Why do people hate current DC legacy characters so much?

[Dred]

Miles exists because he replaced a dead Peter. He doesn't fit that criteria anymore than Wally or Kyle do with the Earth 2 Earth 1 merger.

[skyvolt2000]

At what point exactly did legacy characters go from being "Since there is no more Captain Whoever, I'm going to take that name and try to live up to it," to "There's Captain Whoever over there. I'm the OTHER Captain Whoever"?

I think it's more of a case of going the route of the lesser evils and trying to reach more folks.

I think it's more of story. In other words lets take Hal going nuts. If we REMOVE what happen to Coastal City and needed a lantern to go NUTS-who is the next option?
That could have been John Stewart-who had a dead wife and dead planet to justify him going nuts.

Or Secret Empire-would we have seen a different reaction if that was Sam or Walker going "Hail Hydra?"

I know folks talk about original folks mainly POC but when we look at the business side-we see a HUGE issue.
When DC Rebirth started. Cyborg was under 10K by issue 6. Superman of China took a LONG time to get below that.
Lets go to Marvel Sam Wilson as Cap America went below 20K around issue 21 as his book was ending anyway. Sam as Falcon didn't get past issue 8.

Miles has NEVER been below 20K. Nobody has every complained about a Miles book being on the shelf. He has had a book almost every single year he has been around. No other POC can say that. 13 years straight bypassing the record of Cage.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Miles exists because he replaced a dead Peter. He doesn't fit that criteria anymore than Wally or Kyle do with the Earth 2 Earth 1 merger.

Yes, but his explosion in popularity comes with that particular status-quo of coexistence, which is different from Wally, Kyle, Connor and such.

[skyvolt2000]

Well, the racists and bigots are also very loud, reasonably organized and know how to work the youtube algorithm in their favor. So some folks end up with the impression that "everybody is complaining about this woke BS", when, in reality, there are like 50 dudes with a camera each.

Last legacy minority character to "kind of" fail was Jaime Reyes (but he got around), and I suspect that's has way less to do with the fact he was latino and a lot more to do with Ted getting shot by Max.

I think the frustration for many especially for a Ted Kord is this....

Some of the legacies are getting all the chances and shots the original didn't at times.
Jaime is on his 3rd solo.
Ted never got volume 2 while Dan has 6 and Jaime is at 4.

Character that have been in books or had solos that sold and get left on the shelf for decades or background duty and then suddenly someone else gets the outfit and runs with it.
See Nightwing-he is using a previous name.

Then comes the flame wars that got the DC messageboard SHUTDOWN.
"We want Ted"
"We want Ronnie"
We won't talk about what McDuffie's JLA run dealt with on that board.

Notice Jason Rusch (Firestorm) doesn't exist anymore.
And now Ronnie got a new co-host.

is it possible to replace iconic characters with legacy characters like what happened with Barry, Hal and Oliver for a while?

If you plan on bringing them back-yes you can do that.

In fact we have seen that.

The original goes away and a new person arrives.
Original comes back and new person gets a NEW ID and goes from there.
In the past we have seen it lead to the new person getting their own book.

We saw that with Jean Paul Valley as Azrael. Who we saw get replaced by Michael Lane and then came New 52.
Erik Masterson as Thunderstrike.
Jane Foster.
James Rhodes as War Machine
Steel and Conner Kent.
Green Arrow and his son.
I would suspect the same would have happen with Jackson and Arthur in Aquaman.
Winter Solider and Falcon and sort of with US Agent.
Logan and X-23.
Shuri and T'Challa
MAYBE Sam and Rich Rider in Nova.

The goal in most cases was the new person got their own book under a new name.

I think the culture wars have just made things worst. Guys looking for youtube money and not using logic.

Along with some of it happening too much and too often-looking at YOU Batman.

[Zero Hunter]

Miles exists because he replaced a dead Peter. He doesn't fit that criteria anymore than Wally or Kyle do with the Earth 2 Earth 1 merger.

Honestly I think most people didn't have a problem with Miles when he was in his own universe. It was when they moved him over to the main universe and started moving or creating all these new Spider-people that people started getting fed up with it. Even before Miles a lot of people were not happy with all the Spider-clones still being around. It just diminishes the main character. Spider-Man has as many knock offs as Batman these days.

[j9ac9k]

Let's keep this specifically related to DC or I will have to move it elsewhere, guys.

Reposting this as a reminder...

[Dred]

Yes, but his explosion in popularity comes with that particular status-quo of coexistence, which is different from Wally, Kyle, Connor and such.

I dunno. His explosion in popularity on a significant level is very, very recent. The trend of multiple people with the same super hero name being around predates this more recent, stupendous surge of Miles' popularity.

I think it's just a culmination of it happening across multiple characters and such, of which Miles is a part of (and a relatively big part). But the critically acclaimed version of Miles is from the Spider-verse stuff, not really the comics (which aren't bad, mind you, but I can't track any kind of big shift in the comics stemming from that).

The fact that DC was doing it with Green Lanterns for many years, then The Flash, then even more with multiple Batmans and stuff (Sticking to DC) predates Spiderverse. For instance, while Wally and Barry already existed and their comingling is a bit awkward and grandfathered in, Avery Ho showed up in 2016 and started calling herself The Flash before Miles became a household name, right? Despite there already being 2 Flashes at the time (Jay hadn't come back yet, technically, before Miles' huge popularity surge).

I think the bigger aspect in all of this is new characters/mantles are hard to sell so they just decided to drop the pretense and started reusing the well known/popular names. Miles is obviously a beneficiary of still being called Spider-man, after all, and that stems to basically all these characters. It's the difference between Batwing and Jace Fox Batman -- one got a lot more focus than the other.

[Dboi2001]

Yeah I’m not a fan of killing off characters just because it’s always bitter sweet. Brings back Barry was fine but he shouldn’t have supplanted Wally.

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

I don't think there's an exact point. The obvious answer would be "post Crisis", but the whole JSA/JLA situation was not really that well defined back then, and having 2 GLs, Flashes or Atoms was more something they had to deal with and less something they planned. Of course, before then there were already the Lanterns, but GL franchise created a sort of loophole to work under its own rules.

When the Jla/Jsa thing finally coalesced, the main 2 legacies, Flash and GL, we're Kyle and Wally so the theme became "multigenerational mantle" instead of "direct legacies coexisting". Of were gonna look at how it is today, I think the first instance of it would be Ryan Choi and Ray Palmer in Final Crisis, but that's debatable, and want really followed uppon.

Now, if we talk about the popularization of this model, than it's Miles Morales. No doubt about it.

Where do the various Starmen and Manhunters fit into this? Robinson in part went out of his way to try to weave the legacy (no pun intended) of all the different and seemingly unrelated Starmen into one big legend (except for Will Payton, whom Robinson thought sucked and went out of his way to tell readers that he sucked, ultimately trying to pass him off as Prince Gavin posing as dead Payton who never was a Starman to begin with; about the only thing Death Metal did right was bring Payton back). And then there was that story in the female-led "Manhunter" title that went out of its way to bring all of the surviving former Manhunters out of mothballs for no other reason than to murder them only to reveal that the villain was Mark Shaw again. Of course, this was during the Didio era.

[Agent Z]

Wasn't around for the Hal vs Kyle wars (although Kyle is my guy), but I feel like I am used to having whichever person gets to be the main Green Lantern.

Whether it is Hal, John, Simon, Kyle, or Sojourner, or etc, as long as an interesting story is being told, I am fine with it. Not happy, mind you, but perfectly accepting of it.

[The rub of it is is that Green Lantern storytelling has been trash for a long time - another blown up Central Battery, another dissolution of the Corps, another random powerup].

Considering the Green Lanterns are an intergalactic police/military force, there is no reason why they can't all be used prominently without fans arguing or DC themselves encouraging such arguments.

[HsssH]

Considering the Green Lanterns are an intergalactic police/military force, there is no reason why they can't all be used prominently without fans arguing or DC themselves encouraging such arguments.

Where are they going to be used prominently? We'd need something like 20 books to feature prominently every GL that has some kind of a fanbase.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Where do the various Starmen and Manhunters fit into this? Robinson in part went out of his way to try to weave the legacy (no pun intended) of all the different and seemingly unrelated Starmen into one big legend (except for Will Payton, whom Robinson thought sucked and went out of his way to tell readers that he sucked, ultimately trying to pass him off as Prince Gavin posing as dead Payton who never was a Starman to begin with; about the only thing Death Metal did right was bring Payton back). And then there was that story in the female-led "Manhunter" title that went out of its way to bring all of the surviving former Manhunters out of mothballs for no other reason than to murder them only to reveal that the villain was Mark Shaw again. Of course, this was during the Didio era.

Concerning Starman, it's approach is right there with Wally and Kyle: even with multiple versions around, it's a multigenerational thing. It's also the best book on utilizing that concept ever, IMHO.OnMahunters I'm not that well versed, but I'd say probably the same thing.

[amerigo178]

I have no problems with replacements if th reasons are "Want to honor their memory or someone has to do it". I just don't like it done to advance the "Agenda". I don't need them to to ruin a character that's been around for years. Yes I know new characters don't sell. But, if your current so called "Creators" are good the will find a way to make them sell. After all, a new character is a new IP for the publisher to exploit.

[brandnewfan]

I prefer legacy characters.

[Will Evans]

Concerning Starman, it's approach is right there with Wally and Kyle: even with multiple versions around, it's a multigenerational thing. It's also the best book on utilizing that concept ever, IMHO.OnMahunters I'm not that well versed, but I'd say probably the same thing.

Remember that the female Manhunter is Starman’s cousin.