Marvel Legacy: Hopes For/Concerns About

[Prof. Warren]

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Solicitations for September should be arriving soon and that'll give us our first real glimpse of what the post-SE, Legacy era Marvel will look like.

Curious as to what people want to see from this and also what they hope not to see.

Number one for me as far as hopes would be the return of the Fantastic Four. I don't know if we'll see that immediately - I'm guessing that'll be the big reveal at the end of the Legacy one-shot - but I don't think Marvel can successfully do a "Legacy" branding and not have the FF come back. I could be wrong but I definitely think it would be an uphill battle.

As for who would be the FF's new creative team, I think it might be Jason Aaron as writer and Esad Ribic on art. I think Legacy might end up being essentially a stealth Zero issue for the relaunch of the FF.

I'm also hoping that The Avengers line gets a major overhaul. I've enjoyed Waid's Avengers run and I think the books in the Avengers line are all individually good books in and of themselves but I think the line needs to be reworked and refocused. There's no way the core Avengers title should be so low on the charts. Marvel may be able to juice up the Avengers and still keep Waid on (a more traditional artist on the book would help) but I think it might be time for new blood. Waid had the unfortunate handicap of coming on after Hickman's monumental run and so I think there was no choice at the time but to dial things back a bit.

At the same time, a dialed back Avengers just doesn't feel enough like the Avengers. Also, having the group operate out of anywhere but Avengers Mansion doesn't feel right. So whatever Marvel does with The Avengers in the Legacy era, I think they have to work to get the group back to the forefront of the MU. Part of that should involve paring down the Avengers line. It doesn't have to go down to just one book but I think anymore than two is pushing it. Slapping the Avengers name on too many titles has diluted the brand and Marvel needs to undo that.

I'm also really interested to see what's going to happen with Peter Parker in the Legacy era. One would expect that Parker Industries will inevitably end as Legacy begins but I don't know just how "back to basics" I want Spidey to be. While he might not remain a wealthy CEO, I also don't want to see Peter slide all the way back down to schlepping for photog work. One of the great strengths of Slott's ASM run has been his long game so I'm sure he's had his Legacy plans laid out for awhile - I'm just curious to see how things are going to shake out for Peter.

And I also hope that Ghost Rider and Moon Knight both get some kick-ass ongoings. The last volumes of both characters were disappointing. GR was an outright debacle, just a miserable miss. And MK was intriguing and had some real artistic merit but it was so devoid of actual superhero action that I feel like the character is due for a book that delivers on straight-up, street level crimefighting.

What I hope Legacy doesn't do is pander too much to nostalgia. Bringing back old favorites and getting back to basics in many ways is awesome but I also don't want things to be too retro. The X-Men relaunch has been fairly perfect in this regard in that it's got some definite old school flavor but yet it doesn't feel like it's backtracking and self-consciously retreading old ground. With Legacy, Marvel has to find the right mix of honoring the past and forging ahead to the future and based on how the X-line is going so far I feel like they can easily nail that proper balance.

We'll see. But I'm definitely excited to start seeing what Legacy is going to look like.