Sidekick Love!

In her most recent post, Ragnell linked to someone else's blog. It's an interesting entry I suppose, the person has many different opinions than I do. One thing we disagree about in particular is sidekicks. I don't really think the fellow gets the point of sidekicks. Whereas I love them.

Sidekicks provide an added perspective to comics, an audience stand in that actually gets to react to the disturbing, exciting, and scary aspects of the story that the main character is normally too cool or stoic to acknowledge. The sidekick is the voice of humanity, the one who more often gets to be flawed and human and make mistakes. Where Batman can be a bit too intense to truly identify with, we've all felt like Robin once in a while.

The sidekicks also allow the heroes to break their facades every once in a while, to show different emotions. Pride, love, concern, even fear and grief... Batman was almost never so human as when cradling Jason Todd's body.

Sidekicks even allow the writers to tell stories with more complex themes than normally: like responsibility, failure, loss and consequences. Yeah, there's the element of "What kind of person would bring a child into this dangerous situation?" But that's tied to "What kind of person would dress up in a ridiculous costume and fight crime?" Sometimes you just have to go with it.

And in the case of Batman, you could even give it a psychological spin. The man loses his childhood too soon, and endlessly seeks to recapture that lost innocence and enthusiasm by surrounding himself with those qualities. Or something like that.

On that blog, the writer disparages sidekicks by saying: "They are pathetic things that don't have any lives or identities of their own, so they have to ride the coattails of someone who is better than them in every conceivable way."

Which makes me laugh, because with but a few exceptions (Stripsy, Wing, maybe a handful of others), these kids are just that, *kids*. Adults are *supposed* to be "better" than children. That's the point of growing up. If children were everything that people are "supposed" to be, well, then we'd never need to become adults.

And the whole thing about no lives or identities of their own, doesn't that really *define* childhood? Children have very few legal rights, many protections, but no rights. They can't live on their own or really own property. Their names are their parents', they don't get to change it until 18 (or legal emancipation.). They don't get to choose where they live, what schools they go to. In a very real sense, they don't *have* identities of their own.

Sidekicks are "children" in the sense of legacy. Sure, in reality Clark, Bruce and Diana will always be Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. But sidekicks represent hope, the possibilities of the future. Someday, maybe not on panel, but these children are going to be full heroes in their own right. Or even, become Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman themselves.

And sidekicks fascinate me, because where heroes largely have to stay relatively stagnant, their apprentices get to grow and change. Robin became Nightwing, Speedy became Arsenal, Wonder Girl to Troia, Aqualad to Tempest...each of these changes were significant, if not while they happened, at least their implications afterwards. And the emotional involvement is strong too, we've seen these characters grow up. That *means* something.

And sidekickdom actually requires more strength in some ways than being a hero outright. The world that the heroes see is occasionally very dark, and sometimes, there is the danger that they will be swallowed by it. (An important theme in A Lonely Place of Dying, for example). That's why the night-dwelling Bat names his sidekick after the bird of the morning. That's why the dour Sandman fought alongside of the Golden Boy. A smile, a wisecrack, a joke, and the mood is lightened. Not a lot, but enough sometimes to make the difference. But then, when you stop and think about it, you have children exposed to the same darkness, safeguarding the adult's sanity.

And that's *fascinating*. Because it *sucks* being a sidekick. The only characters I can think of that actually benefitted from their sidekickdom are probably Mia, and *maybe* Cassie Cain. And both of their backstories are darker than most.

Robin's trying to turn himself into a freakin' machine, Superboy's got daddy issues, Cassie Sandsmark was being propositioned by Ares, Nightwing's a basket case, Arsenal's a neglected ex-addict single father without direction, don't get me started on Tempest or Donna Troy. Heck, even Sandy the Golden Boy, who had probably the best option in mentors (Wesley Dodds being neither borderline psychotic or neglectful, and actually considering how messed up a role it is for a child) still ended up targeted by an ex-silent film star, and then turned into a monster for half a century.

In a serious White-Wolf style superhero RPG, "sidekick" should be like a 5-point flaw. Maybe 7. It just sucks *that* much.

But these kids do it, out of idealism, hope, ambition, or the desire to make a difference. And I can, as much as for any fictional character, respect that.

Marvel doesn't have sidekicks, it's true, but Marvel doesn't need them. Marvel emphasizes teams, like the X-Men or the Avengers. Wolverine doesn't need a sidekick, because we already see that sort of relationship with Jubilee or Kitty Pride. And Marvel's not about legacy. So it's not as important a symbol.

But DC needs sidekicks. And DC should have sidekicks. Because they are awesome.

And if you don't agree, you suck. And you hate children. And the future. Freakin' scourge of society you are. Go eat babies or something! Jeez! :-P