Nobody probably remembers the early shows of "The Avengers," starring Ian Hendry as Dr. David Keel and Patrick MacNee as his sidekick, John Steed. That's right, as originally conceived the show was about a doctor who would team up with government agent. Eventually, of course, Steed took over. I got to wondering which comics have been taken over by a minor character.
The most obvious example in superhero comics, to my mind, is the Legion of Super-Heroes, who took over from Superboy.
In comic strips this happens all the time. Popeye and Charlie Brown/Snoopy being prominent examples.
Icon is kind of an example, except you can argue which character was the main character to begin with.
Posted by Mike Chary at April 27, 2006 2:40 PM
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For a minor character to take over from a primary character in any sort of series, they have to be potentially equal. Under normal circumstances, I'd expect that superheroes could only lose their series to other superheroes (which is exactly what happened with Superboy and the Legion). It would be highly unlikely for a superhero to be eclipsed by a unpowered civilian. Jimmy Olsen may have had his own series for a number of years, but that was in addition to Superman's multiple books. We don't want to see Jimmy instead of Superman. Therefore, a superhero should be relatively safe unless another superhero shows up in the series. That said, Black Canary elbowed Johnny Thunder out of his strip in Flash Comics.
He never took over, but Harvey Bullock has had a solo story or two in the Batman titles.
Huh? Charlie Brown was in the first Peanuts strip. And even at the peak of Snoopy usage, he never completely took over the strip. Better examples would be Snuffy Smith taking over from Barney Google, or the three-fer of the strip that went from Chief Wahoo to Chief Wahoo and Steve Roper to Steve Roper and Mike Nomad to Mike Nomad taking over the strip.
A fair number of Golden Age strips got taken over by their supporting comic relief; Spectre turned into Percival Popp the Super-Cop.
You could make an argument that the Avengers, originally conceived as a gathering of Marvel characters with their own solo series, were taken over by minor supporting characters (from other books) when it became Cap's Kooky Quartet.
Tomahawk became Hawk, Son of Tomahawk with Tom Hawk as a supporting character, but I don't believe Hawk had been introed before the transition.
It wasn't a full-fledged takeover, but Wolverine certainly eclipsed the other X-Men to the point where there were times that it seemed like the book should be called "Wolverine and the X-Men."
Here's an example of a non-powered character challenging a super. At one point, Batgirl held down the back-up slot in Detective Comics. Her boyfriend was PI Jason Bard, and for a little while, he got his own series, which alternated with hers. He never took over and she never went away, but for a while it was touch and go. Then they were both replaced by Walt Simonson's Manhunter.
Maybe Death from Sandman, who may not have taken over the comics, but is arguably a more popular character than Dream.
The Brave and the Bold turning into a Batman book in the seventies.
For that matter, Batman himself taking over Detective and Superman likewise Action. Actually, most of the big DC names got where they are now by crowding a bunch of other features out of an anthology...
Likewise Superboy's takeover of Adventure, aided and abetted by the Legion of Super Heroes. Followed by Supergirl's takeover of the same book after that group moved on to another title. (Followed again by hand-offs to the Spectre, Aquaman, Superboy again, and The Dial-H twins, but those characters were brought in more or less de novo rather than being supporting characters in the anthology before that.)
And Sgt. Rock took over Our Army At War, of course.
There's the original Daredevil being edged out of his own book by his kid gang sidekicks, the Little Wise Guys.
Not that I've ever actually read an issue of Gleeson's Daredevil, but, my, those are nice GA covers....
Mike, one of the reasons that no one remembers the early Avengers is that a lot of the episodes were purged by the BBC and no longer exist (according to Wikipedia's article on missing Dr. Who episodes).
Just to remind everyone, Greg is in the World Pedantry Championships coming up this June. His main competition is the French.
And yes, girls, he's single.
Mike, one of the reasons that no one remembers the early Avengers is that a lot of the episodes were purged by the BBC and no longer exist.
Speaking of pedantry, those episodes never made it to U.S. shores, so they were only seen in Britain until they ceased to exist entirely. For that matter, the Honor Blackman episodes, in which she played Steed's partner Cathy Gale, never showed in the U.S., either, until decades later. A British and European audience would know better, but many Americans would be unaware that Steed had any partners before Emma Peel, let alone that he wasn't even the initial star of the show.
It could be argued Rick Flag was the real star of Suicide Squad and it was taken over by Waller, though she had equal screen time when it started.
Tangentially, an American acquaintance of mine had managed to go her entire life (she's in her 40s) without seeing an episode of the Avengers. Recently she started watching from the beginning. Now she's disappointed that there are no more stories with Dr Keel, as as far as she was concerned he was the point of the show, and she doesn't want to see any of the ones after he left...
Well, Ian Hendry did show up on "The New Avengers," although not playing Keel. (Which is how I found out about him in the first place. "The New Avengers" was on the CBS Late Movie when I was a kid, and I fell in love with Joanna Lumley. So I bought the DVD's when they came out, not having seen them in 20+ years, and it was obvious from the staging, plot, and all that he was stunt-casting, and I'm thinking, "Who the hell is this mofo?" And, well, turns out he's the man. I gather that "Police Surgeon" was similar, though I've never seen it, of course. British TV was weird for these types of shows actually. Another favorite of mine is "The Persuaders" starring....that's right, Tony Curtis and Roger Moore. Made after "The Saint," but before "James Bond." Actually, fans of "The Saint" probably want to track down "The Persuaders," as Brett Sinclair is more similar to Simon Templar in some ways. Hey, there ever been a "The Saint" comic?
Actually, Moore is an interesting parable on the fact that actors never know where their career is going. In the late 1990's, he ended up on a show called DREAM Team. The guy who replaced him on that show? Martin Sheen right before getting "The West Wing.")
"Mike, one of the reasons that no one remembers the early Avengers is that a lot of the episodes were purged by the BBC and no longer exist"
I doubt that, as The Avengers was not a BBC, bugt an ITV production....
My recollection is that Charlie Brown was not intended to be the star of the Peanuts strip originally, but if anyone was it was Shermy.
Look out, French pedants!
In television, there are two great examples: Sipowicz on NYPD Blue and President Bartlett on the West Wing. Dennis Franz was supposed to be the sidekick who burnt out, but instead the whole 9(?) year series became his own modern "All in the Family." And Martin Sheen was planned as a guest star on the West Wing.
Bloom County is probably a better example of supporting characters taking over a strip-- What started as a Doonesbury parallel ended as something more akin to a bastard child of Vaughn Bode, Walter Kelly, and the Howarth brothers...
Mr. Natural came to prominence the same way, didn't he?
In comics, I think Speedball had that sort of arc.
The Sandman spin off "The Dreaming" eventually became a vehicle for a couple of minor characters whose names I can't recall. If "Lucifer" surpasses Sandman's issue count, does that count?
John Constantine seems to have more durable sales than Swamp Thing...
And Grant Morrison's "The Invisibles" revolves around the idea that every character is a lead character.
IIRC, early drafts of NYPD Blue's pilot had Sipowicz dying at the end of the episode from Giardella's attack. Martin Sheen was initially signed for only 13 episodes in WW's first season, when the premise of the show was meant to focus on the staff, but he quickly became the breakout character.