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Okay -- this month I'm not listing any stories. Instead I'm focusing on the best legacy heroes from the big two. A lot of their heroes take on the mantle of another hero or have a familial connection to one. There are a half dozen Flashes and Spider-Women and there have been a zillion and a half Green Lanterns and Novas. There is a legacy of Captain Marvels at both companies.
Let's start with DC where the choices are tougher.
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Batgirl IV/Robin IV (Stephanie Brown): What makes Stephanie Brown such a great character is that she didn't start out the perfect hero that all the other Robins and Batgirls have been. She made a lot of mistakes. She bordered on comic relief at times and even when she was in that pregnant teen plot she was never completely overtaken by angst. She proved that in the dark and twisted world of Gotham City there was still a chance for an old school gee-whiz super hero.
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Damage: Damage was an interesting character because he was a mystery. All he knew was he could explode and that his powers came from a combination of the powers of his parents. He soon learned he came from a lab and that the people who raised him weren't his parents. He was a desperate young man looking for answers. All teenagers go through a stage where they want to know where they came from. Damage doesn't just want to know- he needs to before his power destroys another city. Did I say another city? Yes, I did. Eventually he learned his origins were more bizarre than he could possibly have imagined. He was cluster#() of super hero legacies being brought together through an extensive amount of genetic engineering. His 'parents' were basically everyone from Al Pratt (the original Atom) and his wife with chunks of DNA from everyone from Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, half of the JLA and JSA plus quite a few super villains.
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Hourman 3: Tyler was a sentient machine colony from the 583rd century who was supposed to be the guardian of a road map to time and space. He was one of the most powerful beings in the universe. He didn't want to be. Instead- he wanted to learn about heroics, humanity and spend most of the time that he wasn't wandering the timestream in a coffee house with Snapper Carr. While there were quite a few things about humanity that he didn't quite understand- he grew to appreciate them and even display most of those qualities. There were a lot of things about super heroics he didn't get either. You should see what happened when he tried to take a secret identity.
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Supergirl (Matrix/Linda Lee Danvers): This version of Supergirl was heir to a legacy that thanks to Crisis on Infinite Earths never existed. However, Supergirl has always been trying to live up to being Superman. Well- until Peter David took the book in a direction all its own. It was about Linda discovering a way to honor what Superman does and believes in while finding her own path. It isn't a easy road for her. Along the way she faced monstrous threats, a daemonic ex-boyfriend, Millennium Giants and befriended a little boy who might have been God and met the aforementioned girl who never was. She and her adventures walk a fine line between comedy and horror while finding out the two ideas really aren't that different. As much as the reader might not be happy about it- her quest to reach her goal ended quite tragically.
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G'nort: Somehow, someway that even I can not explain someone as capable and intelligent as G'nort has become part of two legacies: the Green Lantern Corps and the Darkstars. I say this is hard to explain because G'nort is neither capable nor intelligent. He can barely read. At least one writer has portrayed him peeing on fire hydrants. He used the basic functions of his Green Lantern ring well enough most of the time. Just don't ask him to recite the oath because he never seems to say it the same way twice. (In darkest day, in brightest night... wait that's not it.) He's loyal to a fault. He's like a wet dog kicked out in the rain. Which I'm pretty sure Guy Gardener has probably done.
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Starman (Jack Knight): The Jack Knight Starman was every inch the legacy hero. Members of his family- or extended family- had included at least two members of the Starman legacy (his father was the original, his brother was Starman for all of five minutes) and Phantom Lady legacy. What made Jack different- and more interesting- is that he didn't really want it. As much as he respected the history of it, he really just wanted to run his antique store and live an ordinary life. Only Opal City needed a defender and he was basically the only one who could. The series wove a great story of acceptance, history and ultimately of happiness. Jack grew into the role, discovered the things about himself and his family then found a way to forgive himself for some of his failures. He even managed to turn one of his long time foes into a friend. Well almost... but not quite.
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Brainiac Five: Not all legacies are good ones. Brainiac Five is related to Superman's foe Brainiac and the super mercenary Vril Dox the second. I wouldn't count Vril as a hero by any definition of the word. Querl Dox doesn't try to live up to his legacy, he tries to surpass it. He doesn't carry the name because he wants to live up to it. He carries it to remind himself what he could be capable of if he doesn't watch himself. People tend to think of him as a heartless machine. He's not. In some version of Legion continuity he's in an almost perpetual state of annoyance which is as far from machine like as possible. You get the feeling that even in that state, there is a part of him that enjoys it.
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Manhunter (Kate Spencer): Is another odd cluster of super hero legacies. First and foremost, she's just one of many heroes to take on the name Manhunter. Her staff even belongs to one of them- Mark Shaw. Her grandparents are Iron Monroe and Phantom Lady. (Making her a distant cousin of Jack Knight.) Her costume belongs to a former Darkstar. Her gauntlets may have belonged to Azrael- tying her not only to Azrael's legacy but indirectly to Batman. What really makes her a great character is that she really tries to balance a promising career as a lawyer, time with her kid and during the first part of her own series a crumbling relationship with her ex-husband. She's a character who is both angry, bitter and sometimes violent without being completely unsympathetic.
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Flash (Wally West): What made Wally West such a great legacy hero is change. He started out as Barry Allen's sidekick. He was immature, whiny, apathetic, womanizing and kind of a jerk. Slowly but surely he grew up while maintaining a rather well defined personality. Which is something Barry Allen didn't get until he came back from the dead. In Wally's early adventures he failed a lot and most of that was because he spent so much time trying to be Barry. Once he started trying to be himself, being The Flash became a natural thing. He took the legacy and made it his own. That was the best way he could have honored Barry who had basically done the same thing when he took the mantle from Jay Garrick.
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Blue Beetle (Ted Kord): DC/Charleton had two previous Blue Beetles both named Dan Garret. Ted was a techno genius in the same range as Steel or Oracle. His final mission proved he was a detective in the same class as Batman. He was a member of the greatest super team on the planet, The Justice League of America and he was-okay, was about 30-40 pounds overweight. Not only that, but as I said he was one of the smartest minds on the planet but he could be remarkably immature. He could be a jerk. He could be really funny. It was these contradictory traits that made him so interesting to read about. You never knew if he was going to save the world or accidentally sink five city blocks underwater. Which he never actually did-- but it wouldn't be too out of place for him.
And for Marvel
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Frog-Man: Once upon a time Spider-Man had a villain called Leap Frog. He was basically a guy who built a super jumping suit, put on a giant frog head and robbed banks. His son found out and was disgusted. With his father in jail, he decided to use his father's suit to fight crime. Only he wasn't very good at it. Still, he managed to team up with Spider-Man on a few times and stop villains like The White Rabbit. Oh sure, Frog Man usually only caused more problems than he solved but that's what made him interesting. He knew he was a nuisance and a klutz. Somehow he found it in him to keeping trying long after any rational person would have given up. Which is a form of heroism-- I guess...
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Vindicator (Heather Hudson): Guardian, Canada's greatest hero, died and almost no one cared. Alpha Flight, while dealing with some in fighting, kept on ticking. Guardian's wife wanted that to stop. So she had Beta Flight's Madison Jefferies build a new suit, upgrade it so that kind of surge that killed Guardian could never happen again and she took on the role of Canada's greatest protector. Imagine the ultimate den mother with the power of force field and energy blasts. Only she wasn't quite your typical schoolmarm. She promoted Jefferies into Alpha Flight. Until Guardian's inevitable resurrection took him as lover and actually became something Alpha Flight never really had; an effective leader. That's right- for a brief period of time Alpha Flight was being published and people actually cared.
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Spider-Man (Miguel O'Hara): Most of the 2099 characters merely took the concept of some classic Marvel character and transplanted them into the future. While there are some similarities in their origins and reluctance to be a super hero that is pretty much where the similarities stop. Remember when Peter helped Harry Osborn- a guy who at the time kind of hated him- with his drug problem? Miguel left his brother alone with a VR addiction for years. He's caught in a web of lies and sees himself as one of the few truly good people in the dystopian world. Good but not too good- because he's knows he's done some terrible things in the name of the greater good. He knew Alchemax (the company he worked for) was doing some horrible things but didn't say anything. Once his boss spiked him with a drug that was addictive on the genetic level, Miguel used his experimental process to duplicate Spider-Man's powers on himself to cure the addiction. Then all those wrongs became something he intended to right because he might have the power to fix them. He's come to think that might give him a degree of responsibility.
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Phoenix II/ Marvel Girl III (Rachel Summers): Aside from tricking Jason Bourgeois into reading my column- why did I put Rachel Summers on this list? Because in spite of her parentage as the daughter of Jean Grey and Scott Summers- she somehow became an interesting character. Every good character requires a conflict and Rachel's isn't the usual one you'd find from a nearly omnipotent character. She's torn between wanting to find a life in the present and preventing terrors that might not even have happened. She's been shown having a sense of humor- something neither of her parents really does, yet she's haunted by a past in the future. She's also expanded beyond just another Summers by having a larger impact on the lives of people outside the Summers family. (I speak of her former teammates in Excalibur- most notably Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler.)
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She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters): The odd thing about She-Hulk is that she literally started out of a clone of her cousin with breasts. Eventually- she became smart and powerful only to be copied by her cousin. What makes She-Hulk such a great character is her various incarnations- from fourth wall breaking adventurer, to absurdist lawyer to the hard hitting bounty hunter, is that for the most part she really seems to enjoy herself when she's doing super hero stuff. Sure- she enjoys the Avengers stipend and the fame that goes along with being a hero but she's in it for the love of the game. That almost immediately distinguishes her from her cousin who in constantly trying to rid himself of being The Hulk. In fact- in a twist of irony- She-Hulk has tried to rid herself of her human form on at least one occasion.
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Captain Marvel (Genis Vell): Captain Marvel didn't die in battle. He died a long agonizing death as the result of cancer from some nerve gas he was exposed to. Since that time there have been quite a few heroes to take the name. What separates Genis from the others is that 1) he has a distinct blood relationship- through genetic engineering and cloning. 2) Like his father before him, he became bonded to Rick Jones on the molecular level. Unlike Captain Marvel who got along with Jones swimmingly- Genis and Rick had issues with each other. Rick saw Genis as a constant interference on his life. Genis thought Rick was ungrateful because without the bonding process Rick would have died. The bickering- plus Genis's own misunderstandings about humanity- were quite a trip.
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Justice: Vance Astrovik is in a weird place. He's a legacy hero who is trying to live up to the legacy of not only his mentor- Captain America but also that of Major Victory. A hero who exists only in an alternate future 1000 years hence. The other really weird thing is Major Victory is none other than Vance Astrovik. He's trying to live up to his own legacy and yet somehow no matter what he does he keeps feeling like he failed. Even after he led a resistance cell to help take down Norman Osborn and H.A.M.M.E.R. he didn't feel like he had done enough. Granted, so of that might be trying to make up for accidentally killing his abusive father but that's a whole other can of worms.
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Tattletale/Franklin Richards: Franklin Richards parents are Reed Richards and Sue Storm-Richards. His uncle is Johnny Storm and his godfather is Ben Grimm. He grew up with super heroes all his life. So when he met (and later joined) Power Pack it didn't seem strange to him at all. He didn't become a super hero because he believed that with great power comes great responsibility or because something terrible happened to a loved one. No, he became a super hero because just about everyone knew had powers of some sort. The idea that people might be anything other than a super hero struck him as kind of funny. Not that he didn't understand some people didn't have powers. (Alicia Masters and Jarvis for instances.) For awhile he thought super powers were the norm. For the most part he thought that if he could do something to help people, he would. He didn't feel obligated to do it. He just wanted to. I just find that so refreshing. I wish more people were like that.
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Vision: The Vision is a wacky collision course of heroic legacies. First and foremost due to time warps and ripples he's walking around in the body of an alternate universe body of the original human torch. His body was altered by Ultron. With the way Vision judges robotic families this sort of makes him the grandson of Ant-Man. On top of this at various points in his life span he's had the brain patterns of Simon Williams- making him part of the Wonder Man legacy. The real icing on the cake: he has the same name as a mostly forgotten 1940s Timely Comics character who had similarly shaped head. In spite of all these legacies- Vision has always found a way to be himself even when he didn't know what that meant- which put him above many of the others of this ilk.
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Human Torch (Johnny Storm): Most people don't think of Johnny Storm as a legacy hero- but he is. Most people don't consider this the case because he's become much more popular than the original Human Torch. Johnny only took over the name, it was later revealed as a child he was a fan of the heroes comics. Unlike most legacy heroes there was no direct connection. He was just trying to use his powers just the way his childhood idol would have. While he is a founding member of the Fantastic Four through and through- he's also the holder of a mantle. When he inevitably met his hero- the android eventually came to see this as an honor.
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