Why Create A New Character When You Could've Used...?

[Fergus]

Why create Jason Todd when you already had Dick Grayson (and those who know the story know that originally, Jason was a redhead carbon copy of Dick)? Also, why create Daimon Wayne when you already had Tim Drake?
Those were the first which instantly came to mind. I'm sure more will follow.

Peace

Tim can't sub in for Damian because you can't tell Damian stories with Tim.

Tim was created to tell basic Robin stories. A replacement for the OG likeable sidekick who was there to just be the audience surrogate. A position that Dick's character have evolved beyond. The typical textbook Robin that Dick Grayson was when he was first introduced before he became a more nuanced and fleshed out character decades later.

Damian is different, while he has been used to tell typical Batman and Robin stories like in the Batman/TMnT crossover.
His origin, themes and character type means that a character like Tim can't be used to tell Damian's stories.

Morrison's B&R
Tomasi's B&R
Williamson's B&R

wouldn't work with Tim Drake because doesn't have the relationship or history Damian has with Bruce Wayne or Dick Grayson.

Basically what @Jon Clark said.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

^^^Word.

The Wildstorm characters would def. benefit from their own Earth. Same w. The Freedom Fighters.

I agree on the Wildstorm heroes.

[marhawkman]

Not new, but like I said you couldn't have slotted Dick or Tim into a Damian story and had it work the same. Jason you might have been able to rework Ra's role in the resurrection to leave Jason in a role close to Damian's but it wouldn't be exactly the same.

Sometimes there is enough differentiation that having multiple characters around makes sense. A story involving the long term Titans works better with Wally than Barry. A story with the Big Seven of the JL has more depth with Hal than with John or Kyle. But a generic stpry that just needs Batman to have a partner pull off a last second save might not read differently whether you use Babs, Dick, Tim ,,,

Simply having an interesting origin story is often enough. Or different goals, etc.... Like the way Mala was used in DCAU... nearly the same as the way Ursa has been used recently in the main universe, BUT Mala is loyal to Jax-Ur, not Dru-Zod.

[Nomads1]

Readers at the time felt differently regarding the need for Jason to DIE. and DC had the stones to follow thru...

Living in Brasil, I could not take part on the voting (though I probably would have voted to have him killed. I was always a HUGE Dick Grayson fan, and it bothered me a bit that they'd replaced him with Jason. Stupidly territorial, I know, but I was young). But I really applauded DC stones in proposing the vote and on carrying on with the result. And Tim's rising to take his place as a different kind of Robin was a GREAT character arc. One of the best I've read (even though Dick will always be MY Robin). I always thought it was a mistake to ressurect Jason. IMHO, his death was the greatest and most relevant thing that ever happened to the character.

Peace

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I used to think Sideways would've been better off as a Vibe title or an ID for another character like Wallace.

[Thor-Ul]

Why create new characterss? The reasons are as multiple as the characters than exists and it could very from legal reasons to editorial interference to internal conflicts to desire to create a new character.... and so.

Taking the OP example of Immortus no being used and the Sovereing being created? Could be easly than King considered than he needed a new character than represents the antagonist than his story needs and Immortus didn't fit the standard. On one side that is good for King, but also could mena than any other person could use him because it going to be part of King story. Unless King had more ample plans for him I think the Sovereing will be the kind of villian of one story only.
Or maybe he proposed to use Immortus but the character already was being used (and heavily changed) in Doom Patrol. And the editor of Doom Patrol simply said: "you don't use these characters, sorry".
Why not use another Diana enemy like the Duke of Deception? Well, then it could be because of the first reason: don't fit the story than King want to tell. Or maybe the changes he is going to do to the Sovereing are going to be so radical than if he would used in another character, this would end being unusable again.


The later recurring use of the characters was one of the reasons than explain why the Charlton characters weren't used in Watchmen. The editors liked the Charlton characters because they pushed for their acquisicion and when they saw were was the story of Moore going, were not happy with the idea of Peacemaker being a rapist or Question being so disjointed of reality. Also, these characters were integrated later in the DCU in several series (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Nightshade in Suicide Squad and Shadowpact, the LAW, the Quesion ONGs and Peacemaker series. The f''cking Peacemaker, the last one I would guess ever would had a live action series. From time to time they resurface. Also, technically at least one of them have a movie. We can argeu endless about what happened 40 years later, but in that moment, that was the reason.

On the many reasons for Constantine having doubles it was because around the time the Vertigo firewall was set. Anyone outside the vertigo books could use those characters and it seems like the writer of Hellblazer wanted a full control of Constantine. For legal reasons, we can also explain the abundance of electrically powered black heroes. Whatever deal DC had with Isabella, it seemed it was important enough to ban Black Lighting of animated productions for years and create several ersatz, than now make the idea of a black character bhaving electrically powered like a cliche.

Also from time to time we have to admit than certain characters are too tied to something like a past trend and a heavily redesign is done. Sometimes ever is better to create a new character, becauseif you are going to reinvent a character so different of what was before, an OG can be a better way and gave you more creative freedom without being restricted to past continuities of shameful trends ( I see you Vibe, breakdancer).

Dammit, sometimes a character can be created simply by an editorial miscommunication. I mean...Who was Donna Troy?? A writer who supposed than Wonder Girl was the sidekick of Diana and not the Wonder Woman version of Superboy created a whole new character!
Don't forget the canon immigrants like Red X or Jimmy Olsen, created for animated and radio show, who made the jump to comics!
Faora and Ursa? Different names for the same archetype character.
Naomi and Firestorm? Creators inventing new characters with the hope they will gain attraction to readers.

Reason to create new characters in replace of others there are many, and all of them are the right one.

[Alpha Male]

This is clearly a discussion of opinion, not fact, and I'll give you Immortus was in the Unstoppable Doom Patrol while the King WW series was starting up. But I'd also argue that the Sovereign is an old man who is the latest in a series of men who were secretly ruling the US from it's creation, after having come over from Europe. Immortus is a seemingly immortal being whose history has him vaguely European who could certainly have been a figure calling the shots on America from jump street, and could be doing so in a way that doesn't negate his DP appearances from the Silver Age forward. You say "similar in only the most superficial ways," I say the character's history and background make him a natural fit to the story King is telling, simply taking out the descendant element and making it one guy running the show all along.

Hmmmmmm? That wouldn't really align with General Immortus' M.O.

[skyvolt2000]

Why create Jason Todd when you already had Dick Grayson (and those who know the story know that originally, Jason was a redhead carbon copy of Dick)? Also, why create Daimon Wayne when you already had Tim Drake?
Those were the first which instantly came to mind. I'm sure more will follow.

Peace

If you look at Son of the Demon from the 80s-you saw Batman have a son but never knew about him.

While that was an elseworld story-someone at DC decided to finally run with it and thus we got Damian.

I would suspect you run with him because now you have someone linked to Batman by blood. You had the "father" son relationship with the others.

Dick raised by Bruce

Jason trained and failed under Bruce

Tim trained and so on.

Here we got son by blood. How willing would a father put their kid in danger? The closest we got sort of was Aquaman and his son and later Jefferson and his girls. Now we got Clark and Jon but derailed by a age advance.

[Aahz]

To me the only ones that made no sense were Post-Crisis Jason and Tim Drake as they basically made Jason unlikable then killed him off only to then introduce Tim. If the idea had been to create a Robin with Tim's characterization, they could have either rebooted Jason in Crissi to that or slowly made Jason grow that way. No need for a kill and replace

Afaik the order to create a new Robin came from somewhere higher up in WB after Jason was killed in DitF.

[Aahz]

I don't know who Darcy is but the other serve a purpose that you can't really fill with an existing character. Or you can but it would feel incongruous or regressive with them.

In most cases this purpose only existed for a pretty limited time, but most of the characters seem to be created to stay arroud on the long run.

And I would argue that in some cases the original characters actually could a filled the role.

You could have easily have Dick continue to fight against the CoO instead of sending him to Chicago and creating Calvin Rose for that. I mean he eventually ended up fighting them in his later runs anyway.

Strix was pretty much just a Cassandra Cain stand in, and iirc didn't really had much of a purpose appart from that. I mean they might not have been allowed to use Cass back than, but I still don't think that there was a good reason to create a character that was just a carbon copy.

And I think that story wise giving Red Hood the parts of Ghost Makers in most stories would have been in most cases also possible without changing the over all plot to drastically (assuming you had writers that were actually willing to write Red Hood as a competent crime fighter which most of the current writers don't seem to be).

[HandofPrometheus]

By using the OP's logic, why create Batman when DC(aka National Comics) already had Superman? There really aren't any similarities to Vixen and Naomi besides being black female heroes. Don't get me wrong, I wish DC would give Vixen a big push but Naomi didn't steal much of anything from Vixen.

Here are some DC characters that I feel are redundant:


Cats Eye when Wonder Woman already had Cheetah(two cat-themed Wonder Woman villains).

Maxwell Lord as a Wonder villain when Diana already had Dr. Psycho, Hypnota, and the Duke of Deception who are all mental-powered villains of hers.

Mr. Freeze when Batman already had Mr. Zero(two cold-themed Bat villains).

Faora when Superman already had Ursa(two female Kryptonian prisoners with very similar personalities).

I think a lot of the more recent Bat Characters fall under that.

Why crate Calvin Rose if you have Dick Grayson?

Why create Strix when you have Cassandra Cain?

Why create Ghost Maker and Clown Killer if you have Red Hood?

Why create Jace Fox of you have Luke Fox?

Why create Punchline and the Gardener if you have Harley and Ivy?

Why create Sparrow (Darcy Thomas) when you have Stephanie Brown?

I feel like these were the best examples given. This question IMO reflects on redundancy and not just typical legacy replacements. But as someone said, most of the redundant characters were created because DC loves their stupid mandates that stop characters from being used.

[RogueWhistler]

Aren't Mr. Zero and Mr. Freeze the same character?

[Riv86672]

Aren't Mr. Zero and Mr. Freeze the same character?

^^^From what I’ve read Mr. Freeze debuted as Mr. Zero in Batman #121 in 1959.



Fast forward to 1966 and the Adam West TV show, and he was called Mr. Freeze.



Jump to 1968, and Detective Comics #373 officially took up the Freeze moniker.

[Midnight_v]

The Terrifics -

Why use a new Phantom Girl? When you have Nightshade, and the kingdom of the nightshades? Crazy.

I made a thread called "a rose by any other name", and I wanted the most popular stories starring similar powered characters.

Dc could have had WAAAAYYYY more popular characters throughout but the best stories get placed on the most popular characters and that's bad.

Characters miss out on a lot of mythology building that just gets dumped on the bat or supes family.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

In most cases this purpose only existed for a pretty limited time, but most of the characters seem to be created to stay arroud on the long run.

And I would argue that in some cases the original characters actually could a filled the role.

You could have easily have Dick continue to fight against the CoO instead of sending him to Chicago and creating Calvin Rose for that. I mean he eventually ended up fighting them in his later runs anyway.

Strix was pretty much just a Cassandra Cain stand in, and iirc didn't really had much of a purpose appart from that. I mean they might not have been allowed to use Cass back than, but I still don't think that there was a good reason to create a character that was just a carbon copy.

And I think that story wise giving Red Hood the parts of Ghost Makers in most stories would have been in most cases also possible without changing the over all plot to drastically (assuming you had writers that were actually willing to write Red Hood as a competent crime fighter which most of the current writers don't seem to be).

I still disagree with Calvin and Strix as they could explore the Court from an inside perspective. Thats not someone you could do with either Cass or Dick.

Although I'm not sure Strix built for the longterm. I thought she debuted in the Night of Owls Batgirl tie in and the only other story I remember for her was Simone's Secret Six. Simone was the writer for both Batgirl and Secret Six. So I think her use was more dependent on Simone wanting to use her than anything else.

I agree with Ghostmaker but that's more because I always saw Ghostmaker as a thin character. He always felt more style over substance. The only time he worked was in the Knight miniseries.

There's some value in setting him in Singapore so using him in something like We Are Legends would've been better.