In Young Avengers #1, J. Jonah Jameson says that after Bucky was killed, no one wanted to be like him anymore, and sidekicks were only things that were seen in comic books. Thinking more about it, I realized he might be right: except for Golden Age characters, Marvel’s never really used the sidekick gimmick that much. They’ve had teenage characters galore, but none who were really sidekicks working as partners with or teen versions of adult characters. (Rick Jones, for instance, was always more of a tag-along than a costumed crimefighter.)
DC, on the other hand, has done it so often that there ought to be a metahuman version of social services to look into the whole thing.
So my question is: can you think of any true sidekicks in the Marvel Universe? Who am I forgetting?
Marvel also had Namorita, who was sort of Namor the Sub-Mariner’s sidekick; Toro was the original Human Torch’s sidekick; and didn’t Moon Knight have a sidekick for a while — Midnight or something?
– Kevin Melrose
Toro was one of the Golden Age sidekicks I was thinking of — I always liked him. Namorita has a lot of the classic sidekick traits going on, you’re right. I can’t find any decent info about this Midnight character, though. Anyone know who he was?
Other than The New Mutants very thinly being “sidekicks” to The X-Men in the early 80s I can’t think of any. And even that’s pushing it since they were really separate groups along the lines of “teenage characters galore” you mentioned. They just lived in the same house.
The infant Bucky was kinda the sidekick of the grim n’ gritty Nomad in the late ’80’s. And one could make an argument for Microchip being The Punisher’s sidekick, though of a fat, uncostumed nature. Couldn’t you also say that The Wasp really started as Ant-Man’s sidekick?
Marvel’s been embracing the teen knock-offs of late (X-23, that ridiculous spider-girl character from the new Amazing Fantasy), but I can’t think of any true sidekicks. Toro and Bucky were both Golden Age, and even Namorita came from a Golden Age Invader. You could argue that my beloved Kitty Pryde, when she was first introduced as Ariel/Sprite/whatever, was a teen sidekick to the whole X-Men team.
I was thinking that Wasp might be a little sidekicky, but that was definitely a romance thing and not a sidekick/mentor thing, which birngs us to another class of nuttiness altogether.
Yeah, I think Wasp falls more into the “partner” category than the sidekick one, like Captain America and the Falcon. Well, not *exactly*, since I don’t think Cap and Falcon had quite the same relationship. But anyway …
I largely missed out on early ’90s comics, but I’m thinking when Jubilee was introduced in X-Men she initially was shoe-horned in as a sidekick/foil for Wolverine. Because, y’know, there’s no better partner for a berserker killer than a Valley girl.
I wonder, though, whether Marvel’s dearth of teen sidekicks is because its “universe” isn’t as rooted in that World War II era fantasy world in which adolescent boys imagined fighting Over There. With the exception of the reappearance of Captain America and Sub-Mariner, and a new, teen version of the Human Torch, the ’60s Marvel “universe” started anew, while DC in the late ’50s and early ’60s was, for the most part, “reimagining” its Golden Age characters.
Plus, Batman & Robin, along with Superman and Wonder Woman, were among the few superheroes to continue through the late ’40s and early ’50s, when funny-animal comics, war stories, romance and Westerns usurped the mask-and-cape crowd. So, with Robin there’s an unbroken “sidekick thread” from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. Even Wonder Girl maintains a convoluted link, as she started as simply as a younger version of Wonder Woman before Bob Haney borrowed her, with no explanation, for TEEN TITANS.
Jeez, I’m talking out my butt here, but for some reason I was thinking more about this topic this morning. Ignore me.
Jubilee was sort of a sidekick to Wolverine for awhile. And I agree that Kitty Pryde was definitely an X-Men sidekick.
Hm. I posted a long-winded comment earlier, but TypeKey must’ve edited me for incoherence …
Sorry, Kevin, it just took me a little while to get around to approving the latest batch of comments.
As soon as I posted that second message I realized you probably OK’d each of the comments. I’m just a little slow on the uptake when it comes to the new-fangled information super-thingy.
Hey palochi — Kitty Pryde was no sidekick — she was just young.
You’re right about Marvel not reallyhaving sidekicks; Stan Lee likes loners and groups. Probably because he was a geeky loner who always wanted to be part of a group.
I always figured both the Falcon and the Black Widow (in Daredevil’s comic) as the 70’s sidekicks. (Even though Natasha also falls into that girlfriend category like the Wasp). Neither of these characters carried the comic or story, they weren’t getting any solo stuff…they were sidekicks.
And, since we’re getting into galpals…what about Clea?
Maybe I don’t want to admit that the Wasp was a 60’s sidekick because I liked her too much.
Ah, somebody mentioned Clea, and he’s a librarian to boot! That is truly fabulous. This librarian had such a thing for Clea… not a romantic thing mind you, I wanted to be her!
Speaking of Dr. Strange, wouldn’t Wong sort of be his sidekick? He’s definitely not his partner (though the nature of their relationship has given rise to the question of whether he might be a different sort of “partner”), yet he’s very much involved in Strange’s exploits, and it’s probably not polite to refer to him as a “manservant” anymore. “Attache”? Too formal.
How about ’70’s-’80’s Frog-Man as a sidekick to Spidey? Or was he simply more of a hanger-on?