After the one-year Time Skip following Infinite Crisis, Aquaman was abruptly replaced by a new character named Arthur Joseph Curry. Arthur wasn’t exactly hated, but he never really caught on, partially due to being kind of bland and partially because he was a brand new character who just got thrown at the audience with no explanation or buildup. After his book Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis petered out, DC quietly sidelined him and eventually had him just disappear offscreen. He was never spoken of again and quickly forgotten when the original Aquaman returned in Blackest Night, and eventually retconned away in the New 52.
Many people dislike Ryan Choi due to how Ray Palmer sort of just vanished into limbo. However, when Ryan Choi was ignominiously killed off, people had gotten over that he wasn't Ray Palmer, and now viewed Ray as this. After a pretty massive racial controversy that got coverage on some non-comic sites, DC retconned Ryan's death during the Flashpoint series and now he is the sole Atom in the New 52 continuity, with Ray being relegated to a scientific adviser for the S.H.A.D.E. organization.
An odd in-universe form of the Replacement Scrappy status of Ryan Choi came in Dwayne McDuffie's Justice League of America run, where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman considered asking him to join. Superman is reluctant on the subject, saying that he doesn't want to replace Ray and would prefer to keep the position of the Justice League's Atom open in case he came back.
This has been the curse of more or less everyone to have used the Batgirl identity in DC.
Cassandra Cain, the fourth Batgirl was this for a number of fans. Not only was she a replacement for the beloved second Batgirl Barbara Gordon, but she was also seemingly created just to wear the costume given up by the short-lived (as Batgirl) third Batgirl, Helena Bertinelli (who would return to her old identity as the Post-Crisis Huntress). Helena was intended to be temporary to begin with, but still... She was also a considerable departure from the original character, being a mute super-martial artist. However, she developed a fandom after her introduction, and even got her own solo series, and a lot of Barbara fans eventually accepted her, thanks to her mentor/pupil relationship with Barbara.
The next Batgirl (Stephanie Brown, formerly Robin, formerly Spoiler) was seen as this by Cassandra's fans, due to her being a blonde Caucasian female who replaced one of the few Asian superheroes (and the only female Asian hero to maintain a long-running solo series). Steph would eventually win over a a number fans by being a really fun character. Though her book wasn't a smash hit (it had enough sales to be in the top hundred comics being sold, but not on par with usual Bat-books), she managed to win over a very vocal fanbase.
When Barbara Gordon returned to the role in Batgirl (2011), the former Batgirls' fans felt it was an insult against them on DC's part. Some of Barbara's own fans even felt this way about the New 52 version of her, as they liked her as the disabled superhero Oracle, which this version of Barbara never was (until it was later retconned). Eventually, DC split the difference: Barbara's spinal implant began failing, so she now only suits up as Batgirl when it's really necessary, while also passing the mantle to both Cass and Steph, with all three now being Batgirls. This solution has been widely accepted by the fandom.
In-Universe, Pre-Flashpoint, Barbara viewed anyone taking up the name Batgirl as this. When Helena took up the identity and Batman new, Barbara threw a fit. She kept a close eye on Cass and was wary of Steph taking up the identity. When Misfit initially tried to pass herself off as Batigirl, Barbara once again flipped. In Barbara's eyes, they're not just taking her name, they're taking her legs.
At the same time as the Death of Superman arc, Batman also got a Replacement Scrappy in Azrael, who took up the mantle after Batman's back was broken. He went over terribly with the fans, but like Superman, the writers never intended, and the readers never believed that Azrael would ever be a permanent replacement.
Terry McGinnis is a pretty popular hero, and is synonymous with the Batman Beyond role. But Futures End ends up replacing Terry with Tim Drake, who gets to be the protagonist of the new, canon Batman Beyond ongoing. A large group of fans are not picking up the new series purely on the basis of it not starring Terry.
After Batman: Endgame, Jim Gordon takes the identity of Batman. A lot of the hate towards this Batman is because he spends a lot of time running around in Powered Armor and ramping up the Batdickery by attempting to arrest or kick out any costumed character who wanders into Gotham. At the same time, his entire character essentially becomes "cop", with none of the nuanced views in regards to vigilantes that he previously displayed, and many just find him boring. It says something that the most-liked scenes from his run involve the possibility of Bruce Wayne returning to the role.
Batwoman was (and still is in some fans' minds) seen as one of these after she took over the lead female Bat Family role from the Cassandra Cain incarnation of Batgirl, who was moved out of focus. This was largely erased after she starred in a well-recieved, Eisner Award run of Detective Comics.
When DC decided to kill off underdog fan-favorite Blue Beetle (Ted Kord, himself the second character to use that name), fans were enraged. His replacement, Jaime Reyes, had to deal with fans' anger at the terrible treatment DC had given Ted Kord, which came off as Character Shilling for Jaime. Jaime did eventually gain his own fanbase, but it took a while to get over that initial hump.
This happened to Green Arrow Connor Hawke. Even though fans had warmed up to him, many writers would treat him poorly as he wasn't Ollie. For example, he was given a disease that prevented him from holding a bow again, something that seemed to even irritate people who weren't fans of the character. With the New 52, he and a bunch of Legacy Characters that apparently weren't "iconic" enough were relegated to Earth 2. In that universe, there doesn't seem to have ever been an Arrow family of characters, and Connor is the only one, and goes by Red Arrow, Roy Harper's old name from his Justice League days. However, this version was barely used and bordered on In Name Only status due to only having Connor's name and archery skills, and nothing else.
First, there are the new versions of Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Al Pratt, and the rest of the Justice Society of America characters getting revamped by being made Younger and Hipper and getting their backstories totally rewritten in an attempt by DC to make them more cooler. Fans of the Golden Age characters and the original Society members were put off by this since they liked the characters because they were older heroes, as well as the fact that they were more or less unrecognizable to the characters they once more. Many felt these were just the JSA characters In Name Only.
Then, for those who were actually fans of the Earth-2 cast, they got shoved aside for brand new versions of Superman and Batman, even though the book's original selling point was that it would not be focusing on Batman and Superman.
At the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Barry Allen made a Heroic Sacrifice, and Wally West, then Kid Flash, became the Flash. Wally was not well received at first, whether due to his being young, a Jerkass, or the fact that he was less powerful (he lost a lot of his speed during the Crisis and didn't get it back for years.) While Wally grew into the role and gained acceptance, Barry kept appearing in one-off stories set in the past, time travel stories and one notable "fake out" event as well as a short lived TV series keeping his fandom alive. When Barry came back after 24 years of being dead, fans were split.
Adding to this, when Barry came back, Wally was suddenly demoted thanks to Executive Meddling and Barry was given a grimmer backstory and proceeded to engage in a number of controversial moves (culminating in rebooting the entire universe, leading to the controversial New 52, which among other things, erased Wally and his family from existence, along with having the extended Flash family Put on the Bus), greatly damaging his previous innocent Nice Guy image. Furthering matters, the New 52, several animated features, and the 2014 TV series all focused on a Barry Allen who took a lot from Wally, including his role in many stories, which didn't necessarily work as well with Barry thanks to their differing core characters, with Wally himself being either erased completely or demoted and poorly used. When compared to how Barry was treated during Wally's tenure (where Barry and his memory were treated with nothing but glowing respect and idealisation, with Barry's tenure being a very important influence on Wally), the way DC tried to strip Wally completely from its history and his legacy made a lot of his fans extremely bitter.
But when Bart Allen had his turn as The Flash, fans were much more in agreement about their loathing of the character due partly to the Wangst, partly due to his being artificially aged to shoehorn him into the role, but mostly because the character lost his Fun Personified sense of humor and cheerful demeanor.
At the beginning of the New 52 Wally didn't even exist, and the role of the first Kid Flash was given to the second Kid Flash Bart Allen. Later on, they brought Wally back with some very controversial changes to his character. This Wally was pretty firmly disliked by classic Wally fans for his increased Jerkass tendencies, stereotypical portrayal, changes to Wally's relationships (he isn't close to his aunt Iris anymore, comes from a broken family, and outright hates the Flash), among other things. DC later brought back the original Wally in DC Rebirth while keeping New 52 Wally around as the classic version's cousin, and this had the added benefit of classic Wally fans giving the newly dubbed "Wallace West" another chance now that he wasn't supposed to be their Wally anymore. Plus, the more controversial parts of his character had been heavily reined in by then. Wallace was firmly rescued from scrappydom with The Flash (Infinite Frontier), where Wallace began going by "Ace", and developed a more equal partnership and teasing relationship with Wally.
Speaking of Bart, the New 52 massively overhauled his character. Scott Lobdell made sweeping changes to his character in his reviled Teen Titans run, changing the Fun Personified, light-hearted Bart Allen character into a murderous, edgy rebel from the future whose characterisation flipped on a dime (this was all under one writer no less, so it's not a case of Depending on the Writer). Even worse, he has zero connection to the Flashes, as his name isn't even Bart Allen (it's Bar Torr) and he doesn't even use the Speed Force. This character is reviled and Flash and Young Justice fans were just counting down the days till the real Bart Allen returned, which he did in 2018 in the "Flash War" storyline, and Bar Torr has been all but forgotten.
Jason Rusch (Firestorm (DC Comics)) for Ronnie Raymond, since Ronnie was unceremoniously killed off to make way for Rusch. The New 52 continuity not only retconned the death of Ronnie Raymond (the first Firestorm who was killed to make way for Jason) but now made it possible for both he and Jason to become Firestorm at the same time, alleviating some of the tension between the characters' respective fanbases.
Green Lantern. Stories featuring Hal Jordan, one of the longest-running and most respected heroes in The DCU, just weren't selling that well, and it was decided that a fresher look at the character was needed rather than just switching Jordan out for backup Lanterns Guy Gardner or John Stewart. So a bridge was dropped on Hal Jordan in a way that was not only stupid, but was demeaning to the character and his long history as a hero (he eventually got a Heroic Sacrifice a few years later). Not only that, but the entire Green Lantern Corps was brought down as well. Thus his replacement, Kyle Rayner, wasn't just a Replacement Scrappy for Hal Jordan, but for the entire corps. Cut to almost 10 years later, and many GL fans come around to liking the character (mostly because of Grant Morrison's deft handling of the character), and some people liked the character from the beginning. So when fans of Hal Jordan gained control of the title and decreed that their hero would return, naturally some of them didn't take it very well. Nevertheless, Hal gained support after starring in one of the most beloved and influential GL runs ever, a run which also ended up featuring Guy, John and Kyle in a large capacity.
Holly Granger (as the third person to bear the title of "Hawk") also got this reception by fans, though it didn't help matters that writers had no clue what kind of personality she had, or bothered to flesh out a personality or backstory for her to begin with. Being retconned in as "only child" Dawn Granger's sister and an usurper of Hank Hall's Hawk powers only rubbed the salt in further for her hatedom. They rejoiced as Hank Hall was eventually brought back to life while Holly was killed off, and she appears to still be deceased as of Dark Nights Death Metal.
Before Holly, there was the second duo to call themselvs Hawk and Dove. These two had very little connection to the originals or Dawn Granger, and were gotten rid of and never spoken of again.
Hawkgirl Kendra Saunders is an interesting case. Fans generally seemed to accept her and didn't mind so much that she wasn't Shiera — they had the same soul, after all. However quite a good number of fans were pissed when Kendra was killed off in Blackest Night and Sheira was brought back in Brightest Day, with Kendra's last moments essentially featuring her throwing aside what made her a unique Hawkgirl — her independence and not particularly strong affection for Hawkman. Later, Kendra was relegated to being Earth-2's Hawkgirl, but didn't really have much of a point, and then was brought back to the main DCU in Dark Nights: Metal, where she was Shiera in all-but-name and retained zero of the personality traits of the original Kendra.
During JLA (1997) run, Huntress is this In-Universe to Batman (she was brought in as a last second replacement for Connor Hawke). He eventually kicks her out after her continued disregard for rules leads to her almost executing a defeated villain.
Happened to Nightwing in JLA-Task Force. He wasn't loathed by the fans, he was loathed by his team members in canon.
Cyborg himself isn't hated, his removal from the Teen Titans' history and replacement of the Martian Manhunter as a founding member of the League was loathed by many fans.
In-universe, Jakeem Thunder was seen as this by a number of the original Justice Society of America members for replacing Johnny Thunder, who was now suffering from Alzheimer's. Ironically, he never really received much negative treatment from the fans since his predecessor wasn't a character most readers were likely to be familiar with in the first place.
Jason Todd as the second Robin. Originally a carbon-copy of Robin I, Dick Grayson, he was ret-conned into having a street urchin origin and no longer having Dick's approval. He was also written as much angrier and prone to lashing out, including one story where it was left vague whether he outright murdered a criminal or not (after his resurrection, it was revealed that, yes, he murdered the person). This led to the second Robin becoming so controversial that DC had a call-in vote to see if fans wanted Jason to die a gruesome death at the hands of the Joker. Ultimately, Jason's hatedom won and Jason Todd was dead for two decades before being restored to life as the Red Hood, which rescued him from scrappydom until misuse resulted in him being thrown back into the pile.
Damian Wayne (Robin V) for Tim Drake (Robin III). When Damian was introduced he was arrogant, cruel, obnoxious and outright homicidal: some of his very first actions were to murder a B-list villain and return to the cave proudly waving about the severed head, before trying to murder Tim (and very nearly succeeding). Bruce's response to Damian's behaviour amounts to little more than mild scolding, and many people feel Damian gets off too lightly because he's Bruce's biological son (which has its own Unfortunate Implications about adopted sons not being "real" family). Damian didn't officially take up the identity of Robin until after Bruce's "death", when Dick Grayson unceremoniously fired Tim from the role to make way for Damian. Tim would then be restricted to his own solo series as Red Robin (which furthered his "Batman Jr." Flanderization) and had his formerly brotherly relationship with Dick reduced to something more like co-workers, while Damian was prominently featured in multiple series with a big push on promoting him and Dick as brothers. Later on, with the New 52 reboot, Tim only regularly appeared in the much-loathed Teen Titans ongoing where he was isolated from the rest of the Batfamily, while Damian was the co-lead in the much more well-liked Batman and Robin where he was promoted as Batman's "true" son and got away with things no other Robin could get away with (including beating one person until he was braindead◊ and outright killing another – and Bruce's response to the latter was to hide the fact from Dick and Tim◊ because it would make Damian look bad). To sum up, many Tim Drake fans hate Damian for getting such a large push from DC at Tim's expense, up to and including Tim's place in the Batfamily – meanwhile, Jason Todd fans also hate him for the double-standard in terms of how he's treated in-universe by Bruce and Dick.
Teen Titans: The Joker's Daughter wasn't universally loved, but she gained a small, devoted fanbase. That said, the fans of this Duela Dent absolutely hated the new Joker's Daughter created for the New 52. Original Duela's fans saw her as a cheap, unnecessarily edgy knock off with a convoluted backstory, lacking the original Duela's humor and style, and grew to hate her more and more with every appearance she made because of how hard DC was shoehorning her into their books. What sunk this version from the beginning was that she literally had no connection to the Joker whatsoever, and was just some random, mentally unbalanced woman who found the Joker's face and started wearing it like a mask in an effort to make her "father" happy. The creator of Duela Dent has said Harley Quinn is basically the Spiritual Successor to everything lovable about the original anyway. A rare case of the replacement being created completely independently, still filling their niche, and being far more popular than the original ever was.
After the original Supergirl was killed and Ret Goned, DC initiated a legacy implosion policy which prevented the existence of any Kryptonians besides Superman. John Byrne then replaced her with Matrix, a Supergirl that was basically an Artificial Human from a Pocket Dimension. Matrix was generally impopular among long-time Superman/Supergirl fans, who saw no point in replacing a beloved character with an inferior and convoluted substitute just so that Superman was the only survivor of Krypton (and DC did not lose the Supergirl trademark), and ignored by newer fans who did not care about any Supergirl. After many failed storylines and attempted revamps (which include Matrix being Brainiac's dupe, romancing Lex Luthor and merging with a Satan worshipper to become an angel of fire), the character was finally retired for good in 2003.
And finally a new version of the original Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, was created in The Supergirl from Krypton (2004) to get rid of the confusing origins of the previous Supergirls once the policy was overturned. Although her initial appearances were promising (except for people who were upset with Linda's disappearance), she garnished significant hatred for being both Darker and Edgier and Ms. Fanservice for a short while. Several Authors Saving Throws by writers Tony Bedard and Sterling Gates — who were fans of original Supergirl — finally softened her character and clarified her history, and she became popular again.
Superman had an interesting case with the New 52. Many people disliked the New 52 Superman (NuSupes) for being much angrier and jerkier than his Pre-Flashpoint counterpart, gaining a strange solar flare power that seemed to exist only to depower him every other week, along with issues with him dating Wonder Woman rather than Lois Lane. While he gained some fans eventually, he also lost some with the Superman: Truth storyline, which had him return to being a Jerkass while also giving him an uglier costume and haircut. It didn't help that, by that point, the Pre-Flashpoint Superman had migrated over to the New 52 universe with his Lois Lane and their son, and said Superman was considered much more interesting. In the end, DC pulled the trigger and killed the New 52 Superman right before the DC Rebirth initiative, which led to...
Pre-Flashpoint Superman (Super Dad) becoming a Replacement Scrappy for NuSupes! While it's less common to find people who prefer NuSupes, there are quite a few people who do feel bad for NuSupes' fans. An Author's Saving Throw was later attempted with the Superman Reborn crossover, which explained that both Supermen were merely parts of the real, whole Superman, validating both as equal parts of Superman... Except that Super Dad was the "blue" half of Superman while NuSupes was the "red", and in the 90's story arc where Superman was split in two, the blue half is the real one... and when the two fused together, the resulting "complete" Superman is basically Super Dad, but with NuSupes' dead parents, so it seems like even DC's staff themselves prefer the pre-Flashpoint Superman. Even the dead parents would eventually be done away with and all that remained of NuSupes would be his costume being something Superman wore at one point.
Deathstroke's team of "Titans" when Titans was remade into a series about Slade's mercenary team stealing the Titans name after the actual, adult Titans had disbanded following Justice League: Cry for Justice and Blackest Night. The run immediately got off to a bad start by killing off Ryan Choi in an extremely graphic and dragged out manner just to show how "dangerous" this new team was, which landed DC a number of accusations about inter-company racism; Ryan's creator Gail Simone actually broke her legendary politeness to say how much she hated how he died. A few years later, DC released Convergence with two miniseries, Convergence: The Atom and Convergence: Titans meant to specifically address and undo the damage this run on the book did. Added to the accusations about Ryan's death were:
The over saturation of blood and gore.
Arsenal joining the team right off the heels of the much loathed Rise of Arsenal miniseries. Cheshire emotionally blackmails him into joining by holding Lian's death against him, and he conspires with her to kill Slade when they get the chance. Roy started appearing more and more psychotic as his drug addiction worsened, and then readers felt especially angry when he willingly accepted a vial of Bliss from Slade, with Bliss being a drug that is literally made from children. Author Fabian Nicieza had to specifically state that the Roy seen in Convergence was pulled before he fell as further down as he did in the sewer of Deathstroke's team.
Osiris gradually going from being the Token Good Teammate to a Spoiled Brat psychopath who got so bad even his own sister was repulsed by his actions. His inclusion in the title was the only reason the book was connected to Brightest Day (in that Osiris had to restore Black Adam and Isis after they were Taken for Granite), but said connection pretty much amounted to nothing in the series itself and the main Brightest Day book.
Everything about Cinder's character. A suicidal rape victim whose debut included her murdering a man by burning off his penis and setting him on fire using her vagina. We're being serious here.◊ That's not even getting into how poorly Eric Wallace portrayed Cinder's sexual abuse and his inability to actually make her sympathetic, forcing the readers to view her as tragic when she does absolutely nothing but wallow in self pity when she's not killing people.
Speaking of the Teen Titans, the New 52 series and its team is hated by pretty much all of the Titans fans combined, even the fans of the characters. The team is hated by fans of the original Titans for specifically being the first team to call themselves the Titans, meaning the original team never existed — indeed, only Dick Grayson, Roy Harper and Bette Kane initially even existed in the New 52. Fans of the team that is the basis for the New 52 team hate it for the changes it made to their characters, namely making Cassie (more) of an angry asshole, the complete change to Bart Allen's character and finally going 100% in making Tim Drake a mini-Bruce Wayne in terms of his obsessiveness.
This can happen for whole teams as well. After the original Gen¹³ ended with the team being killed with a nuclear bomb, the book was relaunched with an all-new team created by Chris Claremont. The combination of the heavy-handed, editor-mandated deaths of the old team and the Five-Token Band nature of the replacements meant that the results were pretty unpopular. The "new" Gen¹³ was cancelled after 16 issues, ending with the original team being bought back to life. The "new" Gen 13 have never even been mentioned again.
The second Wonder Girl (Cassandra Sandsmark) is hated by some of the more diehard Donna Troy fans. Some even wish that she weren't a "blonde, white girl" so that she would be more likely to be killed off so Donna could return to the role. This is especially irritating since in the 90s, Cassandra was a much more friendly, likable character than the Scrappy people see now. Further made worse for Donna's fans in the New 52 continuity, where Cassie's new connection to Wonder Womannote Cassie is Diana's niece, the daughter of Diana's half-brother Lennox wasn't even revealed for years, and Cassie herself openly expressed disdain for the name. And like Wally West, Cassie is now the first Wonder Girl, and Donna wasn't introduced until 2015, where she is now a darker, angrier reflection of Wonder Woman, a role Cassie already fills.
Robinson's run on Wonder Woman (Rebirth) introduced Diana's twin Jason, the problems being that this cements the controversial change to Diana's backstory where Zeus is now her father and the source of all her powers and that Diana already had a twin, the underused fan favorite Nubia who seems to have been jettisoned from continuity to make place for Jason. It doesn't help that at her core Diana had always been intended to show what the pinnacle of what women could be if not for being oppressed and influenced by men and now her backstory and abilities are tied to two fan disliked male characters. Jason is also accused of being part of a Spotlight-Stealing Squad with Grail and Darkseid.
◊ and outright killing another – and Bruce's response to the latter was to hide the fact from Dick and Tim
she would be more likely to be killed off so Donna could return to the role. This is especially irritating since in the 90s, Cassandra was a much more friendly, likable character than the Scrappy people see now. Further made worse for Donna's fans in the New 52 continuity, where Cassie's new connection to Wonder Womannote wasn't even revealed for years, and Cassie herself openly expressed disdain for the name. And like Wally West, Cassie is now the first Wonder Girl, and Donna wasn't introduced until 2015, where she is now a darker, angrier reflection of Wonder Woman, a role Cassie already fills.
