Legacy Team

"I'll be damned...it's us."

— Armistice, Westworld

So you've got a team of heroes. Unique in their duty to save the world or defeat the Big Bad. Except...not really.

The Legacy Team is what happens when the current band of heroes displays several parallels with an older, often disbanded team. This may be because of similar abilities, similar relationships and dynamics, teams consisting entirely of Elemental Powers users, the fact that the older team has retired and thus new heroes are required to take up the mantle, often meaning they take on the name of the former team or it may just be because they look alike.

Sometimes a Legacy Team consists entirely of Legacy Characters. Oftentimes overlaps with Generation Xerox if one or more of the younger members are the children of the older team. See also The Psycho Rangers, for villainous teams who act as Evil Counterpart or Evil Knock Off for an entire heroic team. Sometimes overlaps with Passing the Torch.

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Examples

Anime & Manga

• Naruto:
  • The main team of Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura are often seen as parallels to Hiruzen Sarutobi's students, the Sannin: Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade respectively. The former three even go to train under the latter three in the Time Skip.
  • Naruto's Team 7 were also parallels to Kakashi's Team Minato, with Obito being Naruto's Evil Counterpart.
  • And again, the history repeats itself with Boruto when Boruto Uzumaki, Sarada Uchiha and Mitsuki parallels their parents' team in the past being the Power Trio of the new series.
• Yona of the Dawn: Yona herself is the reincarnation of the legendary king Kouka who made the Kouka kingdom in the antiquity with the help of the Four Dragons, loyal warriors with superpowers that also are human incarnations of dragons like Hiryuu. Yona eventually finds and recruits Kija, Jae-Ha and Shin-Ah, reincarnations of Gu-En, Shu-Ten and Abi, respectively. Averted with the fourth dragon Zeno, who has Immortality and is one of the original dragons that voluntarily joined Yona.

Comic Books

• Historically Justice League has their own versions of Legacy Teams in Teen Titans and Young Justice. Multiple alternate futures saw the members of these Legacy Teams eventually take their mentors' places on the Justice League or an equivalent. The Justice League itself is a Legacy Team to the original Justice Society of America.
• Infinity, Inc. was a more direct legacy team to the Justice Society of America. Later, the Justice Society itself became a mixture of older and younger superheroes, the former passing the torch little by little to their eventual legacy team.
• After Avengers Disassembled, the Young Avengers emerged. They invoked this trope by deliberately imitating the powersets and designs of the Avengers team. Two particular examples of this invocation were Asgardian (Billy Kaplan, a magic-user with no connections to the Thor mythos outside of an interest in Norse mythology) and Hulkling (Teddy Altman, who believed he was a shape-changing mutant with no connections to the Hulk at the time).
• Happened to the Freedom Fighters a lot. The team usually consists of Phantom Lady, Human Bomb, Firebrand, Black Condor, Uncle Sam, The Ray, Doll Man, and Doll Girl. With various people using the identities on the team. There have been at least 4 incarnations.

Fan Works

• Paradoxus: As Altalune rants in the fifth chapter, the Vergrdrassil sub-division was, in her opinion, a piss-poor attempt at invoking this with the daughters of the Winx; seeing that the girls have near identical magical affinities as their mothers. Most of them also fit in similar roles as their mothers —The Leader Bloom's eldest daughter Altalune is the commanding officer of the time-traveling team (although her other daughter is The Lancer, the role you'd expect Stella's kid to assume), both Tecna and her only daughter Zoe are the The Smart Girl, Gilliam shares The Heart attributes with her mother Flora, and Rosalie is as much the Tagalong Kid as her mother used to be. Contrary to Altalune's harsh judgment, they are not half bad at it, if only because they are divided into distinct three-woman units— tracking, intel-gathering, spying/stealth, and attack; which makes it a downplayed case.

Literature

• Harry Potter has Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville as somewhat reflecting the Marauders - Harry as James, the leader; Ron as Sirius, the joker; Hermione as Remus, the academic; and Neville as Peter, the coward.
• The Legend of Sun Knight: The Twelve Holy Knights regularly choose and train young men to eventually take their place, but each of them is forced to take on the characteristics of the original. Interestingly, this goes beyond appearance (every Storm Knight except the original had to dye their hair blue, every Sun Knight is an expert in skin care because the first was a natural Bishōnen), they have to copy the original personalities as well (in public, at least): the first Storm Knight was a womanizer while the current one winks at every woman he sees but is still a virgin; the Earth Knight and Sun Knight were best friends while the current ones dislike each other and take great joy in being a Moment Killer whenever the other is talking to a girl; the Judgement Knight and Sun Knight were ideological opposites while the current ones are best friends.

Live-Action TV

• The current generation of witches in Eastwick share the same powers and abilities as the older generation. Kat shares her Elemental Powers and Healing Hands with Eleanor, Joanne has Hypnotic Eyes and later Mind over Matter like the late Gloria and Roxie is a seer with Telepathy like Bonnie.
• In an episode of Friends where Monica and Ross' grandmother dies, the gang all look through old photos of the Gellar family. One of these includes a picture of Nana with her own friends at "Java Joe's" a coffeehouse. Rachel then notes that Monica looks just like Nana. The brief view of the photo shows six people. Nana's gang is clearly meant to be a parallel to the current gang.
• H₂O: Just Add Water:
  • The 1955 mermaids are portrayed as counterparts to the modern mermaids Cleo, Rikki and Emma. While it's never revealed who out of Gracie, Julia and Louise received the hydrokinesis, hydro-cryokinesis and hydro-thermokinesis it's made apparent that Gracie was the Cleo of her time, Julia the Rikki and Louise the Emma.
  • Gracie and Julia's love interests, Max and Karl, also appear to match up with Cleo and Rikki's love interests, Lewis and Zane.
• The Queer Eye revival, given that it is a revival, has an all new Fab Five taking the reins of the originals.
• Riverdale has the four main characters as just newer, younger version of their same-sex parents. Jughead becoming the leader of the Southside Serpents echoes his father FP, and Archie, the proverbial Nice Guy, is very similar to his own father Fred. Betty's less than stellar mental health and inclination towards journalism match those of her mother, Alice, and as a former Alpha Bitch Veronica parallels her own mother, Hermione.
• The Chance Harbor Circle from The Secret Circle has been formed three times from members of different generations of the Blake, Chamberlain, Glaser, Conant, Armstrong and Meade families.
  • The first circle consisted of Henry Chamberlain, Jane Blake, Royce Armstrong, James Conant, Kate Meade and Melissa Glaser's grandmother.
  • The second circle consisted of Amelia Blake, Elizabeth and Charles Meade, Dawn and Thomas Chamberlain, Catherine and Ethan Conant, Sara and Richard Armstrong, Patrick and Sophie Ann Glaser and John Blackwell.
  • The third and current circle consists of Cassie Blake, Diana Meade, Faye Chamberlain, Adam Conant, Melissa Glaser and Jake Armstrong (who replaced his brother Nick).
• The Four Hands from Under the Dome, Joe, Norrie, Junior and Angie, discover that there were actually a group of Hands before themselves, Sam, Pauline, Lyle and Melanie.

Professional Wrestling

• The apt-named Power Stable The Legacy is composed of several third and second-generation wrestlers: Randy Orton (son of Bob Orton), Ted DiBiase Jr. (son of Ted DiBiase), Cody Rhodes (son of Dusty Rhodes).

Video Games

• Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War is rather well known for this trope. About halfway through the game, the player's army ends up getting Killed Off for Real, leading to a Time Skip, upon which the sons and daughters of the original team will rise up to finish the job the first generation started.
• Final Fantasy V has the Warriors of Dawn, who fought the Big Bad and sealed him away. When the seal breaks, the Warriors of Light, two of whom are direct descendants of the former, have to put him down for good.
• This can be invoked by the player in Final Fantasy IV: The After Years - the player, at the end, can assemble a cast of five from more or less every character in the game. Ergo, it's entirely possible to assemble one of these, made up of either the previous game characters' children (Ceodore, Ursula), proteges (Luca, Leonora), or even two characters who were young during the original game.

Western Animation

• The Legend of Korra:
  • The Team Avatar is shown to be a parallel to the original team of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Led by the Avatar (Korra and Aang), each team has a fun-loving Earthbender (Bolin and Toph), a moody, angsty Firebender (Mako and Zuko), and a non-bender Badass Normal (Asami and Sokka). As a native Waterbender and proficient healer, Korra also fills the role Katara filled.
  • Alternatively, the second generation Team Avatar could been viewed as: The Avatar (Korra and Aang), the comic relief (Bolin and Sokka), the sibling duo (Bolin/Mako and Sokka/Katara) and the rich girl (Asami and Toph)
• OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes:
  • The Hue Troop are an Amazon Brigade with a Rainbow Motif consisting of Blue Power, Yellow Technique, Green Guts, Black Strategy and formerly Red Action. They derive their power from the Prysma Crystal which has been passed down from generation to generation until the current team.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated had Scooby and the gang find that they've unknowingly been following in the footsteps of the original Mystery Inc, which also consisted of two guys, two girls, and an animal. The Reveal is that they're trapped in an Eternal Recurrence, and every so often a team of four detectives and their Team Pet seeks the pieces of their Artifact of Doom out, with the animal always being the first to be corrupted by the promise of power and riches beyond their wildest dreams.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power:
  • The current Princess Alliance is formed from the daughters of the original Princess Alliance.
• Voltron: Legendary Defender
  • The Paladins (Shiro, Keith, Pidge, Lance and Hunk) are the second generation to pilot the Lions. The first generation were Zarkon, Alfor, Trigel, Blaytz, and Gyrgan - the Black, Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow Paladins, respectively.
  • Come season three the team makeup has changed slightly with Shiro's disappearance. Keith became the Black Paladin, Lance assumed control of the Red Lion and Allura took Lance's place in the Blue Lion. Once Shiro returns he resumes the position of Black Paladin and Keith leaves the team for the Blade of Marmora.
• W.I.T.C.H.:
  • Season one establishes from the first episode that the current Guardians (Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay Lin) are not the first to wield the mantle of Guardians. Yan Lin, Hay Lin's grandmother, who introduces them to their destiny was the former Air Guardian.
  • Season two introduces the former Keeper of the Heart, Yan Lin's team mate, Nerissa as the season Big Bad, Will's Evil Counterpart. The former team are resurrected by Nerissa, both figuratively and literally and the parallels between CHYKN and WITCH are made clearer: Will and Nerissa as strong leaders, Cassidy and Irma as fun-loving jokers, Taranee and Halinor as the Pragmatists of their teams, Cornelia and Kadma as very proud, somewhat narcissists and Hay Lin and Yan Lin as sage yet playful.
  • The show also implies that there have been many more teams preceding even WITCH and CHYKN.

Real Life

• Any sports team is eventually wholly replaced by new members.
• Many US Navy ships and Coast Guard cutters are named after older decommissioned ships, usually ones with a particularly distinguished history.

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