Legacy heroes get discussed a lot, but there's also plenty of legacy villains, attempts at replacing a dead or inactive villain with a new character or an established character taking on a new role. Which ones worked and which ones are better left forgotten?
Janice Lincoln is a way more interesting character than Abner Jenkins ever was as the Beetle. Probably one of the most successful legacy villains out there.
terrible taste OP
You homos clearly haven't read Superior Foes, OG Beetle is frickin lame.
Superior Foes is dogshit, homosexual.
I mean I do like janice still, but I kinda like the idea of abner's story though.
children shouldn't be allowed to post
Cinemaphile hates Superior Foes now because Nick Spencer did some shit or something
Probably because of the reddit-tier humor.
>legacy villains
What nonsense.
Literally who?
>Aber Jenkins had cool beetle suits later on
>Still looks great as Mach
frick the legacy
Probably helps that Abner was always portrayed as a loser
It seems like most of the time a legacy villain is created by accident when a writer or artist uses a random villain, often for just a group shot, while being completely unaware or maybe uncaring that the character had been killed off.
does jack-o-lantern count?
Of course there's like fifty thousand of them.
legacy villians could make sense because theyre supposed to die really
The Goblins are an interesting bunch. Bart Hamilton and Harry's stories are about Norman's shadow and the fact that they don't live up to him is part of the story.
Meanwhile Hobgoblin is all sorts of complicated. In a way Roderick has ended up stand out and strong as almost a foil to Norman, coming across as saner and more goal focused but also less ambitious and personal.
And then oddly enough he has the bigger number of legacy followers to contend with.
The only non-Norman Green Goblins anyone really cares about are Harry and Phil Urich, and in Harry's case because he'd been in the books for years before he became the Green Goblin.
A lot of Spider-Man fandom being people who started in the 1980s means the Hobgoblin mystery was pivotal to their early reading experience, he was their first big bad guy. He's basically Norman without everything that makes Norman such a compelling villain, but the fandom wants their Hobgoblin frozen in his early appearances from before the obvious teases that he was going to go as crazy as Norman, so that's what we get. Of all people, Slott tried to give him a new role that seems to have stuck.
Of the various other Hobgoblins, Jason Macendale is the only one anyone else cares about, from the late 80s to the mid 90s, and because of the cartoon, he was an entire generation's Hobgoblin, but Glen Greenberg hated him so much he told Stern to just kill him, it stuck, and a lot of Kingsley's fans still seethe about Jason, those guys wanting him to stay dead outnumber the ones that want him back.
Demogoblin is one of the best of the other Goblins, but was more interesting for his blood-feud with Macendale than when he was fighting Spider-Man. The most wasted potential of any Goblin was poor Gabriel, he deserved so much better.
Norman has a ridiculous amount of legacy Goblin wannabes and that's not even getting into the adjacent people (arguably the Jack O'Lanterns). I was gonna say Venom also spawned a ton of legacy villains, but they keep making them heroes or anti-villains/heroes, so it doesn't really count.
Anyone remember the Blackie Drago Vulture? Or the Clifton Shallot Vulture? Or the Vulturions? Or the edgy cannibal Jimmy Natale Vulture?
Wasn't he killed by the Punisher?
>Punisher's only actual supervillain kills that werent retconned were fricking Stiltman and a second rate vulture
Actually embarrassing.
He also killed Goldbug and Plunderer in Civil War.
Im gonna be real those dont exactly help his case.
True but like if even Shocker can frick him up I don't understand why supervillains act like he's a big deal when Deadpool is more likely to actually succeed at killing you in a comically gory and over the top painful fashion. Like nobody ever shits their pants at Deadpool.
The Punisher didn't even cross paths with actual costumed supervillains that often until Civil War. From there on we had years of him fighting supervillains and punching above his weight so a guy with guns could take on and beat superhumans that should be able to one-shot a human, no matter how well trained and well-armed he is.
But even just from civil war onwards it works as why supervillains don't want to fight the guy. Most heroes just beat you up and hand you over to the cops, and then there's that guy who'll just execute you in cold blood, and does that to guys like Stilt-Man who don't deserve that at all. On paper Deadpool's ability to survive just about anything may make him more dangerous, but he doesn't tend to routinely kill every supervillains he fights the way the Punisher tries to. You probably had to do something to Deadpool to get him trying to kill you, while Frank isn't going to let you walk away if he has any say in it.
Electro was probably the biggest offender of like guy Punisher shouldnt be matched up with. Like I get Max is a moron and he should be an avengers tier threat but misuses his powers/barely grasps them because he just wants to rob banks but like the power gap is insane. Max fries supers on a regular basis and theyre only kept alive by durability. There is no way in hell Frank would make it to a final stand against Electro without being extra crispy.
>Electro was probably the biggest offender of like guy Punisher shouldnt be matched up with.
The Wrecking Crew and Alyosha Kraven were right up there, too. Even Firebrand, a guy that's on the level of 70s Iron Man shouldn't be killed by a guy with an ordinary pistol.
Electro simply isn't trying to kill people most of the time, only under certain edgier writers.
The way Punisher killed the Mandarin required the villain to act like a moron and not move out of the way of a slow-moving projectile. I think he's still dead from that.
I think what's really funny is Stilt-Man wasn't even a supervillain at the time; he was working for the government.
The fear of being shot is stronger than actually being shot.
Most Spider-Man villains have at least one
>Green Goblin: too many to count
>Vulture: also too many to count
>Venom: so many symbiotes...
>Doctor Octopus: Lady Octopus
>Kraven: all of his kids and now his clone who is identical to him in every way
>Electro: Aftershock and the female Electro
>Mysterio: Mysterion
>Rhino: the second Rhino from the Gauntlet
>Scorpion: Scorpia
And he's not even the only edgy cannibal Vulture.
I like the ones that have their own identity but obviously paying homage to their predecessor.
Starling (among others) is a neat case where she has a right to the legacy since she's related to the original and the og supports it gives her and those like her a sense of legitimacy others lack.
>Abner vs Janice
But Abner only got his development after he dropped his whole beetle shtick and decided to become a superhero as MACH. Otherwise he was just the guy who was seething over Johnny Storm, FF4 and Spider-Man
No, anon. For a C-list villain he had got a surprising amount of depth from a few storys playing him as a blue collar supervillain who got started for the money and the thrills, but the money never lasts, the thrills wore off long ago but he's stuck in the game. It kind of set him up as the kind of guy the Thunderbolts treatment would work for, but his Beetle costume is just better.
I'll take people's word for it that the new Beetle is a rate modern Marvel character who's actually good, but there was no need for her costumed identity to be the Beetle, he should've stuck with that identity once the Thunderbolts' true identities were made public.
I read some old ass Spidey stories and F4 stories where he just seemed like a seething prick. What would you say are essential beetle reading Anon because I'm curious.
True, he's not got much development in the 60s. Check out some early 90s appearances like this issue and the Deadly Foes of Spider-Man mini.
There's no attempt to make him remotely sympathetic in them, but Spectacular Spider-Man #58-60 and Amazing Spider-Man #280-281 are worth reading as well, as Deadly Foes calls back to events in those stories.
Thanks Anon! I appreciate it!
I remember that while Pyro was dead, they introduced a new Pyro who started out as a villain but then joined the X-Men and was gay for Iceman. But then the original Pyro came back and everyone forgot the new one existed.
No Goblin beats Norman.
Hunter Zolomon is a better Reverse-Flash than Eobard "It was me, Barry" Thawne.
Zolomon is better character but Eobard is insanely entertaining to watch.