Legacy: Good or bad?

[Frontier]

Is Garth going by Aqualad? Otherwise I think Kaldur can take the name.

Titans Hunt established he was Aqualad, but he's going to be Tempest for Titans, which does leave the mantle open .

[Godlike13]

I guess if you look at it like that. But personally, I don't consider potential heirs to the mantle to be actual legacies until they inherit it. Which we all know will never happen permanently, especially in the cases of characters like Bruce and Diana. They're too big to ever go away, and even Dick's time as Batman is pretty brief compared to all the other legacies on that list, and he has two other identities to fall back on that he's much more well known for. In comparison, Jamie Reyes and Ryan Choi don't have anything else going on besides inheriting the names of Blue Beetle and the Atom.

I think the only one of the original 5 Titans to really qualify as legacy is Wally because he lasted a good while, and for a long time it was doubtful Barry would ever come back. Nobody expected Bruce to stay dead for more than that one storyline.

Still legacy is there with them. Part of their sell even. Being heirs, or heir apparent, is still a play on legacy. To me legacy is part of those characters as former proteges. Like Batman's legacy is something the Dick struggles with all the time, even when Bruce is alive. IMO DC kind of started to bastardize their legacy aspect when it become more about them just snapping their fingers to give known roles to brand new characters. Still though when someone says DC's legacy aspect i think of character like Dick, Donna, and Wally. The idea of them as inheritors to their mentors legacy, the next in the line, and the burden that entails, is something that always drew me to those characters.

[DevilBat66]

I voted wrong. I meant to vote "Yes".

I hate legacy characters for the most part. Sometimes, it's okay like Wally West and Jamie Reyes and pretty much every other time it completely sucks. It's unoriginal and it ages the characters too much. Imo.

[Iconic]

What's the point of an "heir apparent" if they can never reach the mantle that they're heir to? It's just wasted potential.

[Trey Strain]

What's the point of an "heir apparent" if they can never reach the mantle that they're heir to? It's just wasted potential.

They never seem to, do they?

The torch always seems to get passed back.

[GlennSimpson]

I don't feel strongly one way or the other. I will say that I don't necessarily need for there to be legacy. I'm perfectly happy with basically two generations - the "adults" and the "teens". As others have mentioned, when you get beyond that, the adults start getting too old.

That is not to say, however, that I don't love "families" - Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, Steel, Nightwing and Flamebird, etc. Nothing wrong with that, as long as there's no aspirations that anyone is going to take over the main spot. You can do that without anybody getting any older.

I remember thinking at one point, some time after the Crisis, that DC had several age groups:

The JSA group
The Superman-Batman probably-in-their-late 30's group.
The Blue Beetle-Booster Gold probably-in-their-late 20's group
The Dick-Roy-Donna-Wally "early 20's" group
The Young Justice teens.

I just frankly don't need that many characters to read about.

[Buried Alien]

Good as long as it's remembered that "legacy," by definition, entails treasuring the past. The odd paradox of "legacy" in the DC Universe is that some fans perceive it as a call to trash the past in favor of the current. That's a pretty odd interpretation of "legacy," from my point of view.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Trey Strain]

If you're really going to replace a character, then damn it, replace him and be done with it. Don't keep talking about how great he was and what an endless struggle it is for the new guy to "finally" emerge from his shadow. That will never work.

[Godlike13]

What's the point of an "heir apparent" if they can never reach the mantle that they're heir to? It's just wasted potential.

Its a role, a different perspective, that can and have made for interesting narratives. Like with Wally who took over for a substantial time after Barry died, or with Dick who rebelled against the legacy of Batman, distanced himself, and created Nightwing. Just because they might never ultimately reach the mantle, or only might for a limited time, doesn't mean they can't and don't play with the idea of it or use it to help create stories and add drama. It also creates the idea of having a legacy for their respective mentors, and adds a sense of reason to them mentoring proteges.

[alton]

I have a feeling the herd will be culled in a few years. All these writers trying to leave their own mark on the DCU with their own personal creations, and they don't seem to be catching on. How many Harper Row fans are there, again? Eventually they're going to have to shift their focus back to the profitable characters and send their New 52 creations on a mass migration to character limbo. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but I can accept it.

Good point here but I also wonder if we are seeing the deathnell of the superhero comic. Even ignoring DC for now Valiant hasn't been knocking it out of the ballpark saleswise either. Despite acquiring characters that haven't been done to death with centuries of overloaded continuity their sales figures have been absurdly low and this with the best talent in the business. I don't mean to say that superhero centric is itself bad but those of us who enjoy superheros may be following something other people consider to be passe in the greater realm of sequential art. I think the big spike has been in the movies which the larger public seem to be enjoying for now. Sort of a secondary shockwave that doesn't necessarily translate back to print.

[SiegePerilous02]

Still legacy is there with them. Part of their sell even. Being heirs, or heir apparent, is still a play on legacy. To me legacy is part of those characters as former proteges. Like Batman's legacy is something the Dick struggles with all the time, even when Bruce is alive. IMO DC kind of started to bastardize their legacy aspect when it become more about them just snapping their fingers to give known roles to brand new characters. Still though when someone says DC's legacy aspect i think of character like Dick, Donna, and Wally. The idea of them as inheritors to their mentors legacy, the next in the line, and the burden that entails, is something that always drew me to those characters.

I think I like the way you define it more than what it's actually become (as in, give some old dude's clothes to a younger guy). The unspoken truth that Dick is the only one meant to inherit the Bat-Mantle in the (extremely unlikely) instance of Bruce ever permanently kicking the bucket is a great aspect of those two characters and their relationship. And I think Dick growing up the way he did and becoming one of the most bright heroes in DC's pantheon is a great testament to Batman's legacy as a hero, that his intervention was able to allow something so unambiguously positive to happen.

Donna, Roy and Garth have always trailed far behind Dick and Wally for me with their advancements. I don't think anything particularly noteworthy ever happened with Troia, Arsenal and Tempest compared to the way Nightwing and Flash III just took off in popularity. It just seemed like "well, the other two are doing it, might as well make the other three the 'Nightwing' of their respective franchises while we're at it."

I still do like Donna a lot though, mostly from NTT and her relationships there. In her case, I would like more focus on her legacy to Hippolyta instead of Diana. She's a princess to the Amazons as well, and a legitimate heir to the throne. Plus, we get so few stories where the focus is just on those two. I can only really think of the one with Hyperion putting a love whammy on her while Hippolyta teams up with Starfire and Raven to save her.

[Godlike13]

I always thought they should go more modern with Donna. Make her look more reflective of the modern warrior. Trading in the swords and shields for more modern armaments like guns and combat armor.

[Kao]

Nope. Legacies were DC's staple.

[Agent Z]

I always thought they should go more modern with Donna. Make her look more reflective of the modern warrior. Trading in the swords and shields for more modern armaments like guns and combat armor.

Given DC's been accused of going back to the extreme 90s I'm not sure how well that would work.

[AquaLantern]

I voted yes because I'm over nostalgia in general. I rather see the characters where they are in the present time than have them constant reminders what happen before.