Marvel comics has been dealing with declining sales recently, and it seems that they have a new plan to correct their course. In the fall of 2017 Marvel will launch the new Marvel Legacy revival. The Marvel Legacy will revive their most popular and classic heroes to their former greatness. Some books will also return to their original numberings. This means comic book fans won’t be forced to deal with new #1’s every time Marvel wants to draw more attention to one of its books.
You have to draw a connection to the somewhat recent DC comics Rebirth reboot that did pretty much the same thing. Perhaps Marvel is taking a lesson from their biggest competition. Previews art for this new project has shown the classic Marvel heroes in their best known forms. This is despite the current status quo.
In recent years, many storylines have replaced these landmark characters with new incarnations; Thor became Jane Foster, Wolverine became Laura Kinney(X-23), Ms. Marvel became Kamala Khan, Iron Man became Riri Williams, Captain America became Sam Wilson, and Spider-Man became Miles Morales. In some ways, these new characters have existed alongside their former incarnations. Marvel has remained focused on keeping these new heroes in the forefront.
Will Marvel Legacy erase that? The biggest question is, with all this focus on legacy characters, what will happen to all these new diverse versions of our favorite heroes? The preview and promotional art for Legacy seems to imply that they won’t be tossing all these new heroes aside but it seems clear where the true focus will rest.
It’s intriguing to wonder how exactly they will pull off returning all these classic heroes to their old status quo. Bruce Banner is dead, Tony Stark lays in a coma, Thor Odinson has been deemed unworthy of wielding his hammer, and Steve Rogers is the leader of the evil organization known as Hydra. I know it is comic books. This is still a challenging premise. How will Marvel bring all these people back in a way that will make sense to readers?
We’ll have to wait until this Fall to find out how Marvel Legacy will play out.
How do you think Marvel will restore all the original heroes to greatness in Marvel Legacy?
[display-posts posts_per_page=”5″ orderby=”title”]
