What are those called again? Oh right, sidekicks!

Woo! It’s been a good weekend for comics, what with all the new solicits and the “Wednesday Comics” announcement, which looks super cool. But I already did a news article on that, so I must grasp for the topic of this weeks column. As you may have guessed, it is sidekicks!

Here’s a not so secret secret: I love sidekicks. I got into comics thanks to the Teen Titans, who used to be a collection of sidekicks (and kind of are currently, a collection of sidekicks and legacy characters). Heck, I generally like Batman’s sidekicks better than the man himself.

Partly this is because sidekicks tend to be closer to my age bracket, another thing is that sidekicks seem to be…freer in a way than their mentors. They aren’t constantly having to be “adult”, they can goof off and make mistakes. They’re still learning. And often, they’re a voice for the reader, noting when their mentor is being a jerk, or acting weird, or when the whole situation is weird, or when something’s funny. And that’s apt, considering the sidekick concept originates with Robin, who was supposed to be a voice for younger readers, someone for them to relate to.

When Robin came on, Batman sales shot up, and soon everyone had a kid partner. The little Robin hood was a hit, and the birth of teen sidekicks everywhere.

I always found Robin more interesting than Batman because he was fun, and full of typical teen woes. He was a light to Bruce’s dark, and often the voice of reason, oddly. He kept Batman grounded. Which is why I’m very disappointed in Tim Drake these days, he’s changed so much from the adorkable little geek he used to me. He’s become Batman 2.0. Sidekicks should not be carbon copies of their mentors. In the Silver Age, they kind of were, and it was really boring (well, I wasn’t there, but it’s boring when I read it today). Robin is there to be unique, to be all red and green and bouncy, to be all hyper and geeky and teenage woe. Being around Batman shouldn’t make Robin darker. It should be the other way around.

Which brings us to the bad parts of being a sidekick. When your hero needs angst, you take the fall. For instance, I bet when you become Batman’s sidekick, you get your own personal key to the family refrigerator.

Sidekicks are always having bad things happen to them, or getting killed, because their easy targets. The sidekicks are used to give the hero something to mope about. Why do you think the Teen Titans have such a high death rate? They’re like the nunchucks that beat self pity into their mentors!

…Okay, that segway could have been smoother, but I really wanted to use that picture.

So please, comics, stop hurting the sidekicks. I LIKE the idea of passing on the mantle, of a hero in training. Sidekicks are some of the coolest characters in comics. They don’t deserve that flak!