So this week I put forth what I thought would be a pretty straight forward question. It turns out there may be a fine line between what some people consider a sidekick and what others consider a supporting character. Of course we had our share of easy ones like Robin, Speedy, and the usual suspects. Some people came up with some good ones that I would have thought of. From on of the 1st posts from AFN (who thankfully kept this thread rather clean this week) we had this gem with just one simple word and no explanation needed”
“Ampersand.”
Obviously referring to Yorick Brown’s monkey. Now this is where some of the debate began. Dhaise saw Ampersand as just a pet and not so much of a sidekick. Now after this we have some great back and forth where the whole sidekick/supporting character debate get going. I’m not going to post everything because as I have said before I want this article to get more people to go to the forums. WE do get some insight from Dhaise on the matter that I would like to share:
“Most sidekicks are supporting characters as well, but the two are not freely interchangeable. Sidekicks serve distinct roles in stories, they are used to show audiences how smart the main character is (or isn’t!)or to convey plot information (bruce ward’s robin), comic relief, alternate points of view (pancho), or in some cases to make it easier for audiences to care about a story featuring an unlikeable lead.
Supporting characters are fodder or ways to emphasize the lead character.”
There is more to that post which is very interesting but it fits with the whole thread so just go and read it already! Now I would like to let the light shine on one of the funnier posts we had. This one is from Nalydpsycho:
“Lady Shiva probably has the best kick in DC comics, whether it’s side, roundhouse, front, reverse heal or any kind…”
and this one from Kromadas on one of my favorite characters:
“I’m going to go with Harley Quinn. Partly because she’s fucking nuts, partly because if she were real she’d be kinda fucking hot and lastly because I know jackshit about the DC universe.”
The whole discussion can be found here
As to my pick I am not going to come up with anything clever or unique even if I would like to. I have to go with Robin. I am most familiar in my reading with Tim Drake as Robin because by the time I got into comics Dick was already Nightwing. When I think of DC sidekicks that is the 1st and best example that comes to mind. There have been many Robins and alot of them have had their own series but let’s not kid ourselves…Robin, no matter who it is, will always be Batman’s sidekick.
I would also like to highlight this week a thread in the Marvel forums that stayed innocent for all of 2 posts and then just went to hell. It involves a series called Detroit Steel and this is how the thread went from new series to forum madness thanks to Beadle:
“They should do a different character for each state, looking at that state’s main product.
Florida Orange
Tennessee Elvis Memorabilia
Idaho Potato
California Botox
Kentucky Trailer Trash”
The whole thread can be found here.
Now as for next week’s column it will be favorite Marvel sidekick and that thread is already on full swing so here is an early preview.
Well that’s it for this week. As always visit the forums and let me know your thoughts. Also there has been some recent posts to some of the older articles about what is going on in the forums so go check those out too.
