New Champions Highlights Marvel’s Huge Problem With Legacy Characters

[[{“value”:”

Once the name of a random team that was largely forgotten, the Champions group in Marvel Comics is now more associated with young heroes. This is the case in the recently launched New Champions comic book, which features protégés of various Marvel heroes. Unfortunately, this is all part of a disappointing trend that many fans have taken issue with regarding how the publisher handles the concept of legacy.

The New Champions are the latest in a line of largely overlooked and eventually forgotten teen superhero teams by Marvel, and their chances of bucking this trend are incredibly slim. Likewise, they also represent another trope that’s been constantly overused by both Marvel and DC, and it has yet to truly work. Add in how these characters are being implemented, and it showcases just how ill-fitting sidekicks are in Marvel Comics.

Marvel Already Has Unused Young Superhero Teams

The biggest problem with the New Champions heroes is that the previous Champions team is now not being used, especially since that group had its own problems. Marvel’s modern Champions include Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel, Miles Morales/Spider-Man, Riri Williams/Ironheart and other young characters, but therein was an issue.

Miles is still seen as a sort of hanger-on who mostly benefits from being one of many Spider-Man variants, while Kamala was an initially popular character who was pushed too far, too soon, and has since fallen quite a bit from the success of her initial comics. The other group of Champions was somewhat controversial, especially Ironheart, so the team proved less impactful than Marvel likely wanted. If these characters who had already been established with ties to major heroes failed to make a big splash as a team, it’s hard to see these newcomers doing much better.

A similar group is the Young Avengers, who were entirely new characters based on existing Marvel mantles. Despite the success of their first few volumes of comics, the Young Avengers team is irrelevant as a whole and even individually in today’s Marvel Universe. The team is noted somewhat for its diversity, but this did little to give many of the characters much in the way of staying power.

Similar teams in these circumstances include the New Warriors and arguably the Runaways, none of whom are major players compared to Marvel’s older heroes. At the same time, they do have their fans, and it would make more sense to give these established properties another try than to gamble with the New Champions. Many even see this immediately giving the New Champions a proverbial expiration, especially given how the other teams fizzled out so quickly. Worst of all, they showcase tropes that absolutely have not worked in comics.

Why the New Champions Are Conceptually Problematic

The New Champions might be entirely new characters, but they’re supposedly tied to major Marvel heroes and their legacies. This includes characters such as Cadet Marvel and Moon Squire, who are essentially proteges of Captain Marvel and the violent Moon Knight. The explanation is that these are characters who, through certain means, were forgotten by time and are now back.

For instance, The Sentry was portrayed similarly, with the character being Marvel’s equivalent to Alan Moore’s Miracleman reboot. More recently, Marvel also used it again for the controversial character Spider-Boy, whose disappearance is tied to the New Champions. Even DC isn’t immune to this concept, with the Lost Children/Young Justice Society having the exact same origin, albeit tied to the Golden Age of Comics.

The Sentry is hardly ever used anymore, and even when he was introduced, many had issues with his awkward implementation into the history of the Marvel Universe. As noted, Spider-Boy caused consternation among fans, especially given Marvel’s handling of the mainstream Spider-Man comic books. Likewise, DC has already forgotten the Young Justice Society, with the current Justice Society of America comic book not mentioning or featuring them.

Much of this has to do with how bad this trope is, as it forces the universe to make way for inorganic concepts and characters. Much like the Young Justice Society, the New Champions represent this on a massive scale, and given the precedent set by their forebears, many fans expect them to fail. Unfortunately, being forced into the role of veritable continuity lipomas isn’t the only issue with these new characters.

Many of the New Champions don’t make sense given the heroes they’re supposedly sidekicks for, especially in the case of Moon Squire. Moon Knight/Marc Spector, despite being seen as the Marvel version of Batman, is not the kind of character to have a partner in this regard. The same goes for his patron god, Khonshu, who despises seeing others misusing his name without permission.

There’s also the question of how and where some of them will fit into canon, and this once again brings into question just how forced they are. This will only exacerbate them being mostly forgotten or ignored in the future, as some writers and even fans will not want to change their books’ plans to accommodate characters they never envisioned. In a way, the new superhero team was made to fail on a conceptual level, especially given the superhero universe they reside in.

The Marvel Universe Is the Worst Fit for Sidekicks

A major issue that Marvel Comics has had in the past decade or so is trying to introduce legacy characters and sidekicks, namely when they are put in a position to replace or supersede their predecessors. This makes them feel “forced,” and as in the case of Kamala Khan, pushing them too hard right out of the gate can backfire and undo any initial popularity they may get.

In the DC Universe, sidekicks such as Robin and Speedy have been present since the Golden Age of Comics, and in the Silver Age, they were joined by Aqualad, Wonder Girl and Kid Flash. This made the Teen Titans team such an obvious idea, but the group’s ability to represent legacy while also evolving beyond its original status as “Justice Little League” with characters such as Cyborg, Starfire and Raven made all the difference in terms of the longevity of the Titans.

On the other hand, the main sidekick that Marvel Comics was historically known for is Captain America’s original partner, Bucky Barnes. He famously died a tragic death (as revealed in the Silver Age) before it was shown that he survived as the Winter Soldier. It doesn’t help that the Marvel Cinematic Universe popularized Bucky while doing away with the idea of his being a child, with Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier being a contemporary of Steve Rogers, who’s actually older.

Sidekicks have never been part of the Marvel Comics DNA, with Spider-Man starting out as a solo teenage hero being revolutionary at the time because of it. Stan Lee actually hated the idea of kid sidekicks. He made Spider-Man go against that grain, with Peter Parker’s life in the Spider-Man comic books being a lot different and far more relatable than Robin was shown as going through in the 1960s.

It’s only in the 2000s and onward that Marvel has tried to really hone in on the idea of kid sidekicks, and the fact that they’ve largely flopped is a testament to how much they don’t work for the publisher’s shared universe. When the face of the company drew a line in the sand that kid sidekicks were a no-go in the more grounded Marvel Universe, going in the opposite direction would always fall flat. This may be the case for the New Champions, who wouldn’t even be the first Marvel team of this nature to miss the mark.

New Champions #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.

“}]] Marvel Comics is introducing a new set of Champions, but the youthful superheroes follow trends that have yet to succeed with comic book fans.  Read More