It's one thing to feel pressured taking on the family legacy. However, Jupiter's Legacy shows how incredibly difficult it could be to live up to the legacy of Earth's greatest superheroes. In the Mark Millar and Frank Quitely comics, siblings Brandon and Chloe struggle to find their paths under the limelight of their parents, The Utopian and Lady Liberty of the Union of Justice.
In the Neflix adaptation, Jupiter's Legacy goes full throttle early on when Brandon kills one of the Union's greatest foes, causing public debate to rages. Are morals still relevant against detestable villains? And for viewers, what sets the Netflix series apart from the comics?
10 More An Interlude Than An Adaptation
Fans of Jupiter's Legacy might say that its 22-issue story felt concise enough for the narrative. Readers got a two-volume Jupiter's Legacy to elaborate the Union's fall and eventual reformation. Meanwhile, the two-volume prequel Jupiter's Circle explored the high days of the Union and the events prior to Skyfox's betrayal.
When compared in terms of storyline, the Netflix show barely adapted the first two issues of the comics. In fact, the adaptation explored Jupiter's Legacy main narrative through new conflicts. Presentation-wise, the adaptation concurrently visited the past during Sheldon's grief and the eventual formation of the Union, as well as showing the present strained relationships of Sheldon with his children and dissent within the Union.
9 What Happens On The Island, Stays On The Island
After losing everything in the stock market crash, a young Sheldon Sampson started receiving visions of a mysterious Island. After visiting this place, he returns to civilization with superpowers and establishes the Union of Justice. The rest is not history, but the stuff of legend.
The comics kept Sheldon's journey to the Island as a mystery, reflecting his heroic status. However, the show fully flips this perspective. In various flashback sequences, the Netflix adaptation showed how the visions drove Sheldon near insanity, and how the journey to the Island revealed the inner struggles of the soon-to-be members of the Union.
8 Two Sides Of Different Coins
Brandon and Chloe Sampson represent the younger side of Jupiter's Legacy's generational crisis. Both media presents the siblings' resentment towards their parents – Sheldon, especially – for expecting them to follow in their footsteps. In the comics, Chloe and Brandon live a socialite's life surrounded by drugs, nightclubs, and endorsements. Chloe hates proper relationships, as they remind her of her parents' marriage. Meanwhile, Brandon resents his father's hypercritical nature.
In the adaptation, Chloe and Brandon are radically different. Chloe sticks a bit closer to her comic counterpart, albeit with a more confrontational nature. Meanwhile, Brandon is now fully living in his father's shadow, trying his best to become the next Utopian despite Sheldon's lack of recognition.
7 Same Conflict, Different Catalysts
Both the comics and the adaptation explore the full extent of the moral obligation of superheroes. In the comics, Sheldon – the Superman-like Utopian – prefers to lead by example and has a reactive approach to superheroics. He often clashed with his brother Walter – the psionic Brainwave – who wants a more proactive approach to fix problems like the Recession. Things escalate when Sheldon humiliates his son Brandon for drunken heroics and dismisses Walter's radical ideas.
In the adaptation, Sheldon and Walter show a more civil acknowledgment of their differences. However, tensions rise when Brandon kills the villain Blackstar, breaking the Union's Code of non-interference and non-lethality. The rigidness of Sheldon and the Union's Code soon clash with a more open "next" generation, who support Brandon's judgment call at a time when villains freely kill superheroes.
6 The Power Rod
In both media, Dr. Richard Conrad or Blue-Bolt possessed a Power Rod with abilities related to energy projection. However, their exact usage in each media differed. In the comics, Blue-Bolt's Power Rod can project energy. When Skyfox felt bad that his son Hutch didn't have powers, he fashioned his very own Power Rod for him to use. In turn, Hutch's own Power Rod can not only project energy, but also remote control vehicles and teleport itself and its holder anywhere on the planet.
In the series, it's implied that Hutch somehow acquired Blue-Bolt's own Power Rod, given the similarities in appearance. However, it seems Hutch can only teleport with the Power Rod and nothing else. It still helped him become a successful thief, though.
5 The Missing Skyfox
George Hutchence, or super-inventor Skyfox, became the world's greatest supervillain after turning on the Union, despite being one of its founding members. In the comics, Skyfox leaves his son with his Power Rod before the Union imprisoned him. After some time, Skyfox vanishes from obscurity – until his grandson Jason Hutchence eventually finds him.
In the series, Skyfox also defected from the Union and vanished to an unknown location. However, instead of being in hiding, Skyfox seemed to have vanished from existence. In fact, Hutch's main plotline in the series involves finding a power source strong enough to find Skyfox, whom he implies may have been trapped in another realm.
4 Assembling The Gang
Supervillains – as well as Chloe, Hutchence, and their son Jason – soon go into hiding by the time Walter and Brandon established their new world order in the comics. W hen Chloe's cover gets blown, the family become runaways, jumpstarting a superhero revolution. To do so, they recruit former supervillains like Neutrino, Shockwave, and Jack Frost to their cause.
Things switch up a bit in the series. Here, Hutch already has the aforementioned villains in his gang prior to meeting Chloe. They also do small-time heists together, minor enough to elude the attention of the Union.
3 More Power Consistency
Fans might notice that powersets weren't a priority in the Jupiter's Legacy comics, as the next generation of supers often exhibited both inherited and new powers. For instance, Brandon possesses telekinesis, superhuman hearing, and energy projection. Meanwhile, Chloe boases invulnerability, long-distance melting, and telekinesis.
However, their Netflix counterparts both have more consistent powersets. For instance, Brandon and Chloe inherited their parents' powers of invulnerability, superhuman strength and speed, as well as flight. Moreover, Netflix Fitz – energy-projecting the Flare – revealed that the Union shared flight and superhuman physiologies as well as some powers unique to them.
2 The Case Of Inconsistent Children
Eagle-eyed fans might notice a bizarre inconsistency with regards to the younger generation, particularly in the case of some children (or lack thereof) of the Union members. In the comics, other children of Union members demonstrated the way their parents affected their growth. Brandon's son Jules, for instance, is an expert engineer but maintains his distance from battles to avoid injury. Meanwhile, Fitz's son Peter was resentful of Fitz for once leaving them for another woman. Psychic Raikou hinted towards being Walter's daughter by another woman.
In the series, The Union outright acknowledges Raikou as Walt's distant daughter. Meanwhile, Petra or the Flare II is Fitz's daughter, and shares his powers. There are also new characters such as the geokinetic Tectonic, pyrokinetic Flaming Fist, invisible Phase Out, and intangible Ghost Beam.
1 Will Never Follow Through
In the comics, Walter's more proactive and capitalist philosophy resonates with young Brandon. This eventually leads Brandon to fully turn his back on his parents, to the point of patricide. Brandon and Walter – as Paragon and Brainwave – slowly establish a new world order in the second half of the comics.
Likewise, the adaptation eventually reveals that Brainwave set up a conveniently-exiled Skyfox as a scapegoat for conflicts Walter himself orchestrated. Finally, Brainwave closes the season with the admission of his plan to ruin Brandon and Sheldon's relationship and force the Union to seek new leadership. Unfortunately, Brainwave will never get to follow through with this plan, given the show's recent cancelation.