When I meant a new age of heroes, I was not just referring to comic books. Now I'm not saying the old hero should be pushed away, but there always be a need for a new or different set of heroes. The old ones will always be there too. Regardless if it's marvel, dc, or the anime and manga business. TVs or movies. A new generation will always either adapt to the old Heroes and get new ones included.
Oh I agree, it's always good to have changing content, and not letting things stagnate. And legacy stories, where they literally have a hero pass the torch to someone new, are some of my favorite styles of storytelling. I just was thinking about the unique nature of how comics are essentially timeless, as the background events of various heroes just get moved forward. Like how Iron Man didn't get injured during Vietnam, it's now the War on Terror. It's just an interesting aspect to how they function, outside of the actual effects of time.
I just really enjoy the idea of focusing on a character, who grows up in a world with those characters that we love. Audience insert aside, it's just an interesting setup for a character. I mean, for Miles Morales, the fact that he was a huge fan of spiderman, was a BIG part of his origin story, and played directly into his eventual motivations to become a hero. So I always find it fun and interesting. They can sometimes shit the bed with the execution of it, for example I found female thor to be incredibly bad, but not because she's a woman, or taking thor's place. I just thought they did it terribly.
When I heard they were introducing a femthor, the image in my head of HOW that would play out, was fucking awesome. I was genuinely hoping for it to be some random nobody female warrior. Like, a massive asgardian battle against some bigass enemy, and thor goes down, possibly dead (but not really of course, comic books!). The tide of the battle begins to shift against the heroes, the camera focuses in on the rank and file members, possibly one of the valkyries, and they are charging to try and recover thor. They fight and fight, and fight and fight and fight....falling, left and right, the pov warrior, is knocked down, stunned from a massive blow. She lays there amidst her fallen allies, silhouetted bodies, and hilts of weapons littered around her. Blindly she reaches out, to at least die fighting, the camera focuses in on just her hand on a hilt....and then BOOM. Bolt of lightning comes down on her, and she's standing there, transformed into Thor. She proceeds to beat the shit out of the badguy, and wins the day for everyone. The aftermath ensues, celebrating victory, honoring the dead, scratching of heads about why the hell mjolnir chose her, but overall just happy to have saved the day against a Big Bad. Then, the final shot, is the woman in her quarters, sitting on her bed at night, a shaft of light from outside the only illumination. She sits there, holding mjolnir, looking at the inscription. "If they be worthy" She frowns, an expression of doubt on her face, as she struggles with why the weapon thinks she's worthy, when she herself isn't sure. End of issue one of femthor.
But...no...they didn't do that. They just, did...something else. Something...far less enjoyable.