Comics’ Top 10 Replacement Heroes

With the appearance of a new Iron Man looming and a new Captain Marvel series beginning soon, ComicBook.com got to thinking: when has this ever worked?It’s not a snarky question, but a serious one. Nine times out of ten, the “replacement” hero is cast aside pretty quickly in a rush to return to the status quo–something mainstream superhero comics are remarkably good at. Sometimes, though, you get a new iteration of a classic character who redefines the role and really changes the game.Before we get into a list of our favorites, here are a few basic ground rules: no teams. So things like X-Force relaunching as X-Statix or the rebranding of X-Factor or the Len Wein X-Men from Giant Size X-Men #1 don’t count. It’s not that they aren’t remarkable events in and of themselves, but that they’re just taking over the name of the team. When somebody comes and plays first base for the Yankees, they don’t inherit the name “Don Mattingly.” They’re not even really replacing him, just filling a role.This is about somebody who stepped in and took over the role from a hero who was retired, dead or otherwise indisposed, and who was specifically setting out to fill that character’s shoes. So not only no teams, but no “The Question was basically Batman during 52 when Bruce was gone.” Also not considered are DC’s first spate of Silver Age characters named after Golden Age properties the company owned (Green Lantern, The Flash, etc.), or Marvel’s Silver Age reinvention of the Human Torch. Also nix on the Ultimate Universe, except in the case that a particular Ultimate Comics hero has died and been replaced. Just being an alternate-reality version of a dead guy, for instance, doesn’t make you a replacement.