Originally Posted by
Jim Kelly
If someone wants to give the award to Marvel Comics for legacy characters, then be my guest. I hate the term and all the contorted logic that flows from it.
Seems to me "legacy" was a term fans came up with in the 1990s (if I'm wrong, let me know), which would mean that for over half a century all the characters that later got the legacy label were managing just fine without it. When they were introduced, nobody thought additional characters were legacies, such as Lois Lane, Robin the Boy Wonder, Speedy, Jimmy Olsen, Alfred, Bucky Barnes, Toro, Captain Marvel, Jr., Woozy Winks, Doll Girl, Krypto, Supergirl, Aqualad, Snapper Carr, Rick Jones, Tomar-Re, Jarvis or Carol Danvers.
It happens that lead characters attract supporting casts for their stories. And then these supporting cast characters often go on to have their own stories. You don't need to create something called "legacy" to account for that. By making it a thing--it makes it seem that the development of these additional characters is a phenomenon of the universe, like mutants and metahumans are a phenomenon in those universes. When in reality, it's pure happenstance that certain characters become popular and get a bigger spotlight. "Legacy" shouldn't be a story-machine for churning out new characters with the same codenames and costumes as those that already exist.