Trimming the fat

[Anthony W]

Families. Every popular hero seems to have them, if we must have them can we at least trim the fat?

Spider-Man: Decide who your Spider-Woman is and get rid of the rest. Miles can stay. Spider-Boy is gone.

Captain Marvel: Genis and Ms. Marvel can stay. Lauri-Ell and Phyla are gone.

Wolverine: Laura? Gone. Daken? Gone. Gabby? Gone. Reine? She can stay. Reine can stay because she shares enough stuff with Wolverine to be similar but different enough that she doesn't take anything away from Wolverine. What is her continuity situation anyway?

[phonogram12]

Nope, I say keep 'em. I don't like Tony Stark or Hal Jordan, but respect that other people do.

[Anthony W]

Nope, I say keep 'em. I don't like Tony Stark or Hal Jordan, but respect that other people do.

Tony Stark is Iron Man, and he also doesn't have any fat that needs to be trimmed. Hal Jordan is a member of an intergalactic police force so multiple Green Lanterns are a given.

[Riv86672]

Tony Stark is Iron Man, and he also doesn't have any fat that needs to be trimmed.

^^^I wouldn’t mind Iron Heart being put in limbo.

[Anthony W]

^^^I wouldn’t mind Iron Heart being put in limbo.

Not fond of the character but she is the only person other than Tony Stark wearing armor and she has her own superhero name. speaking of people who don't have their own superhero name....

Hawkeye: Sigh. I loathe Kate Bishop, BUT she is the only other character doing the bow and arrow thing in Hawkeye's world. So by my own rules I guess she can stay, but she really needs to change her name. I really think Kate Bishop would have worked better it she wasn't introduced in Young Avengers. It would have been better it Hawkeye answers his door to see a young Kate Chisholm standing there. Turns it she is the granddaughter of Hawkeye's mentor Trick Shot. Apparently her parents died and he was raising/training her while his Cancer was in remission. When the Cancer came back he sent her away because he took a job for Helmut Zemo in exchange for a cure. Fans with Hawkeye comics know what comes next of course LMAO. Trick Shot was betrayed and died. So Kate needs to finish her training and Hawkeye is the best archer and Trick Shot respected him. She takes up the name "Sure Shot" when her training is complete. Just like that she has her own cred in the hero world and no one has to defend her being such a great archer because her grandfather was training her and she just needed Hawkeye to help her finish her training and she has her own name.

[Riv86672]

Not fond of the character but she is the only person other than Tony Stark wearing armor and she has her own superhero name.

^^^War Machine and Rescue say hi!

[Anthony W]

^^^War Machine and Rescue say hi!

Didn't Rhodey decide he didn't want to be in the armor during the Slott run? Is Rescue still a thing?

[shooshoomanjoe]

Nah, they make the books more fun.

[Anthony W]

Nah, they make the books more fun.

They dilute the strength of the main character.

[SturdyMike89]

Families. Every popular hero seems to have them, if we must have them can we at least trim the fat?

Spider-Man: Decide who your Spider-Woman is and get rid of the rest. Miles can stay. Spider-Boy is gone.

Captain Marvel: Genis and Ms. Marvel can stay. Lauri-Ell and Phyla are gone.

Wolverine: Laura? Gone. Daken? Gone. Gabby? Gone. Reine? She can stay. Reine can stay because she shares enough stuff with Wolverine to be similar but different enough that she doesn't take anything away from Wolverine. What is her continuity situation anyway?

No, we can't trim the fat! The supporting cast is what makes these books. I like the majority of the characters you mentioned sometimes even more than the so-called leads. A great many of them have huge fandoms of their own. It annoys me when someone says this character can stay or this one can go. A comic that is only about superheroes is boring. It is the rich community of characters that really make the setting.

[ComicNoobie]

No thanks. "Family" characters tend to be among my favorite characters in a book. I don't even follow Batman titles for Bruce/Batman and I haven't for decades. I only keep up with them for the batfamily. Without them I wouldn't even follow Batman anymore. Likewise I enjoyed Laura's classic X-23 stories more then most of the stuff I read starring Logan in them. I've read more She-Hulk comics then Hulk ones. So yeah I'm more of a legacy character "family" fan, mainly because when I started reading comics those kinds of characters were the ones I started with. I read the entire 1st Young Avengers run of comics before even touching on the real Avengers books.

I will say that the ones who share a mantle name at the same time as another hero should get another one so there's less confusion. Like having two Captain America's at the same time? That's a headache in the field.

[Anthony W]

No, we can't trim the fat! The supporting cast is what makes these books. I like the majority of the characters you mentioned sometimes even more than the so-called leads. A great many of them have huge fandoms of their own. It annoys me when someone says this character can stay or this one can go. A comic that is only about superheroes is boring. It is the rich community of characters that really make the setting.

I agree a comic that is only about superheroes is boring. Which is why you need to occasionally trim the fat.

[mugiwara]

Tony Stark is Iron Man, and he also doesn't have any fat that needs to be trimmed.

He should. That would be better than doing through the same "Tony loses everything, Tony rebuilds everything" story arc again and again.
Same goes with Peter Parker.
They are creativity dead ends.

[Midnight_v]

They dilute the strength of the main character.

Yeah. Ant, I think a lot of the people who are fans of the "Family" actively hate something about the main character (OR don't care about them at all).
So its like... they really don't care about that. You're right though.

[DragonsChi]

There is a ton that I would get rid of and its mostly the ones that have very little depth to them but seem to only exist to check off boxes.

If the characters where handled correctly or were interesting I wouldn't mind them. But I think there is a reason Stan Lee said that the idea of "sidekicks" would inevitably be silly and uninteresting. (Not his exact words. Im paraphrasing here.)


Edit:

Just to clarify the...above is only describing the Marvel Universe. I don't think having a lot hand-me-down characters work that well in that universe. In DC they have the same problem but there are several examples that work really well/better and not only that the concept itself is sorta built in to the ground work of the universe with the Introduction of Robin (even though back then Robin was still his own character and not really a hand-me-down.)