Legacy Characters in comic books.
The following have their own pages:
open/close all folders
Other
- Black Owl, a Golden Age superhero from Prize Comics, was the oldest comic example of this trope. During World War II, the original Black Owl joined the army, passing his costume to Walt Walters, father of Yank and Doodle, the superhero twins (and fellow Prize Comics characters) he once teamed up with.
- Archie Comics had published a superhero comic dubbed "the Mighty Crusaders" (Long story!) Well, currently, their teenage children have taken their place to become the New Crusaders.
- Malcolm Dragon is this to his father, The Savage Dragon.
- In Alan Moore's Tomorrow Stories, the Cobweb and her sidekick Clarice are descended from a line of heroines and villainesses dating back to the 16th century, when their ancestors discovered the secret of parthenogenesis.
- Though Hunter Rose was the first and the most well-known to take on the persona of Grendel, after him there was Christine Spar, Brian Li Sung, Eppy Thatcher, Orion Assante and eventually Jupiter Assante. Unusual in that it wasn't entirely by choice that this particular identity was passed on; most successors to the Grendel role had never even met their predecessors, and are separated in time by decades if not centuries.
- Star Wars: Legacy:
- Averted; except for his weirdness with his half-sister and Force powers, including some time on The Dark Side (Cade's still there, and he can raise the dead), Cade Skywalker is nothing like his ancestor.
- Played straight with Darth Wyyrlok. Darth Krayt's dragon and advisor is always named Darth Wyyrlok; as of the time of the series he's on Wyyrlok III, son of the previous Wyyrlok and grandson of the original, with Wyyrlok IV (the current one's daughter) in training.
- Top Cow has the bearers of the Thirteen Artifacts, The Angelus entity passes on to a new host when the previous host dies, the current wielder being Finch; The Darkness entity is passed from father to son, the current wielder being Aram, The Witch King; the holy power of The Magdalena and The Spear of Destiny is passed from mother to daughter, the current wielder being Patience who was last bearer of The Glacier Stone, and The Witchblade is passed from owner to owner, the current wielders are Sara Pezzini and Katarina Godliffe. There is also the Aphrodite series of androids: Aphrodite IV who appears in Witchblade and is also the currect bearer of The Coin of Solomon, Aphrodite V who appears in Cyberforce, Aphrodite IX who has her own comic book and Aphrodite XV who has appeared in Aphrodite IX's comic. Tom Judge is the bearer of The Rapture, former Angelus warrior Sabine is the beaer of The Wheel of Shadows, Rachel Harrison is the bearer of The Heart Stone, Ian Nottingham is the current bearer of The Blood Sword, Glorianna Silver wields The Ember Stone, Alina Enstrom possesses Pandora's Box and the Thirteenth Artifact bearer is monk Ji Xi.
- The original Paperinik has Donald Duck accidentally inheriting the legacy of Gentleman Thief Fantomius, a spoof of violent anti-heroes like Diabolik. While Paperinik is treated more as a Batman spoof these days, the origin is kept, and becomes a plot point in some modern Italian stories involving part of his legacy and modern Danish stories where Donald has to deal with old allies of Fantomius who assume he is a Robin Hood-style criminal as well. Including a woman who was in love with the old chap, and thinks Donald is him in a new mask...
- Also attempted by a crook who stumbled on Fantomius' refuge and some of his spare gadgets and went on a robbing spree as a new Fantomius. Paperinik quickly found and defeated him, confiscated the gadgets except for the costume, wiped his memory of Fantomius' secrets and left him to the police.
- Sonic The Hedgehog:
- The Echidna demigod Enerjak. First, there was Dimitri, who accidentally absorbed the power of multiple Chaos Emeralds and was driven power-mad by it. He was eventually Brought Down to Normal by Mammoth Mogul, but a few years later his descendant Knuckles was tricked into absorbing the Master Emerald's power and taking up the mantle, before the spell placed on him was broken and he was returned to normal. There was also an Alternate Universe version of Knuckles who willingly became Enerjak and proceeded to devastate the world. He was eventually Brought Down to Normal (in the same manner as Dimitri) by his daughter, who became the new Enerjak and broke tradition by using her powers for good (undoing the damage her father had wrought). Oh, and on top of all of this, Dr. Finitevus implied to Knuckles during their last encounter that Enerjak's legacy actually predates Dimitri (though considering who we're talking about, that statement is questionable at best). In a case of All There in the Manual, The Complete Sonic Comic Encyclopedia confirms two previous Enerjaks, both scientists, prior to Dimitri.
- Dr. Robotnik himself, as the original version of him was defeated and then replaced by a Robotnik from another universe.
- Jeff Terrell was the original Shaft from Rob Liefeld's Youngblood (Image Comics), but ended up being replaced by a government-appointed successor immediately after quitting the team. Jeff's former teammates take great pleasure in referring to the newbie as "Not-Shaft" in order to get under his skin.
- In the comic version of W.I.T.C.H., it's shown that there's always been Guardians - five in a team, wielding a certain element and all of them female. Even when Nerissa Face Heel Turned, they insisted on keeping it that way. The cartoon also implies this.
- A new pony takes on the mantle of Nightmare Moon in the second Story Arc of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (IDW). It's none other than Rarity after being convinced by the Nightmare Forces to become their queen.
- Transformers: More than Meets the Eye has Ultra Magnus, who in reality is just a succession of 'bots wearing Powered Armor designed to look like the original, deceased Ultra Magnus to function as an "eternal lawman" subservient to Chief Justice Tyrest and enforce his laws. The current, and possibly final, holder of the title is a small, unassuming robot named Minimus Ambus, who's been Ultra Magnus since the start of the IDW comics (with the original Magnus showing up in the early-war Autocracy and Monstrosity stories.
- There's also the Decepticon Justice Division, 5 of the most devout cons who hunt down and kill traitors, cowards and deserters. Each has taken on a name from the first five cities that the Decepticons conquered. The holders of these titles rotate, and a few Autobots mention the original Vos who was replaced with the current one.
- And a rare case of a legacy character moving the other way up a family tree. During a Darkwing Duck comic arc involving Darkwings from many alternate universes, one alternate Darkwing is dressed as the Quiverwing Quack, which Gosalyn previously used as a superhero identity in the TV show. A flashback scene shows that this Darkwing was much less strict with his daughter than the one we're used to, and allowed Gosalyn to fight crime with him as Quiverwing. On one mission, she pulled a Heroic Sacrifice and died (which must make our Darkwing feel quite vindicated about his strictness), so Darkwing took up the Quiverwing Quack identity to honor her memory. Somewhat fittingly, he ends up fighting Darkwarrior Duck, also from the TV show, who is what happens when Darkwing loses Gosalyn and takes it very badly (and he didn't even think his Gosalyn was dead, he just thought she ran away from home). It's a Curb-Stomp Battle with Quiverwing as the victor.
- The Fox Hunt's titular crimefighter known as The Fox, a.k.a. Paul Patton Jr., took up the costume and name from his father, Paul Patton Sr. Paul's son Shinji also adopts the moniker "Ghost Fox" during the course of the story.
- Outside this particular Fox's universe, "The Fox" has actually gone through 5 differing incarnations at varying points in time since its inception as a part of Archie Comics' superhero line back in the 1940's.
- Early Dark Horse Comics series The American uses this as part of their deconstruction of the Captain Patriotic archetype. The titular hero is revealed over the course of the story to be an entire squad of near-identical soldiers with powers courtesy of a covert demolitions team who get sent on high-profile, high-risk missions. Former propaganda sidekick Kid America maintains a shrine to everyone who's died in the line of duty. The program is shut down when the truth is revealed, but the current American is allowed to keep the costume.
- In Amulet, every ruler of the Elves takes on the visage of the Erlking, their first king.
- In The Pro, the League of Honor member the Lime mentions at one point that he's not the first Lime, but he's interrupted before he can explain what happened to his predecessor.
- Action Girl: Erica adopts the identity of the former superheroine, Action Girl.
- In PS238, the original Atlas was a pretty obvious Captain Ersatz Superman. After he leaves to rule his not-so-destroyed home planet the government replaces him with Forak, an Extreme Doormat of his species who was now stranded on Earth. Forak is less powerful and less "heroic" in personality, though.
- The titular Plutona tells her daughter that one day she will inherit the Plutona identity and powers herself.
- Lucas Barrett of The Pitiful Human Lizard is actually the second person to don the identity. The first one was his father, Hugh, who came up with it as a gimmick to test out his company's new glue formula.
- There have been several incarnations of The Shield. The main three are the original 1940s Joe Higgins, 1950s Lancelot Strong, and 2010s Victoria Adams.
- As a series with many characters spanning decades and the lack of Comic-Book Time, Astro City has many of these — Cleopatra, Jack-in-the-Box, The Blue Knights, Quarrel, Stray, The Flying Fox, the Silver Centurions, the Confessor, Starfighter, Starbright.
- A villainous example is Goldenglove; the first one was a small-time crook with a pair of alien gauntlets, while his daughter plans to use them to become a classy burglar. With help from Steeljack, she ends up learning to be a hero instead.
- Another villain example is Mr. Drama and the Drama Queen.
- It's suggested that the Assemblyman might be one, as there is both an earlier villain and a modern hero with the same name.
- Stray is implied to be this, the earlier one being a heroic wolfman, the later one being a wolfwoman who'd once been a villain, and still has a dark edge.
- In one of the more unusual examples of this trope, American Chibi gifts a pair of her mystic scrunchies to her creator, Marguerite Li.
- Another unusual one is Stormhawk and G-Dog; both are heroes formed by bonding a human and an animal, but the two have never directly met.
- Youngblood (2017):
- Petra Gomez is the new Vogue after Nikola Voganova stepped down to be the First Lady to Diehard.
- Dolante Murray is (reluctantly) the new Sentinel after Marcus Langston.
- Rachel Richards is the second Doc Rocket, though she's been around since the '90s, and inherited the title from her grandfather unlike Petra and Dolante.
- The Transformers/G.I. Joe continuity by Dreamwave had two Flints, with the Flint in the original miniseries being Nathaniel Faireborn and his successor in the ill-fated Divided Front Sequel Series (which didn't make it past the first issue as a result of Dreamwave's bankruptcy) being Dashiell Faireborn.
- The Last Owling follows the adventures of Owling, a young woman who is the granddaughter of a pair of Philadelphia-based vigilantes hunting the Cult of the Great Horned Owl.
- In the 2020s take on Harlem Heroes, the eponymous Aeroball team is lead by Gem Giant, grandchild of Judge Giant from Judge Dredd, and great-grandchild of the original team's John "Giant" Clay.
- In Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink, Nocturne has gone through so many Kid Sidekicks named Wonder Boy that they end up forming a support group.
