Affirmative Action Legacy / Marvel Universe

Marvel Universe

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Comic Books

Comic Books

• Agents of Atlas: The first two people to use the 3-D Man identity were two white brothers in the 1950s. The identity is currently used by Delroy Garrett, a black member of the Agents of Atlas and a former member of The Avengers.
• Alpha Flight: Puck was revealed to be the father of Zuzha Yu, a half-Chinese daughter who took up her dad's identity. Zuzha was eventually killed off in the pages of New Avengers, and the original Puck has since returned to using the name.
• Ant-Man:
  • The character Bill Foster initially fought crime under the name Black Goliath, before eventually changing his Code Name to simply Goliath, and later, Giant-Man. Goliath and Giant-Man are two identities originated by Hank Pym.
  • Incidentally, Dr. Pym is a bit of a walking backstory generator. He built the first Ultron (who self-iterated into the current Ultron, and then built several other less notable villains) and gave Wasp her powers. In addition: his Ant-Man persona has three legacy heroes (all white males, though one had a daughter who became his (differently named) successor). Pym then went around as Giant-Man (see above for the only other Giant-Man) before rebranding himself Goliath (which spawned 4 legacies: Hawkeye, Black Goliath, a (white, male) villain now called Atlus, and Black Goliath's (black) nephew. Then he had a mental breakdown(/Face–Heel Turn) and became Yellowjacket. The Yellowjacket persona spawned a black/Hispanic female legacy character. Of final note, he briefly took up his ex-wife's mantle, making him also an inversion of this trope.
  • After Pym merged with Ultron, Scott Lang gave the Giant-Man suit to a gay Indian-American man named Raz Malhotra.
• The Avengers:
  • Inverted Trope regarding the Ronin identity. Originally held by Maya Lopez, a deaf Hispanic woman, then passed on to the white male (but also usually deaf) Clint Barton.
    • It's since been established that the original Ronin was a Japanese man in the 1940s. The most recent Ronin was another white guy named Alexei Shostakov (who used to be the Red Guardian, a villainous Soviet version of Captain America).
    • Played straight with the newest Ronin, who thanks to spoilers from Marvel, was revealed to be Blade. He was even given Barton's old costume by Luke Cage and Jessica Jones.
  • There have been numerous hosts for Captain Universe, with the one who joined the Marvel NOW! Avengers roster being a black woman.
• Black Panther: The original Black Panther (African male) was replaced briefly by his younger sister Shuri.
  • Prior to that, he was briefly replaced by Kasper Cole, a young man of mixed African-American and Jewish heritage. Cole later became one of several people to use the White Tiger name.
• Captain America:
  • In Truth: Red, White & Black Marvel retroactively declared that there was a black Captain America, Isaiah Bradley, who, in a situation inspired by the unethical Tuskegee Experiments, was unwittingly dosed with a flawed recreation of the Super-Soldier serum used on Steve Rogers, the original, white Captain America. Bradley would eventually escape his captors with a Captain America Shield and costume, and, realizing his body and mind were breaking down from the flawed mixture, go on one final mission to destroy Germany's Super-Soldier program. Isaiah has his own modern-day legacy: his grandson Eli Bradley operates as Patriot.
  • Patriot is also a legacy name. The first Patriot Jeffrey Mace (white male) also substituted for the original Cap. Also retroactively. Around the time of Secret Empire, another new Patriot named Rayshaun Lucas was introduced, and, like Eli, he's a black teenager.
  • In an Alternate Universe seen in Avengers: The Children's Crusade, Eli has become the new Captain America. Meanwhile, The Falcon has been succeeded by his daughter Samantha, the new Bucky is an African American child named Steve (he's the son of Eli and Samantha), the new Captain Marvel is the openly-gay Teddy Altman (Hulkling, who is also half-Kree/half-Skrull, making him a rare example even outside human parameters), and the new Doctor Strange is Billy Kaplan (Wiccan), who is gay as well (incidentally, Billy and Teddy are dating). Furthermore, Billy is Scarlet Witch's son so somewhat following her footsteps while Teddy is the son of the original Mar-Vell and a Skrull Princess.
  • Kiyoshi Morales is Commander A, the Captain America of the 25th century. He's of mixed African American, Japanese, Latino, and Native American ancestry, meant as a nod to the theory that most races will blend together in the future. He's also implied to be a descendant of Luke Cage. Given the name, he may be descended from Miles Morales as well.
  • During the Avengers NOW! initiative, Steve is replaced as Captain America by his former partner Sam Wilson. Wilson carries the mantle for several years (and even becomes the leader of the All-New, All-Different Avengers) before returning to his original Falcon identity after Secret Empire.
    • Interestingly, Sam would later receive his own legacy replacement in the form of Joaquin Torres, a Mexican-American teenager who became the new Falcon during the period when Sam was Captain America. Once Sam went back to using the Falcon name, Joaquin was understandably a little annoyed, but the two currently share the title (similar to Clint Barton and Kate Bishop or Peter Parker and Miles Morales).
  • In the Ultron Forever crossover, one of the temporally-displaced Avengers is Danielle Cage, the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. She serves as her timeline's version of Captain America, using an anti-gravity version of the iconic shield (based off the short-lived magnetic feature the shield had in the 60s Avengers comics).
    • Another alternate-universe-future Danielle shows up in U.S.Avengers. This one mentions that she's fought alongside several of her alternate selves, all of whom became Cap. Though in her timeline, Steve was Cap back in the Revolutionary War.
    • Near the end of Dead Man Logan (a series set in the post-apocalyptic dystopia of Old Man Logan), that universe's version of Danielle becomes the new Thor after managing to lift the deceased Thor's hammer. The follow-up series Avengers of the Wastelands sees Danielle form a new team of Avengers, one of whom is a black teenager named Dwight, who serves as the new Ant-Man.
  • Bucky himself, who filled in for Cap for a while, is a disabled man, even if the prosthetic is good enough to let everyone forget it.
    • Rikki Barnes took on Steve Rogers' briefly used alias Nomad.
    • She was also initially a female version of Bucky, Cap's sidekick from the 40s.
    • Lemar Hoskins also briefly used the Bucky identity before someone pointed out that "Buck" used to be a derogatory term for black men. He quickly changed his name to Battlestar and adopted a new costume.
• Captain Marvel:
  • Playing with the trope: Carol Danvers, the first Ms. Marvel, started off as a Distaff Counterpart of Captain Marvel but has since surpassed him in terms of screentime and popularity, and he was dead and she was a solo heroine for quite a long time. Basically, she started out as the Alternate Company Equivalent to Supergirl and developed into the Alternate Company Equivalent of Wonder Woman. This was later played straight with her becoming the newest Captain Marvel in 2012, though in terms of the order, she's the fifth Captain Marvel at least (the one after Phyla was some sort of doppelganger and the other is ambiguous).
  • And now with Carol as the new Captain Marvel, they've introduced a Pakistani-American teenager named Kamala Khan as the new Ms. Marvel. Also one of the few Muslim superheroes in all of comicdom. Probably one of the major reasons she was accepted so well by the fandom is that Carol Danvers only stopped using the Ms. Marvel name because she was "promoted" to Captain Marvel instead of being killed off.
  • Marvel's second Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, was a black woman. Like all the Marvel Captains Marvel since Mar-Vell, she has undergone several name changes, and now operates under the name Spectrum. This provides a bit of an uncommon inversion of the trope, as she called herself Photon for a time, but the name ended up being stolen by Genis-Vell, a white male.
  • Phyla-Vell is a half-Kree lesbian who ends up becoming the fourth Captain Marvel for a while. Then she becomes the second Quasar. She's delightfully surprised when her predecessor, Wendell, manages to come back for a bit to help her. She however has become her own heroine in Martyr before being killed off.
    • In addition, the character started out in an AU where she shared the Captain Marvel identity with her brother Genis.
• Champions: Viv Vision is the female 'offspring' of The Vision from The Vision (2015). She's also later revealed to be a lesbian in Champions (2016).
• Daredevil: In Daredevil (2019), when Daredevil pleads guilty to second-degree murder and goes to jail, Elektra decides to become the new Daredevil.
• Doctor Strange: Stephen Strange was temporarily succeeded as "Sorcerer Supreme" by Haitian-born Jericho Drumm, aka Brother Voodoo. It seems that this was meant partially as a response to those who saw Strange as a Mighty Whitey. The name "Doctor Strange" did not pass on because that is his real name (Stephen Strange) and title (neurosurgeon). However, Brother Voodoo is also a doctor in his own right (a psychologist) and so names himself Doctor Voodoo.
• Generations: This trend is very noticeable in the event, which pairs many of the legacy characters described above with their classic counterparts through a Time Travel storyline. Ten pairings are shown in the teaser trailer. The ten classic-era characters are all white, with eight of them male and two female. Not one of the legacy characters is a white male; there are three non-white men, five white women, and two non-white women.
• Ghost Rider: There have been numerous people who have borne the Ghost Rider title, most of them white males. Fear Itself introduced Alejandra Jones, a Nicaraguan woman with a White American father, as the next Spirit of Vengeance (though her involvement was because of a conspiracy by Adam, yes that Adam.)
  • The 2014 All-New Ghost Rider gives us yet another new Rider, this time Robbie Reyes, a Latino male. Instead of being passed the mantle, it's forced on him. Granted, there are multiple Riders and each one with their own spirit of vengeance. One awesome shot shows Spirits from across the world.
• Hawkeye: Clint Barton had his alias of Hawkeye adopted by Kate Bishop. Barton has since returned to his old codename, but it doesn't appear that Bishop will be giving up her use of it anytime soon. As of 2015, the two most recent Hawkeye series have involved them going on adventures together.
• The Incredible Hulk: The Korean-American genius Amadeus Cho was initially introduced as a new version of the Golden Age hero Mastermind Excello, though he usually goes by his real name. Following Secret Wars (2015), he became the new Hulk. Bruce Banner has since taken back the mantle, and Amadeus has renamed himself "Brawn."
• The Invaders:
  • The Golden Age hero Toro was a white kid named Thomas Raymond. The modern Toro is a Latino teenager named Benito Serrano.
    • Though the original Toro could turn his body into fire and fought during WWII, and the modern Toro has a Bull-like fighting form and is the legacy of a character from the Counter-Earth storylines. They're related in name only.
  • The first Golden Girl was a white woman named Elizabeth Ross, while her successor was a Japanese-American girl named Gwenny-Lou Sabuki. Sabuki's two granddaughters would later carry on her legacy as the heroines Goldfire and Radiance.
• Iron Fist: After Danny Rand gave up the Iron Fist, the power was given to Lin Lie.
• Iron Man: Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes became the new Iron Man twice during periods when Tony Stark was incapacitated (first when he'd suffered a severe alcohol relapse, and then a second time when he was infected with a techno-organic virus). When Stark returned to being Iron Man again after the second incident, Rhodes kept his suit and became War Machine.
  • During the Secret Wars, Reed Richards got to see the man under the armour while repairing it. Jim asked him if he was surprised that the man under the armour was black; Reed just said that he knew that 'there was a man in there', reacting more along the lines of 'what's race got to do with anything?', being as unconcerned about the race of who was in the armor as he's always been about everyone else.
  • The Iron Man of 3030 is Rhodey Stark, Tony's African-American granddaughter.
  • After Tony Stark is rendered comatose at the conclusion of Civil War II, he is succeeded by Riri Williams - an African-American female super-genius who is all of fifteen years old. She was later spun off in her own series as Ironheart after Tony returned.
  • As for the other temporary successor, it's none other than the Roma we know as Victor Von Doom (whom has had a Heel–Face Turn along with his face fixed as a farewell gift from Reed) as the Infamous Iron Man.
  • The original Iron Patriot was Norman Osborn, a white male. The second was the above-mentioned James Rhodes, and the third is Toni Ho, who is Asian and a lesbian.
  • A rare villain example would be the Iron Man foe Detroit Steel. The original was a white guy named Doug Johnson III, while the second is a mixed-race (quarter-Chinese) woman named Sasha Hammer. And that isn't the only legacy Sasha's a part of as her mother is the Thunderbolts enemy Justine Hammer (who herself is an example of this trope) and her father is Iron Man's archenemy, the Mandarin, who is half-Chinese and half-English.
  • Speaking of Justine Hammer, she herself is part of two: She took up the identity of the Crimson Cowl, which originated with Ultron (a robot, but usually presented in a male form) and later, after the death of her father, classic Iron Man foe Justin Hammer, took over his company.
• The Loners: The original Red Ronin was a Humongous Mecha, while the second Red Ronin, Namie, is a life-like android that resembles a teenage Japanese girl.
• Marvel 100th Anniversary Special: The limited series was written on the premise that each issue was a comic book published in the year 2061, providing a possible glimpse of what the Marvel Universe will look like when it reaches its one hundredth anniversary. Perhaps as an intentional nod to the growing ubiquity of this trope, the Fantastic Four issue shows that the new Human Torch is an Asian boy named Lee Minh Cam.
• Marvel 2099
  • Miguel O'Hara is Spider-Man 2099, half-Mexican, half-Irish.
  • Similarly, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions introduces a new version of Spidey's nemesis Doctor Octopus for the 2099 era. The new Doc Ock is Serena Patel, an Indian-American woman.
  • The 2099 version of Captain America is a Latina woman named Roberta Mendez. Her teammates include Tania, an African-American woman who has become the new Black Widow, and Sonny Frisco, the new Iron Man, who suffers from dwarfism. A new version of The Vision is also seen, and this one is a woman.
  • Before either of them was Ghost Rider 2099, a Japanese-American hacker named Kenshiro "Zero" Cochrane.
• Marvel Mangaverse: Played straight with Carol Danvers as she becomes the second Captain America.
• The Mighty Thor: After the Asgardians became unworthy of Mjölnir, Thor's title as God of Thunder was assumed by a woman in 2014. That woman was Jane Foster. What makes her even more special is that she's stricken with cancer and becoming Thor makes her cancer worse.
• Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: In the original Devil Dinosaur series by Jack Kirby, the Kid With The Remote Control was Moon Boy, an apelike prehistoric humanoid. In Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, that role is held by a young human girl named Lunella Lafayette.
• New Warriors: The original Golden Age Sun Girl was a white blonde woman. The new Sun Girl is the biracial Selah Burke, with an African-American mother and a Jewish-American father, the supervillain Lightmaster.
• Nightmask: Originally, in The New Universe, a white guy named Keith Remsen was the eponymous character.
• Nova: The second Nova, Sam Alexander, is half-Latino. The Infinity Gauntlet revival from Secret Wars (2015) introduces Anwen Bakian, a young black girl, as an alternate reality Nova.
  • The new Nightmask introduced in Comic Book/Newuniversal (Earth-555) twenty years later was a Japanese-American woman named Izanami Randall.
  • The newest version of Nightmask, who is native to the Marvel Universe main setting, Earth-616, is Adam, an artificial human who resembles a black man.
• The Punisher:
  • For a while, Frank Castle was thought dead, so his Mission Control Microchip recruited Latino Navy SEAL Carlos Cruz to adopt his role. Cruz was later killed off and Frank Castle returned.
  • Greg Rucka's run featured the Punisher recruiting a young woman named Rachel Cole-Alves as his Distaff Counterpart. The series ended with Frank in jail and Rachel taking his place as the new Punisher. Unfortunately, this plot point was abandoned, and Frank soon returned as the Punisher. In a case of The Bus Came Back, however, Rachel returned post-Secret Empire as one of the heroes Frank and Black Widow recruit to help take down Baron Zemo.
  • The female Punisher idea is Older Than They Think: in the 90s policewoman Lynn Michaels briefly took the Punisher mantle.
• Quasar: Avril Kincaid, Phyla-Vell's successor as Quasar, is also a lesbian.
• S.H.I.E.L.D.: Combining this with Canon Immigrant, the miniseries Battle Scars introduced Marcus Johnson, whose real name was revealed to be Nick Fury, Jr., an African-American man based on the Ultimate Marvel version of Fury and biological son of the original Nick Fury.
• Sigil: The Marvel's relaunch replaces future soldier Samandahl "Sam" Rey (white man) with Ordinary High-School Student Samantha "Sam" Rey (white woman).
• Spider-Man:
  • During The Clone Saga Doctor Octapus was killed by Kaine and replaced by a female Doctor Octopus, a White American woman who was the daughter of another supervillain. She was featured prominently during the storyline and fell into obscurity soon afterwards, not least because the original came back.
  • The Spider-Girl seen in Old Man Logan is Ashley Barton, the half-African American daughter of Hawkeye and granddaughter of Peter Parker.
  • In a rare villain example, the new Kingpin is black. Might double as a Shout-Out to Michael Clarke Duncan's portrayal in the 2003 Daredevil movie.
  • In the All-New, All-Different Marvel universe, while Peter is still active as Spider-Man, Hobbie Brown, the Prowler, also doubles as Spider-Man when Peter's away from New York, since Peter is now a CEO.
  • This is part of SP//dr's backstory. The mecha was originally controlled by a man, but when he died, his daughter Peni took over.
  • In a rare villain example, the original Beetle (Abe Jenkins), a former villain of Spider-Man, ended up making a Heel–Face Turn, and a newer iteration of the team, The Superior Foes of Spider-Man has Janice Lincoln, biracial (half-African American, half-Dominican) daughter of crimelord Tombstone, as the new Beetle.
  • The Superior Foes of Spider-Man actually lampshades the use of this trope in comics, especially in high-profile instances like The Death of Superman. While trying to proclaim his innocence, Boomerang claims that there could be a bunch of other people using the Boomerang identity now, even a teenager or a black guy.
• Ultimate Marvel:
  • The third volume of Ultimate Spider-Man introduced thirteen-year-old Miles Morales, of Latino and African-American heritage, who took up the mantle of Spider-Man. This was justified by the writers, who pointed out that if Spider-Man had debuted today as a young working-class hero from Queens, it would be a much more accurate reflection of the borough's present-day ethnic makeup for him to be a person of color, compared to the early 1960's when Peter Parker debuted.
    • Similar to the Iron Man example below, in Spider-Verse, Miles and the animated Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) Peter Parker go into the world of Spider-Man (1967) to recruit that Peter Parker. When Miles unmasks at the end, that world's Peter is shocked, making animated Ultimate Peter worried that they got the racist Peter. Then, it turns out that he was surprised that Miles was a high school student, not black, and he was quite proud that someone was continuing the legacy beyond him.
    • One of Miles' enemies is a new Latino version of the Scorpion. In the Ultimate universe, the first Scorpion was an actual clone of Peter Parker, making the new guy an example of this even if there doesn't appear to be any connection as of yet.
    • In another villainous example, the second Ultimate Venom was Conrad Marcus, the African-American scientist who created the spiders that gave Peter and Miles their powers in the first place.
    • After Miles was transplanted into the main Marvel Universe, he met Tiana Toomes, an up-and-coming anti-heroine calls herself "Starling." Her grandfather and mentor is Adrian Toomes, a.k.a. Peter Parker's classic rogue, the Vulture.
  • Monica Chang, an Asian-American woman who was the holder of the Black Widow mantle before Natasha Romanoff and then retired only for the alias to be passed down to Natasha. In the Face–Heel Turn and subsequent death of Natasha Romanoff, Chang comes back at Fury's request and takes up the alias again. This is an inversion. Sort of.
  • After Monica Chang became the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Jessica Drew succeeded her as the third Black Widow. She's the first non-heterosexual woman (she's either a lesbian or bisexual and has a crush on Kitty Pryde) to use the Black Widow identity.
  • Inverted with Tyrone Cash, the original Hulk in the Ultimate Marvel universe. It's established that Cash was originally an Afro-British scientist who taught Bruce Banner (the iconic Hulk) everything he knew, and was around years before Banner became a Hulk in his own right.
  • The newest Vision from The Ultimates is a young black man named Robert Mitchell.
• Union Jack: Played with, as Joey Chapman, the current Union Jack, is as British as his predecessors, but they were both in the upper class, whereas he is working-class.
• Wolverine:
  • While not intended to replace the original Wolverine (who remained active), the original's son Daken operated with the Dark Avengers as the Dark Wolverine, and is half-Japanese and bisexual.
  • X-23 (Laura Kinney), the Opposite-Sex Clone of Wolverine, took on Logan's mantle following Secret Wars as the All-New Wolverine.
• X-Men:
  • The original Sprite was Kitty Pryde. After Avengers vs. X-Men, a Chinese girl named Jia Jing was introduced as the new Sprite. There's no conflict though, since Kitty hasn't used the name in decades.
  • The original Angel was Warren Worthington III. During Grant Morrison's run, the title passed to Angel Salvadore, an Afro-Latina teenage girl. Since Warren had changed his name to Archangel at the time, there was little conflict. Warren is now back to calling himself Angel, while Angel Salvadore operates without a Code Name, and was last seen seemingly retired and raising her children on a farm in Nebraska.
  • In Battle of the Atom, the future version of Jubilee (Chinese-American) is now the new Wolverine. Also, Billy Kaplan (Wiccan, who as mentioned below is gay and Jewish) is the new Sorcerer Supreme.
  • Psylocke is a rather complicated example:
    • Started as a white woman, but had a body swap making her an Asian woman. The Asian body has since become her most famous iteration, and some adaptations in other media have just used it without the earlier backstory (though she is born and raised in Britain) in all adaptations. The exception was the '90s X-Men: The Animated Series cartoon, which had her in original form. Her twin brother Captain Britain remains Caucasian even in the adaptations that have her of mixed descent. Speaking of whom, before she became Psylocke, she was briefly the second Captain Britain.
    • In 2018, the body swap was reverted and Betsy returned to her original white body. However, this ended up leading to a new example: Betsy takes the identity of Captain Britain once again (and this time officially, as she was granted the Amulet of Right that powered her brother), and leads the new iteration of Excalibur. All in all, this leads to her being a bisexual woman taking the mantle of a heterosexual man. For added bonus, she's a mutant, and Brian is a human.
    • Her original Psylocke identity at the same time is taken up by Kwannon, known for being the body Betsy had swapped to. This effectively makes her a true Japanese woman taking the identity of a hero who was originally white, and not culturally Japanese. (Perhaps worth noting is the fact that, when Betsy was originally body swapped, she was explicitly Chinese instead of Japanese, which was a later Retcon. Making Kwannon a Japanese successor to a White/Chinese/Japanese–but–culturally–British hero.)
  • Unique example with Thunderbird. The first two users of the name were Apaches from America. The most recent user is from India.
  • The New Mutants member Cypher is a white male, while his successor, Cipher, is a black teenage girl. The original has since come back from the dead, but there are no real issues thanks to the two heroes having entirely different abilities.
• Young Avengers: The first two holders of the Miss America identity were white women. The current holder of the title is a Latina teenager named America Chavez. Downplayed as America is her actual name, she rarely uses "Miss" in universe, and Kieron Gillen has said that she probably doesn't even know about her predecessors (she's originally from another universe).

Films

Films

• The Marvel Cinematic Universe draws on a few from the comics:
  • Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the female Carol Danvers version instead of the older character of Captain Marvel. Downplayed due to the fact that in this adaptation, Mar-Vell is (a) a woman, and (b) never a superhero, but rather Carol's late mentor and a defecting Kree scientist. Interestingly, a Ms. Marvel show starring Kamala Khan and set in the MCU is in the works, so it remains to be seen how the legacy aspect will be handled since Carol never used that name in this continuity.
  • In the final minutes of Avengers: Endgame, Sam Wilson, a black man, takes up the shield and mantle of Captain America from the retired white Steve Rogers, while Valkyrie, a bisexual woman of color, becomes the new Asgardian ruler once Thor abdicates. Interestingly, Valkyrie's character progression is completely original to the films; unlike Carol as Captain Marvel or Sam as Captain America, there is no comic-book precedent for her as Thor's successor. In addition, it's implied that Morgan Stark may take up her late father's position as a Powered Armor-using hero, although she is four years old and thus a long way away from doing so.
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier takes one of Endgame's examples and ends up deconstructing the trope with it, in that the "Affirmative Action" part ends up complicating things immensely. The title of "Captain America" is a major national symbol. How can a black man symbolize a country that has mistreated its black citizens for hundreds of years, and continues to do so? Sam starts the series deciding that he can't, only for the government to turn around and give the identity to a white man instead. At the end of the season however, after said white guy goes off the deep end and Sam learns about the history of black super-soldiers in America and decides that it wouldn't be right to stop fighting for what's right despite all the injustices that happened to black people, he becomes Captain America instead and embraces the mantle.
  • Thor: Love and Thunder adapts Jane Foster's time as Thor. Eventually downplayed, as Jane succumbs to cancer at the end, leaving the original Thor as the sole bearer.
• In Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, Thor's successor is his daughter, Torunn. Inverted with Pym, who becomes a male Wasp rather than succeeding his father as Giant-Man.
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse revolves around an Afro-Latino teenager named Miles Morales, who becomes the new Spider-Man after his world's Peter Parker is killed by The Kingpin.

Live-Action TV

• The TV side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe includes its share as well:
  • The Falcon and the Winter Soldier takes one of the examples from Avengers: Endgame and ends up deconstructing the trope with it, in that the "Affirmative Action" part ends up complicating things immensely. The title of "Captain America" is a major national symbol. How can a black man symbolize a country that has mistreated its black citizens for hundreds of years, and continues to do so? Sam starts the series deciding that he can't, only for the government to turn around and give the identity to a white man instead. At the end of the season however, after said white guy goes off the deep end and Sam learns about the history of black super-soldiers in America and decides that it wouldn't be right to stop fighting for what's right despite all the injustices that happened to black people, he becomes Captain America instead and embraces the mantle.
  • Hawkeye (2021) sees Clint Barton starting up a friendship and mentorship of Kate Bishop, though it's not clear at the end if she's actively serving as a superhero now or if she's using his codename while doing so.
  • Averted in Ms. Marvel (2022), as while we still have a Pakistani-American girl following after a white woman; the actual "legacy" aspect of the comics is Adapted Out. In the comics, Kamala Khan chose "Ms. Marvel" as a codename in honor of Carol Danvers, who had once gone by that title before becoming Captain Marvel. In this continuity, Carol had always been "Captain" and Kamala's name is presented as a case of Steven Ulysses Perhero instead since "marvel" is a valid translation of "kamal" in Urdu — Kamala is certainly willing to exploit the similarity to her idol, but she's not actively setting herself up as Carol's successor.
  • She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: Bruce's cousin Jennifer gains his powers, though Bruce isn't going anywhere and she's continuing her own legal career rather than get involved in crimefighting the way he does. This doesn't stop some in-universe misogynists from whining about another woman "stealing" a hero's title from its original male owner (they're also heard complaining about "Lady Thor").

Western Animation

Western Animation

• In Ultimate Spider-Man (2012), Peter briefly utilizes the Iron Spider armor and identity before ditching it. The Iron Spider identity reappears in Season 3, where it is taken up by the Korean-American prodigy Amadeus Cho (who's presented as Peter's academic rival). Several other Spideys appear, including Miles Morales. Much like his comics counterpart, he became Spider-Man after the death of his universe's Peter Parker. The main Peter Parker is understandably very stunned by this (especially when he sees the gravestone.) He later reassures Miles, since Miles feels burdened that he could've done something sooner to save the other Peter.

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