Does anyone else like the legacy characters more than the original ones?

[stargazer01]

Not really, especially Superman

Legacy characters can be quite annoying when the writers try to make them cooler and better than the original. Some legacy characters can be charming, like Darla from the Shazam family, though.

[SiegePerilous02]

Not really, especially Superman

Legacy characters can be quite annoying when the writers try to make them cooler and better than the original. Some legacy characters can be charming, like Darla from the Shazam family, though.

Is she really a legacy though? She isn't replacing Billy or Mary or anything.

Though I agree Darla's the best.

[MadFacedKid]

Hello,

I personally have to say that I like the Legacy characters more than the Big Ones.

Batman-Nightwing
I like Nightwing more (COMICS not the DC Animated Version who lost against Starfire etc.)
I like his costume,his attitude,his fighting skills...more than Batman.

Aquaman-Tempest
Never read much of them, BUT I liked Tempest in DC Rebirth Titans.
He has cool powers and doesnt wear this ridiculous old Costumes anymore.
Cool look and amazing cool powers.
I hate Aquaman for his arrogance and his "I am the King".....

Superman-Conner
I always thougt that Conner is the more interesting character.
Cool origin (half Kryptonian-half Lex Luthor)...you can develop him in MANY directions.
He is also a cool,refreshing take on Superman, who wears this costume which feels a bit outdated with the cape etc.
I like the leather jacket and I like also Conners attitude (from the old comics) more.
The combination of Kryptonian Powers+TTK was awesome and a cool new take on the classic Superman.

Wonder Woman-Donna
I like Donna more, she is friendly, calm etc. while Diana is more impulsive,aggressive..

Barry-Wally-Bart
Here I also like Wally and Bart much more than Barry.

Where are you getting Aquaman's arrogant from the whole New52 he's been pretty self doubting or humble at the very least. The "I am your king" bit was to command respect from the Atlanteans. Despite that Brightest Day is what got me into the Aquaverse and I was fond of Aqualad 2 Jackson Hyde more then Aquaman. Young black kid who has origins to a whole nother world but doesnt fit in with either was completely relatable to me.

Other then that most of the main characters I prefer the originals well I like Wally the most and I like the idea of him being emotionally unsteady being able to mess up with all the power he has. Unpopular opinion but I liked Heroes in Crisis for that reason showing Wally unable to outrun his depression.

[Flash Gordon]

Where are you getting Aquaman's arrogant from the whole New52 he's been pretty self doubting or humble at the very least. The "I am your king" bit was to command respect from the Atlanteans. Despite that Brightest Day is what got me into the Aquaverse and I was fond of Aqualad 2 Jackson Hyde more then Aquaman. Young black kid who has origins to a whole nother world but doesnt fit in with either was completely relatable to me.

Other then that most of the main characters I prefer the originals well I like Wally the most and I like the idea of him being emotionally unsteady being able to mess up with all the power he has. Unpopular opinion but I liked Heroes in Crisis for that reason showing Wally unable to outrun his depression.

Yeah, that "I Am Your King" moment was super earned and powerful BECAUSE Arthur had been self doubting and humble as hell for so long. That was his big moment, commanding the respect of his people and saving them from a battle they weren't going to win.

[Flash Gordon]

I usually prefer the originals. Almost always. Too many legacies water down the concept. 5 Robins is insane, for instance.

I love Dick Grayson but as his own man.

I like Jessica Cruz a lot. The idea of a Green Lantern that was chosen despite crippling social anxiety and has to overcome her self is fascinating.

I'm not sure I "like her more" than Hal, but I think she's wonderful. Hal and Jess are both great.

[BohemiaDrinker]

I love the original Titans group narrative for them as a whole, and Dick and Wally are some of DC's best characters. But in my opinion, I don't know if I'd rank them above the Golden/Silver agers. There is just way more material for the latter group. Donna in particular has NTT going for her, but that is her major claim to fame and she was part of an ensemble. That really can't compete with Diana, whose franchise doesn't really utilize Donna that much to begin with.

That may be true for the other four. But not Wally.

The greatest Flash runs are during his tenure, lots of concepts used till today were introduced at that time, and, let's face it, the whole legacy debacle is mainly due to him.

[Masterff]

Yeah, that "I Am Your King" moment was super earned and powerful BECAUSE Arthur had been self doubting and humble as hell for so long. That was his big moment, commanding the respect of his people and saving them from a battle they weren't going to win.

Where are you getting Aquaman's arrogant from the whole New52 he's been pretty self doubting or humble at the very least. The "I am your king" bit was to command respect from the Atlanteans. Despite that Brightest Day is what got me into the Aquaverse and I was fond of Aqualad 2 Jackson Hyde more then Aquaman. Young black kid who has origins to a whole nother world but doesnt fit in with either was completely relatable to me.

Other then that most of the main characters I prefer the originals well I like Wally the most and I like the idea of him being emotionally unsteady being able to mess up with all the power he has. Unpopular opinion but I liked Heroes in Crisis for that reason showing Wally unable to outrun his depression.

READ TITANS!!!!!!

In the issue where they were teleported in this tunnel and Donna learned the truth about herself being made out of clay.

Here he was like: I am the king of atlantis and I am the founding member of JL....then Tempest interrupted him, saying that Nightwing leads the Titans and he only asked: And he is the king of.......

This was the most arrogant moment which I read EVER!!! in Comics...

[SiegePerilous02]

That may be true for the other four. But not Wally.

The greatest Flash runs are during his tenure, lots of concepts used till today were introduced at that time, and, let's face it, the whole legacy debacle is mainly due to him.

That's why I said overall, the Silver age characters as a group (and let's not forget the Fab 5 are Silver agers as well) have more concepts and stories going for them, but Wally is definitely an exception as an individual. Like I said, Dick and Wally are really the stand outs from those five, with the other MVPs of their generation being Vic, Kory, Gar and Raven (and Babs and Kara if we can lump them in). Donna, Roy and Garth not so much even though they have their moments and potential.

But Wally had to be THE Flash to get to that point, something not easily replicated with all five of them, and he's been screwed now that he's not the main Flash DC wants to push and they don't know what to do with him.

READ TITANS!!!!!!

In the issue where they were teleported in this tunnel and Donna learned the truth about herself being made out of clay.

Here he was like: I am the king of atlantis and I am the founding member of JL....then Tempest interrupted him, saying that Nightwing leads the Titans and he only asked: And he is the king of.......

This was the most arrogant moment which I read EVER!!! in Comics...

Nobody should read Abnett's Titans. It isn't a good representation of either team.

I don't hold any arrogance on the JL's parts against them in that book. It's not their fault the writer had no idea what he was doing.

[MadFacedKid]

I usually prefer the originals. Almost always. Too many legacies water down the concept. 5 Robins is insane, for instance.

I love Dick Grayson but as his own man.

I like Jessica Cruz a lot. The idea of a Green Lantern that was chosen despite crippling social anxiety and has to overcome her self is fascinating.

I'm not sure I "like her more" than Hal, but I think she's wonderful. Hal and Jess are both great.

I feel the same way about Grayson probably not what you meant but I could honestly live with the idea of him just becoming Nightwing and having minor connections with Batman other then occasional runins and teamups.

Edit: Maybe being inspired by Batman in an elsewhere story atleast to see how it works

I agree with the Jessica Cruz thing too. Having social anxiety myself I could relate to her locking herself.up for a year. I feel like its a tiring trope to have characters already have stromg heroic complexes before gaining power or finding out they have power. Thats not to relatable to me

READ TITANS!!!!!!

In the issue where they were teleported in this tunnel and Donna learned the truth about herself being made out of clay.

Here he was like: I am the king of atlantis and I am the founding member of JL....then Tempest interrupted him, saying that Nightwing leads the Titans and he only asked: And he is the king of.......

This was the most arrogant moment which I read EVER!!! in Comics...

That just sounds like bad writing. I base his characterization off what Johns introduced because i feel like that was the best voice for Arthur.

[Lee]

Yet Wally, Donna, and Dick were all key members of the New Teen Titans and Roy and Garth frequently guest-starred in the title...

Plus, there's also the fact that they haven't been "sidekicks" for quite some time.

Robin was already a distinct enough character from Batman, and Kid Flash was the least utilized character in New Teen Titans. Aqualad and Speedy rarely appeared - people certainly weren't buying the comic on a monthly basis just on the off-chance that they might show up.

New Teen Titans was a very different proposition from the "mini Justice League" Teen Titans of the Silver Age.

So to go back:

And not only that, but the attitude that the Silver Age "originals" are just inherently better than their legacies has, IMO, done damage to the DC brand. This is especially evident when we talk about the Titans. In the 80s, the Titans was DC's best-selling team book or even just their best-selling title in general, far outcompeting the JLA.

Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, Changeling, Terra, Jericho didn't have any "originals" to compete against. New Teen Titans was a fresh series, full of original characters. They're not what people could call "legacy characters". The huge success of New Teen Titans comic and the Teen Titans cartoons isn't evidence that the "legacy" characters can outperform their older counterparts, it's evidence that Teen Titans performed its best when it was about original heroes and original villains, with Robin as a gateway character.

And thankfully DC hasn't been stupid enough to introduce replacement versions of Cyborg, Starfire, Raven or Beast Boy.

[SiegePerilous02]

Robin was already a distinct enough character from Batman, and Kid Flash was the least utilized character in New Teen Titans. Aqualad and Speedy rarely appeared - people certainly weren't buying the comic on a monthly basis just on the off-chance that they might show up.

New Teen Titans was a very different proposition from the "mini Justice League" Teen Titans of the Silver Age.

So to go back:



Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, Changeling, Terra, Jericho didn't have any "originals" to compete against. New Teen Titans was a fresh series, full of original characters. They're not what people could call "legacy characters". The huge success of New Teen Titans comic and the Teen Titans cartoons isn't evidence that the "legacy" characters can outperform their older counterparts, it's evidence that Teen Titans performed its best when it was about original heroes and original villains, with Robin as a gateway character.

And thankfully DC hasn't been stupid enough to introduce replacement versions of Cyborg, Starfire, Raven or Beast Boy.

Yeah, Wolfman and Perez specifically said they wanted to have as few associations with the JL as possible, which is one of the reasons Dick transitioned into Nightwing.

If the Titans franchise is to get out of its rut and return to its status as an equal but different property to the JL, they need to downplay the JL connections and similarities as much as possible. So no JL ties aside from the Fab 5 members, and they shouldn't be pushed as the only forefront faces of the team.

What made the Titans popular wasn't a legacy thing, so it's best to drop that angle altogether and highlight the things that make the Fab 5 different, and surround them with characters with no JL connections.

[Jim Kelly]

lots of concepts used till today were introduced at that time,

Leaving Barry and Wally out of it, and just talking about the concepts introduced in the 1990s, there's not many I actually like.

I don't like Speed Force because it's this ill-defined thing that isn't really science and isn't really magic. It seems to exist mainly to explain how the speedsters can go beyond the speed of light. But Barry and Wally never needed that explanation before--they just did go FTL and you didn't need some junk to excuse it. After Crisis, DC wanted its universe to be more grounded and use real science to explain things--but they didn't have enough good science fiction writers to do that, so they fell back on using goofy concepts like Speed Forces and Colour Corps.

And speaking of goofy, one of the corny tropes in comics is when a character takes on an identity and then, by magic, he happens to get powers that fit that already established identity. What luck!

UNDERWORLD was the first DC crossover event that I skipped--I guess I was trying to save money, because I bought all the ones after that. But from what I understand that's the one where a bunch of Rogues got metahuman powers. I never liked the main Rogues Gallery characters having super-powers. The thing I like about the Broome-Infantino Rogues is that they mainly just have gimmicks. Everytime a Rogue comes up with a different way to use his gimmick against the Flash, he hatches a new plot and we get to see how the Flash handles that innovation. But the Flash is the main one with the super-powers. Yes there's Reverse-Flash (from the future) who has speed and there's Grodd (from Gorilla City) who has mental powers--but they're the exceptions. The classic Rogues are mostly ordinary, flawed, human desperadoes rising to the challenge of super-powered policemen in their midst and discovering ways around that inconvenience.

The one thing I'll give the 1990s is the expansion of the Flash family--but most of that family is Barry's in one way or another and this family is just an extension of stuff that happened in the 1960s and 1970s. Adding Max Mercury and Jesse Quick pleased me, but the concept of a family didn't start in the 1990s. And that concept hasn't been used very much in today's comics. We don't see much of those characters anymore.

[RachelGrey]

I feel the same way about Grayson probably not what you meant but I could honestly live with the idea of him just becoming Nightwing and having minor connections with Batman other then occasional runins and teamups.

Edit: Maybe being inspired by Batman in an elsewhere story atleast to see how it works

I agree with the Jessica Cruz thing too. Having social anxiety myself I could relate to her locking herself.up for a year. I feel like its a tiring trope to have characters already have stromg heroic complexes before gaining power or finding out they have power. Thats not to relatable to me




That just sounds like bad writing. I base his characterization off what Johns introduced because i feel like that was the best voice for Arthur.

I think Jessica Cruz is my favourite new character in DC and Marvel combined. It was a unique way to look at someone becoming Green Lantern. She overcame the Power Ring because he will was strong enough to fight it and cause it to be destroyed by throwing herself in the path of the Black Racer when Volthoom was trying to control her mind. This was the whole reason a Green Lantern ring came to her, Jessica had proven that her will was strong enough to fight Volthoom's control. I like that Jessica has flaws, she makes mistakes, and she struggles with being a hero. Being a hero isn't easy and with the character of Jessica they show you someone who struggles day to day to live up to people's expectations of her as a hero. She wants to prove her worthiness to Hal, to the Justice League, to Simon, to the Green Lantern Corp. She will always struggle with her mental health issues, the trauma she went through was really severe. One of the other things that I loved was the way that Batman just got her right from the start, he understood that her trauma was so similar to his own, the only difference is that Jessica refused to accept anyone's help and isolated herself to cope, while Bruce did allow Alfred to help and he sought to fight the trauma by spending the rest of his life fighting it. But no one can deny that Bruce has some mental health issues of his own, his coping mechanism is just different from Jessica, Bruce copes with his mental health issues through violence. But I love that even though they cope differently they still get each other.

[stargazer01]

Is she really a legacy though? She isn't replacing Billy or Mary or anything.

Though I agree Darla's the best.

Are legacy characters trying to replace the originals, though? Maybe I don't understand the concept and the question. I'm not an expert on the Shazam universe, but I thought Billy Batson was the main character and the others his legacy. I thought legacy chars are more like a family.

[SiegePerilous02]

Are legacy characters trying to replace the originals, though? Maybe I don't understand the concept and the question. I'm not an expert on the Shazam universe, but I thought Billy Batson was the main character and the others his legacy. I thought legacy chars are more like a family.

Lol, I think that's because the term is so casually thrown around without a consistent definition. I think the most commonly used definition is someone like Wally becoming the Flash after Barry, becoming a legacy character. Barry was also retconned into being such a legacy for Jay where he wasn't before. So it's a mantle passing onto another character. Since Billy is still the main Captain Marvel/Shazam, Darla is just part of his extended family like Mary and Freddy are. Or Robin, Batgirl and Supergirl are for Batman and Superman. And of those three, Robin is Batman's partner but a unique identity in itself, and Batgirl and Supergirl are distaff counterparts, not legacies. But Tim or Damian are legacies for Dick, because they are wearing a mantle he started.

I think in general fans exagerrate how important legacy is to the DCU. Statements like it's the "backbone" of the DCU don't really hold up. Outside of the Flash and the JSA related characters (and I'd lump Starman in there with them) it isn't really a major component. The major DC characters that are the most marketable, for heroes and villains alike, are either the originals (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Green Arrow and Robin as an identity still mostly rides off of the iconography Grayson established) or the Silver age revamps that weren't originally legacies. The most popular Teen Titans among the mainstream after Robin are four characters who don't have other people using their names and aren't associated with a JL character. And now the mainstream has movies with Diana and Arthur with no sidekicks, and a Shazam family made up of non-legacies.