So, it isn’t 20 years too late. It’s just the opposite. DC could use more of that kind of thinking, and in fact could have used Final Crisis to do just that. As it is, I hope there isn’t another Crisis for twenty more years.

Your examples don’t really apply, bc many of these changes didn’t put all of the characters together simultaneously, with the exception of GL. And since Green Lantern isn’t so much Hal’s province as it is a job title, its not the same thing.

My problem isn’t with the concept of heroes having legacies. I kind of like that. What I dislike is the fact that they are all operating at the same time with no real purpose.

Take the Flash. Jay Garrick serves his own purpose, and doesn’t exactly factor in here. Bart, however was killed less than a year ago so they could bring back Wally. Then Barry came back, making Wally superfluous. And Bart is there too. Now, aside from Jay and Wally, I cannot see a single reason for the characters to exist. They seem to be doing the same thing.

Thats the problem with Supergirl. I thought the introduction of her was really cool. But she kept getting shipped from writer to writer and none knew what to do with her. So she quickly became a lesser version of Powergirl. And then Superwoman came along. No idea why.

See, isn’t the idea of the characters existing. Its that DC keeps trotting them out to increase sales and then doesn’t know what to do with them.

What do you do with four Wonder Women?

And what is worse is the ones that are resurrected. Barry Allen really doesn’t need to be around. Neither does Bart or the other resurrection from Legion of 3 Worlds. And particularly with LoSH. As good a job as Mark Waid did, a LOT of it was ruined by the multiple Legions operating autonomously and interweavingly.

Anyway. I think some would benefit from just disappearing or retiring, such as Conner Hawk and Jason Todd. Others such as Speedy and Hawk and Dove, I would like to see murdered brutally.

Your article raises a good question, but it’s really 20 years too late. DC began this problem in the 1980s:

1. They introduced a second Robin, and a few years later decided to retcon him into a jerk. Pretty soon he was unpopular, and was killed off to make way for a 3rd Robin.

2. They killed off the Flash to “reinvent the concept” in 1985, but backed out and decided since Barry was dead to just give his suit to his nephew. Status quo maintained!

3. Around the time of Crisis (1984) Green Lantern’s scripter had problems coming up with stories and decided it’d be easier to replace GL (Hal Jordan) with his back-up (John Stewart), and basically redo the old Hal stories, just with a rookie. Pretty soon he burned out and left the book, leaving the next writer solve the problem by bringing MORE GLs to Earth, making it a team book.

All between 1984 and 1987, by the way. By 1995, they’d coined the term “Legacy” as a catch-all description of this ‘musical chairs of superhero personas’ phenomenon. There were new Supergirls, a new Superboy, yet another rookie Green Lantern, etc. It seemed DC replaced every marketable, longterm character they had by about 1996. And *most* of those replacements are still around, crowding battle scene shots in crossovers.

20 years later, we have a comics readership fairly numb to spandex-overload.

At this point, rather than rebooting, retconning or explaining away why there are so many superheroes with the same costumes and names, the solution is very simple:

Forget about all these variations on a theme. Let them find lives off-panel, and stop talking about them.

And if…if…you can ignore internet fandom, then the problem will be solved.