Successfull LEGACY Characters vs LEGACY Characters with no success

[astro@work]

I think the best legacy characters , the ones that resonate, are those who are introduced slowly and don't seem poised to immediately take the title from the main hero.
Examples: Dick, Donna, Roy and especially Wally.

The characters who tend to get rejected are introduced quickly and also take the main title too quickly, such as Kyle, Yara, and the subsequent Robins who were clearly poised to become the next Robin as soon as they appeared. Jon is a unique case as he had a unique spot in the SUper family until he was (stupidly) aged rapidly just to become the new Superman. I like the character but have hoped he'll be de-aged in whatever the next Earth changing event comes along.

[Digifiend]

Jon's backstory simply no longer makes sense, even without the age-up. Before he was aged up he was 11 years old. He of course has to have been born after Lois and Clark's marriage, which was published in the 90s, a few years after Conner debuted. So shouldn't his existence age up Conner and the rest of Young Justice by twelve years? Of course that's not the case. None of Young Justice are older than 21, which is only five years older than Conner's apparent age when he first appeared.

When Jon first debuted, it was explained by his family being from Convergeance, and that he'd only appeared in the New 52 universe when he was already 10 years old. After Superman Reborn though, New 52 was overwritten by the pre-Flashpoint Superman (Rebirth had already started merging other characters' histories). That's what broke Jon's origin.

[Thor-Ul]

This is a tricky question more complicated than what seems to be.

Successful Legacy character are the ones who can generate their own niche, not as a replacement of the original but more as an spin-off character. That is the case of Nightwing who is a Legacy character but who is his own idnetity and had to spend years outside Batman sphere of influence to be development as his own character. WOuld be Dick Grayson as important if he ever would had stood as a secondary character in Batman books instead of Titans?

The case of Wally West is different. Even if there are parallelisms with the case of Dick Grayson (being developted in the Titans book, being away from his mentor book orbit), there is a big difference. Barry Allen, the Flash, already was a replacement character: he was the second Flash, the replacement for Jay Garrick. So a new Flash wasn't something new. His use represented something symbolic, as Barry Allen represented "Multiverse" and in those times the multiverse was no more, so a Flash unattached to the idea of "multiverse" was also something than DC needed. Also remember, the original Flash runs weren't that successful and it took several years before Wally, as the Flash, really created interest.

So, neither of them were successful legacy character because the development in the books where they were born, but mostlywhen they were in other book, where they were developted as characters in their own niche. That helped them more.

But in the end there is no formula to guarantee the successful of a legacy character. There is no a "let's do this and success!!". Different circunstances affect the success beyond the quality of the writing and drawing inthe case of comics.

And also, and this could bother you if you like legacy characters, why should the next yenerations fo readers had to conform, with spin off characters and not get the originals? Why had a reader of these days had to be pushe d to read about the son of Superman and not to read about Superman himself? My advfentures with Superman for example shows a younger Superman opposed to the Superdad of the comics and always you can wrote new stories set in the past or in alternate lines or rewrotes of the origin or graphic novels like All Star.

Also, for who are those Legacy characters? For new readers or for old reader too much attached to the continuity?
Honestly, I have no answers, only questions and most problema the only answers I could think would be mistaken. I really love Wally West as the Flash, but I have to confess, with a lot of pain in my soul, (god forgive me) than I agh... I arggh.. I augh...

Cough-cough...

I agree with DiDio when he talks about how you have to keep the origin of the characters simple. And being the son or sidekick of a character is complicated because you have to explain who is the character who precedes the "son of". And most of the time, the original character is more attractive, it have a more interesting origin than "being the son of". Why new readers would had to be interested in spin-off characters wwhen they could go to the original source? Even the better interpretations of spin-off characters end being as close to the original as they try to make it.

Again, I am not trying to impose my vision on this question, but I think is a complicated dissscussion because there is no right answer.
Still, I could be mistaken..

[CPSparkles]

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.

Didio actively sabotaged Dick Grayson not Tim. Didio seemed to favour Tim for whatever reason.

[Morgoth]

Because DiDio was obsessed with keeping Batman and the rest of characters in a specific age range, and adult Dick was kinda messing up his vision, even though nobody gave a ****, except him. The same reason he despised Wally and his family. But he's known for doing everything for himself, while making it sound it like it's for readers.