There Isn’t a Spider-Man or Robin Problem, There’s a Comic Problem

DC and Marvel’s comic books are no strangers to passing on the torch and legacy characters. Most of the most famous superheroes have had more than one person fill out the suit at some point. Sometimes, those legacy characters will even retain the identity when the original takes it back. Nowadays, we have three Spider-Men, two Captain Americas, three Flashes, and nearly half a dozen active or former Robins. However, with so many characters sharing one identity, some fans and creators say that this is a problem. The Robin Problem is the best example of this, which, in essence, is the idea that Batman has taken too many Robins under his wing and they age him too much while not justifying their existence.

There’s more to the Robin Problem than that, but simply put, it suggests that there are too many Robins and that the number needs to be trimmed. One of the stated purposes of the infamously terrible “H2SH” was to alleviate this problem in some way, which involved making Jason Todd a villain again and other storybeats we have yet to see. This is the same logic as Marvel testing the waters by renaming Miles Morales Spin in Radioactive Spider-Man. However, I stand by the fact that there isn’t a Robin Problem or a Spider-Man problem; there’s a problem with the comic book industry.

The Confusion Is Just Imagined

The most common defense behind the Robin Problem and similar issues is that having multiple characters with the same identity would be confusing. There’s not zero precedent for this, but this is a massively exaggerated problem. We’ve had multiples of famous characters for years, from C-listers like Blue Beetle to the Flashes, and instead of being confusing, it just makes it common to refer to characters by their real names. This might be a tad confusing for new fans, but it’s something people can very quickly get over.

The second most common complaint in this vein is that there being multiples of established characters takes away from the originals. How special is Spider-Man if there are two of him? This is, of course, another flawed argument, because multiple characters sharing these traits and abilities does not take away from the original, and far more often than not, they are tied into the mythos of the original in a way that elevates both characters. Sam and Steve each represent the ideals of Captain America perfectly, and neither is worth more than the other. The real issue here is not that these characters exist, but how they are being used by their respective companies.

Characters Need Time to Adjust

People do not like change. This is a simple fact, and every legacy character has been on the receiving end of scrutiny after first taking the role. The ones that lasted through it, however, are the ones where their stories were committed to pushing them. Fans did not like Wally West taking over for Barry Allen, but DC refused to step back and kept pushing Wally. Now, he’s one of DC’s most beloved characters. Unlike replacing a character, however, managing two different characters with the same identity can be difficult. It’s not always feasible to have two different characters with the same name headlining their own book, so that means it’s often up to one comic to focus on all of them.

These characters need time and focus on them to let the audience get to know them and see what they can offer, but often that does not happen. This puts the secondary characters in a nebulous zone, where they are respected far more in the mythos of comics than in reality, because fans have not been convinced to respect them. Add nostalgia for older versions of characters into the mix, and you get the perfect recipe for people disliking these new characters taking up legacies, and thus, claiming there’s a Robin Problem. This problem is imagined through a mix of nostalgia and dislike, which festers specifically because of a lack of effort to push these characters as equals.

Sometimes, all these characters who share identities need is a chance to show everyone that they each deserve to be heroes. What do you think? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!

10 Best Marvel Legacy Characters