Marvel and DC Sidekicks

[BentonGrey]

Howdy guys, I was reading the hilarious Texts from Superheroes site, and I came across this:
http://textsfromsuperheroes.com/image/81433674214
It's funny, but it also sort of struck me.  It is interesting that there are basically no sidekicks in Marvel comics, and yet DC is replete with them, every major hero having one, more or less.  I just thought that was interesting, and I was pondering the possible reasons for that difference.  Does anyone have any theories?

[Podmark]

I seem to recall Stan Lee was against them. Can't remember exactly why though.

[Cyber Burn]

Marvel had sidekicks at one time, Bucky, Toro, Etc. (http://jerome.galica.free.fr/marvel/Avengers/goldenage/kidcommandos.htm), I'm kind of curious now why that tradition hasn't continued. But on the flipside, many of Marvel's Characters were young when they were created (Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four), so that could be a possible reason. I mean, why would a teenage Hero need an even younger "Sidekick"?

[Talavar]

I think the big reason was the Golden Age of Comics had largely adult heroes, with teenage sidekicks created as audience identification characters.  Some Marvel characters of the Silver Age were young enough not to need that sort of device, and I think Marvel realized that the concept wasn't really necessary.  DC has always been more history-oriented, so I think a big part of the reason they persisted there was tradition (plus the copyright issues of not wanting some other company to create a Batgirl, a Batwoman, etc.)

[Glitch Girl]

I can't remember where I heard it, but the end of Marvel sidekicks basically began with Spider-Man.

As Talavar said, the teen character was the audience identification character.  With Spider-Man, it suddenly became apparent that a teen character could be the main protagonist and the story driver, as opposed to tagging along with the lead character, and thus the teen hero came into prominence. 

[BentonGrey]

That's a very interesting set of ideas, guys.  I think y'all are probably right, in large measure.  You've got characters like Ant-Man, for whom the Wasp was a sidekick/partner, but breaking that traditional mold, characters like Spider-Man, themselves teenagers, and teams like the Fantastic Four, which include teenagers.  Hmm.  I suppose that doesn't leave much need for sidekicks. 

I will say, even WWII era Marvel, or Timely, didn't have that many sidekicks compared to DC.  You've got Bucky, Torro, and who else?  At the same time, DC has Robin (the Ur-sidekick), Speedy, Stripsey (inversion), The Newsboy Legion (after a fashion), Wing, and probably some others I'm forgetting.

[JeyNyce]

When you think of sidekicks, you think of Mentor/ Student.  I think the comic world is trying to get away from all that.  One example is with the Batman & Robin comic.  They are planing to bring Robin back, but Bats will find out that Robin is more than capable of taking care of himself and doesn't need Batman to protect him.  The term sidekick is pretty much dead, they are now call partners.

[BentonGrey]

True Jey, and while I think the more modern developments are probably familiar to us, I'm talking about differences that existed in the Golden/Silver Ages.

[Alaric]

Marvel's got Rick Jones, sidekick for hire! Why would they need anyone else?

[BentonGrey]

Haha, he was sorta' everywhere, wasn't he?

[daglob]

Snapper Carr wasn't a sidekick, he was a mascot... or was he?

A lot of Golden Age characters from other companies had sidekicks, too. But to a large extent, these characters were based on Batman, so they had to have a sidekick.

alternately, watching an old episode of Zorro put me to mind the fact that Bernardo wasn't a sidekick, he was a partner in the Zorro enterprise. So too Alfred and Kato.

[DrMike2000]

Yeah, two of the big revolutionary ideas that Stan Lee introduced were:

a) incorporate the kid sidekick, girlfriend, buddy etc into the actual team (Fantastic Four, X-Men)
b) make the protagonist the same as the reader instead of an aspirational figure (Spiderman) so they can't get a girlfriend, can't pay the rent etc.

The older model was all based on boys imagining going on adventures with someone like their Dad, only cooler.

This was mirrored in a wider society with the advent of youth culture. Leading men in movies prior to the late 50s/early 60s were typically about 35, pillar of the community types like Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart etc. Enter James Dean, the Beatles, beatniks and hippies and the kids were no longer aspiring to be like their parents but to be something completely new. 

Marvel had their sidekicks like Toro and Bucky, but the majority of Marvel comic characters still active today were created as Stan Lee was tapping into the newly emerged youth culture.

It's fascinating stuff.

[Edit:] None of The Twelve had a sidekick, did they? You know, the JMS and Chris Weston series from a few years back, featuring blue Blade, Rockman, and all those old Timely/Marvel characters. Maybe it was a Timely/DC thing, even back then.

[Tomato]

I've seen interviews with Stan Lee where he's talked about it, and he went out of his way to not have sidekicks for his characters. He didn't feel like an adult superhero would want to spend his time hanging out with a little kid. Additionally, I think the whole thing with Bucky was more or less Stan underlining a rather fundamental problem: No truly responsible adult would willingly allow a teenager to go out with them into armed combat with criminals. He still had teenage heroes (Johnny Storm and Spiderman leaping to mind) but they were heroes in their own right and would go out and do the right thing on their own.

[Epimethee]

The publication of "Seduction of the Innocents" and the US Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 probably also had a dampening effect on the creation of sidekicks. IIRC, some of the committee's accusations were directly related to them.

Many of DC's sidekicks were already existing, and some proved popular enough to survive. Marvel, on the other hand, relaunching years later, started with a clean slate. For many years, the Buckys and Toros were mostly a footnote from the WW2. Rick Jones is the only real modern Marvel sidekick I can think of (though one could argue about the early Wasp...); of course, he played faire-valoir to at least three heroes, so he counts triple.

[kkhohoho]

The publication of "Seduction of the Innocents" and the US Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency in 1954 probably also had a dampening effect on the creation of sidekicks. IIRC, some of the committee's accusations were directly related to them.

Many of DC's sidekicks were already existing, and some proved popular enough to survive. Marvel, on the other hand, relaunching years later, started with a clean slate. For many years, the Buckys and Toros were mostly a footnote from the WW2. Rick Jones is the only real modern Marvel sidekick I can think of (though one could argue about the early Wasp...); of course, he played faire-valoir to at least three heroes, so he counts triple.

And on top of that, both Wasp and Jones have come into their own. Wasp has been the Avengers Chairperson more than once, and Rick recently got turned into the super-strong, scaly blue-skinned Superhero A-Bomb. Even Bucky's running around as the Winter Solider these days.