Successfull LEGACY Characters vs LEGACY Characters with no success

[Masterff]

I DONT UNDERSTAND why DC has su much Problems to establish successfull Legacy Characters

NIGHTWING and WALLY WEST actually show how its done:


A) NIGHTWING
Make a character, who is DIFFERENT from the Mentor (Batman) and feels like a kind of modernized Version and is also respected etc. in the Community and has established his own character (NIGHTWING)

B) WALLY WEST
Similar, but he is the only character who was able to overtake an already existing role

Green Lanterns dont count because its more a title than an Identity

I dont know why DC dont use these 2 as kind of blueprint for Legacy Characters

We see that with Jonathan Samuel Kent and Conner Kent

Jonathan is just to similar to Clark, so he will never be successfull in this role and had his own place as he was a child.
However he was aged up and lost his uniqueness, because he is more a copy of Clark than anything else

Conner on the other hand is a unique character with tons of potential, HOWEVER DC dont use it, he just needs to get aged up, get more feats and get his own identity

I have the same problems with Donna who is too similar to Diana, Wallace West etc.

[Mai Zen]

For Conner, I think they have their chance with Young Justice animated show. But I guess they pushing Jon Kent now.

Also I think I would nominate Zatanna and Black Canary as Legacy thought they vastly outshine their parents

[Rightoya]

I DONT UNDERSTAND why DC has su much Problems to establish successfull Legacy Characters

NIGHTWING and WALLY WEST actually show how its done:

Well i guess it didn't help that higher-ups like Dan Didio from the looks of it actively sabotaged many Legacy characters like Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Stepanie Brown, Donna Troy, Kyle Rainer, Cassandra Sandsmark, John Stewart, and so on, and even Wally West, but Wally seems to be the only one where they have completely failed with that.

[BohemiaDrinker]

Also I think I would nominate Zatanna and Black Canary as Legacy thought they vastly outshine their parents

Agree on Zee, Dinah is a whole other matter. If we're to discuss if she's a legacy or not we end up in a Barry Allen situation, where all the answers are both right and wrong.


Concerning other legacy characters, we have all measures of success and failure here. Don't get me wrong, DC is not gonna have another success like Wally in this field (and Marvel probably never gonna have another Miles), but the JSA legacies are generally successful, Mr Terrific being the best example. Back in the late 90s we had a reasonably successful Connor Hawke and a pretty successful Cass Cain. Both were undercut editorially due to bias and unreasonable expectations (mostly bias).

We had a great concept, design, character and book with Jaime Reyes. He had everything to set the charts on fire but the backlash over Ted's death forced him to take a backseat for a long while. Same applies to Rene Montoya as question.

Examples abound, and my take is that there's no set formula: each and every character needs a great deal of thinking and another great deal of luck to make it work. Should the costume change, should a pre existing or new character be used, should the powers change, how much of the secondary cast is kept, etc. There's no "one" answer.

And let's not forget, Wally, the most successful legacy ever, stumbled for a good five year period before turning into the golden boy for the concept.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Legacy characters work better in a universe that can move forward. Right now they just feel stuck in place as DC and Marvel are sluggish.

Plus the sheer number of them tends to become more diminishing returns.

As well as most of the Future State legacies feel poorly thought out as Future State itself was poorly thought out.

But legacy characters are like any other character- often times there are good ideas badly executed. Jon's timeskip had a bunch of cool ideas but Bendis screwed his return and no one ever figured out what to do with him. Johnson recently got close within his Action Comics run but Jon feels like the weak link to me.

TlDr- creativity is a gamble and not every character can be a winner.

[skyvolt2000]

I DONT UNDERSTAND why DC has su much Problems to establish successful Legacy Characters

NIGHTWING and WALLY WEST actually show how its done:

I dont know why DC dont use these 2 as kind of blueprint for Legacy Characters

For those two you has YEARS of them under different names.
For those two you had something called Consistent usage.
For those two you had TALENT that was allowed to use, pitch and developed those two.

Once we go past those two-we have a variance of usage that is derailed at times by management, fanboys, comic book stores politics and toxic comic book environment.

Tim, Conner, A version of Supergirl, Cassandra Cain, JSA gang, Steel, Guy, John (to a point) and Kyle-ALL held books.
Jaime, Ryan & Jason Rusch get books.

Then came the politics of DC management and a toxic comic environment mainly to POC legacies. That went down the line derailed and ruining many legacies.

Nightwing and Supergirl survived it better than everyone else.

Others got put in the hands of folks who did NOT care for them (Jason Rusch) and others got deleted (Wally, Cass) and others got buried in horrible books that some how SOLD (Tim Drake and his generation in Teen Titans and lesser Young Justice). Yet even more had to take a backseat to someone else (Green Lantern and Flash) and some never got another shot despite having success with a solo (Steel) or had their books ruined (Batwoman). And those sent to replace the above were met with even MORE pushback-some justified (Wallace West) and others not (Nasir Dr Fate, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz).

A TON of this mess is on DC COMICS for fanning the fan war flames for derailing too many characters for PETS and certain writers.

Miles worked because Marvel did not let the inmates or toxic part of the fandom ruined him. Peter Parker is the breadwinner of Spider-Man. Miles will NEVER take that from him. However Marvel UNDERSTANDS that when they look at the MONEY Miles brings in.

DC was on that there can only be ONE nonsense.

[The Darknight Detective]

I DONT UNDERSTAND why DC has su much Problems to establish successfull Legacy Characters

NIGHTWING and WALLY WEST actually show how its done:


A) NIGHTWING
Make a character, who is DIFFERENT from the Mentor (Batman) and feels like a kind of modernized Version and is also respected etc. in the Community and has established his own character (NIGHTWING)

B) WALLY WEST
Similar, but he is the only character who was able to overtake an already existing role

That they were sidekicks for decades obviously helped and makes them stand out regarding this topic. Besides, Dick is a quasi-legacy, since he's not considered competition for Bruce. As for Wally, Barry was dead when dead meant being dead, so who else deserved the red suit than the redhead?

[Captain Nostalgia]

The original legacy characters largely developed into their own characters which made them distinct from Batman, Green Arrow, ect (with the exception of Wally who replaced Barry) which helped them grow in popularity.

After Wally West's success.....

legacy characters were brought in solely to replace existing characters that had popular fanbases, time and time again this created a backlash that has resulted in poor sales for them.

On principle I will not buy anything associated with certain legacy characters that have replaced my favourites: Translation = GO F#ck yourself DC!

[Slaughter]

Re: Jason Rusch.

Stuart Moore's Firestorm was Peak Jason Rusch. No one else had any idea what to do with him. I think his last interesting moment was in Blackest Night, when Deathstorm turned Gehenna into salt in front of him.

I think the problem is that Firestorm only works with two quite different people. Ronnie/Stein worked, Jason/Stein worked, but the attempt by both Brightest Day and New52 to "have cake and eat it" by giving us Ronnie/Jason never worked. Especially because these two keep bickering. Too similar as well.

Personally, I think the way forward would be to acknowledge that Jason Firestorm was a thing, go back to Ronnie/Stein, and give Jason his own identity. I would go with Jason as a tech-based hero using his own version of Firestorm-esque powers.

I actually have some things written in that regard, I used the name Stellerator, which is a type of magnetic confinement for fusion reactors, and an alternate to the Tokamak. Tokamak is also the name of a Firestorm villain*, so I felt there was a nice opposition in the naming.

*IMHO one of the Big Three of Firestorm villains. Multiplex, Killer Frost and Tokamak. Its a pity Tokamak is so obscure, he could easily be a Luthor-tier Big Bad, but he keeps dying every time he loses

[Godlike13]

Well i guess it didn't help that higher-ups like Dan Didio from the looks of it actively sabotaged many Legacy characters like Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Stepanie Brown, Donna Troy, Kyle Rainer, Cassandra Sandsmark, John Stewart, and so on, and even Wally West, but Wally seems to be the only one where they have completely failed with that.

Don't put Tim in this category. Tim was one of the most pushed legacy characters of the Didio era. His issues with Dick and Wally didn't apply to Tim or his gen. In fact the idea with the 52 was to replace Dick and Wally's gen with Tim's gen. What happened wasn't sabotaged, that was rejection by audiences. Some people like to take Didio's noted issues with Dick and Wally and apply it generally to any and all characters where things either didn't work out or just flat out flopped. But its not one size fits all. There were characters that Didio came out and said he had an issue with, that is true, but there are also characters audience simply didn't really respond to or stopped responding to. Dick and Wally only survived because despite Didio's opinion of them, and the attempted burials, ect. audience support and interest was always still apparent. Thats not the case with them all.

[Godlike13]

That they were sidekicks for decades obviously helped and makes them stand out regarding this topic. Besides, Dick is a quasi-legacy, since he's not considered competition for Bruce. As for Wally, Barry was dead when dead meant being dead, so who else deserved the red suit than the redhead?

Which is key.

[Digifiend]

For those two you has YEARS of them under different names.
For those two you had something called Consistent usage.
For those two you had TALENT that was allowed to use, pitch and developed those two.

Once we go past those two-we have a variance of usage that is derailed at times by management, fanboys, comic book stores politics and toxic comic book environment.

Tim, Conner, A version of Supergirl, Cassandra Cain, JSA gang, Steel, Guy, John (to a point) and Kyle-ALL held books.
Jaime, Ryan & Jason Rusch get books.

Then came the politics of DC management and a toxic comic environment mainly to POC legacies. That went down the line derailed and ruining many legacies.

Nightwing and Supergirl survived it better than everyone else.

Others got put in the hands of folks who did NOT care for them (Jason Rusch) and others got deleted (Wally, Cass) and others got buried in horrible books that some how SOLD (Tim Drake and his generation in Teen Titans and lesser Young Justice). Yet even more had to take a backseat to someone else (Green Lantern and Flash) and some never got another shot despite having success with a solo (Steel) or had their books ruined (Batwoman). And those sent to replace the above were met with even MORE pushback-some justified (Wallace West) and others not (Nasir Dr Fate, Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz).

A TON of this mess is on DC COMICS for fanning the fan war flames for derailing too many characters for PETS and certain writers.

Miles worked because Marvel did not let the inmates or toxic part of the fandom ruined him. Peter Parker is the breadwinner of Spider-Man. Miles will NEVER take that from him. However Marvel UNDERSTANDS that when they look at the MONEY Miles brings in.

DC was on that there can only be ONE nonsense.

Nonsense it is. If two characters have the same codename (usually because one is the legacy to the other) then either have one in a solo book and the other on a team, or have a solo for each with either their civilian names in the title (i.e. Jay Garrick: The Flash and Miles Morales: Spider-Man) or a different adjective or subtitle for each (like Amazing Spider-Man and Ultimate Spider-Man, or the Captain America books Symbol of Truth and Sentinel of Liberty). They don't need to just pick one.

[marvelprince]

That they were sidekicks for decades obviously helped and makes them stand out regarding this topic. Besides, Dick is a quasi-legacy, since he's not considered competition for Bruce. As for Wally, Barry was dead when dead meant being dead, so who else deserved the red suit than the redhead?

Not competition cause we all know he’s better than Batman. Disagree that is something that makes him more effective as a legacy though.

[marvelprince]

Re: Jason Rusch.

Stuart Moore's Firestorm was Peak Jason Rusch. No one else had any idea what to do with him. I think his last interesting moment was in Blackest Night, when Deathstorm turned Gehenna into salt in front of him.

I think the problem is that Firestorm only works with two quite different people. Ronnie/Stein worked, Jason/Stein worked, but the attempt by both Brightest Day and New52 to "have cake and eat it" by giving us Ronnie/Jason never worked. Especially because these two keep bickering. Too similar as well.

Personally, I think the way forward would be to acknowledge that Jason Firestorm was a thing, go back to Ronnie/Stein, and give Jason his own identity. I would go with Jason as a tech-based hero using his own version of Firestorm-esque powers.

I actually have some things written in that regard, I used the name Stellerator, which is a type of magnetic confinement for fusion reactors, and an alternate to the Tokamak. Tokamak is also the name of a Firestorm villain*, so I felt there was a nice opposition in the naming.

*IMHO one of the Big Three of Firestorm villains. Multiplex, Killer Frost and Tokamak. Its a pity Tokamak is so obscure, he could easily be a Luthor-tier Big Bad, but he keeps dying every time he loses

I thought the Brightest Night dynamic with Ronnie and Jason mostly worked. It was annoying at the beginning, but having them as reluctant partners with different personalities did work. They just tossed it in the bin with the New52 to do the Fury of Firestorm thing, which really changed the dynamic and leaned into some less than flattering tropes for Ronnie and Jason.

[The Darknight Detective]

Not competition cause we all know he’s better than Batman. Disagree that is something that makes him more effective as a legacy though.

They're not competition, since Dick is never going to (permanently) take Bruce's role. Both of them have their own separate duties within the Batman family. That's why I classify him as a quasi-legacy in that regard.