a really interesting story, assuming the characters and flow are all grasped well

Like all things, it depends on the character, the writer, and other various circumstances. I'm not dumb enough to think I can lay down a blanket statement about something as vague as "legacy characters"