Legacy vs. “Original” Black Characters: We Can Win With Both

One of the great divides in Blerd-dom is the debate over whether representation advances through legacy heroes or through new, original Black characters. It’s been a conversation for as long as I’ve been on social media (which I consider impressive given that I’m old enough to remember life before social media). With Black stories having become more prominently marketable than they’ve been in years, the discourse over diverse stories cementing their foothold in popular culture has naturally made the rounds again. On one hand, we have the legacy characters (usually superheroes) that are handed the mantle of an established, usually more popular hero. They’re usually diverse and progressive in some way the OG isn’t and often fills a void left by their predecessor. For example, for all his everyman, working class charisma, Peter Parker is still a white guy from Queens making a decent living in the tech industry. Meanwhile, his younger protégé, Miles Morales is a half Black/half Latin kid from Harlem who speaks three languages and is a STEM prodigy. Also bitten by a radioactive spider, Miles ends up taking the mantle out of a sense of responsibility to the city after witnessing his Peter being killed in action (before a retcon/reboot). Although he isn’t quite the marquee character the Black Panther has quickly become in the past few years, Miles has turned out to be something of a poster child for well received representation in comics since his creation in 2011. However, sometime…