21Six.net

Following a discussion about the current Batman story arc, as well as a few other things that were related to it (mostly just what the hell is going to happen to Batman following this arc and Final Crisis) the discussion turned into that of character legacy. That is to say, which characters could easily be replaced by others in the future, if events required such a thing. I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, trying to figure out which characters are best suited for some kind of bequeathing of their throne to another character.

Since the topic was originally on Batman, we’ll start with him.

Batman is the ideal character for a legacy. Batman HAS a legacy, but not really a legacy in the type that I’m talking about here. Batman has the Bat-Family. He has Robin, Nightwing, Oracle, Batgirl, and all of the other people involved that have been connected to him over the years. But what happens if, one day, Bruce isn’t Batman anymore. Who is Batman? What is to become of the Dark Knight?

Some people would say the ideal choice would be Nightwing. After all, Earth-2, before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, had Bruce Wayne killed and Richard Grayson taking the helm for a little while. That’s not particularly the case now, but since it has happened, it allows for the possibility of it taking place in the future.

But, you have Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and Jason Todd all able to take the place of Bruce Wayne and become the new Batman. They would each have their own particular bend on it, but they would all be Batman on some level of another.

DC has the luxury of a lot of kid sidekicks during the Silver Age– Robin, Speedy, and all of the other people in the Teen Titans. And then in the Modern Age, the Titans and Young Justice/Teen Titans. Each of these characters can, on some level, carry on the legacy of their mentor. This is no truer case than, after Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wally West becoming The Flash after the death of Barry Allen. This is the idea that has been carried on from the beginning, this idea of legacy and inheritance of name.

There are a few characters, like J’onn J’onnz, who don’t have someone like that. But for the most part a lot of the major superheroes have some kind of means to carry on their name.

At least in DC.

Marvel, however, to my knowledge, wasn’t really big on kid sidekicks. As such, there’s less of that going around. A prime example, and used by my friend in the discussion, is Spider-Man. Spider-Man is Peter Parker. Parker also has no one to take up the name of Spider-Man should he be unable. Sure, they could bring in someone, but that wouldn’t really have the same effect. Some guy just declaring himself Spider-Man lacks the emotional connection that Marvel (and Spider-Man) generally work with in their stories.

Ed Brubaker managed to do a perfect legacy succession with the death of Steve Rogers and the subsequent creation of the new Cap as the former Bucky. Bucky, of course, being the former kid sidekick who was also the Winter Soldier for a while.

Another would be the X-Men. An entire team that has no real forms of succession. Sure there are clone and alternate universe children like Cable and all that, but they aren’t really the same instance. Cable is nothing like his parents. Of course, the idea of the X-Men could continue simply by shifting the teams. Mutants are change, after all, so the team would not really have to be a continuation of previous teams, but just a new team of new people.

The true legacy of X-Men is really carrying on the ideas of Xavier, not so much the people themselves.

Marvel has the luxury of it’s whole clone thing, so they never REALLY have to lose anyone. But it does kind of take away the impact.

But, then again, no one stays dead in comics except for Jason Todd, Bucky, and Uncle Ben.