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Sidekicks were once a staple of comics, but its rare to see a superhero with a sidekick today So odds are your hero doesn't have one. But what if they did? Would it be a junior version of your hero, someone completely opposite. If your hero has a sidekick what are they like compared to the hero. If not suppose you had to give your hero a sidekick, what would they be like?

 

Scaredy cat would get someone completely the opposite mostly. My first thought is to give him energy powers, but as his arch foe is an energy projector that might be the wrong idea. Personailty wise though he would definitely be different. Instead of a reluctant hero he'd be gung ho so Scaredy Cat would be more easily dragged into adventures.

 

The guy who is totally not the same guy who I just change the name in different campains. He would have a female sidekick. A brick with a perky personality .

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In my current Champions campaign, the hero team was contacted by Make a Wish to have a terminally ill teen become sidekick to the hero Honey Badger.  A local tech company built a exoskeleton, and several of the PC heroes gave him some gadgets and protective spells.  Thus, was Badger Boy born!  The MaW foundation arranged a (fake) supervillain for Honey Badger and Badger Boy to defeat... but an actual supervillain team put in an appearance, and Badger Boy (played by one of the players in addition to his normal character) managed to capture one of the supervillains.

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I never played a sidekick but I think it would be a blast.  my brother played my sidekick in one game.  He was every bit as powerful but was kind of a hero worshiper of CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE and was his little buddy.  It was a fun game.

 

It takes a certain mentality to play a subordinate, supporting character who's learning and follows orders (mostly).  But I think it can be a fun role playing experience.

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As a GM, I also found that NPC sidekicks can be convenient tools.  In my first Champions campaign I ran, I gave the electrical hero Will o' Wisp a sidekick, Electro Lad.  He was a teen in a self-made battlesuit with an electrified whip.  I could use him to drop clues / suggestions, use his hero worship to remind the PCs to, y'know, be heroes, and he helped me deal with the problem with CLOWN (that is, players not wanting their characters to be the butt of jokes) by making Electro Lad the target of a prank.**

 

When the team accidentally ended up back in time (1940s), one of the players decided to pull a prank on his team, and left a message with a lawyer, to be delivered to the hero team on the day they returned from the past:  "Help!  I tagged along with you guys even though you told me not to, and now I'm trapped in the past!  Please come back for me!  -- Electro Lad"  The player and I each about busted a gut trying to keep from laughing as the other heroes scrambled to find a way to go back in time. 

 

** CLOWN was holding their annual "team leader selection contest" -- a scavenger hunt, with the list including "male superhero in a pink tutu".  The male players were worried that one of their characters would end up being captured and put into a pink tutu, but it ended up being Electro Lad. 

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The old 3e and 4e campaign I ran in the 80's and 90's had a few. Usually Competent (50pt) 14- DNPCs, though once we moved to 4e and the DNPC disadvantage expanded a bit there was a 75pt one of one my NPCs.

 

Hussar was a wanna be style fan of the power suit PC hero Dragoon, who had cobbled together a backyard power suit that usually worked.

 

The Bat was another PCs lad assistant who discovered his boss' secret as Polaris, master of Magnetism. No copying of his mentor's style there - Bat just threw together some bat-themed gadgets (sonar, glider wings etc) and came along to "help" to the best of his 50 point ability. Notably responsible for most of the SNAFUs that plagued that group when his Unluck kicked in.

 

Comedienne was the 75pt DNPC of her father, CIA enforcer The Entertainer (loosely based on Watchmen's Comedian and Silk Spectre II). She and the Bat hit it off and got involved; in the 20 year update I'm currently working on they had twins who have taken on the mantle of Bat II and Comedienne II. Sadly the original Bat died of cancer a while back. But the kids soldier on with more points and better tech!

 

In the Golden Age campaign, sidekicks were almost mandatory :)

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Actually, what with the Super Sons and all, sidekicks may be back on the rise... and Batman never goes without Robin for very long.

 

The Titans, as the premier DC team for younger heroes, still fall back into that role now and then.

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I think the decrease in sidekicks probably has a lot to do with the Teen titans. With the original reader surrogate purpose of sidekicks being discredited as a concept. The teen titans created the opportunity to have teen heroes and the challenges of youth independant of the sidekick mentor relationship

 

 

Now teenage heroes tend to be part of junior teams rather than sidekicks. Occasionally they have adult mentors but usually that actually creates conflict.

 

I thought it was quite interesting when the recent avengers line up was half experienced veterans and half powerful newbies who immediately went off and formed a youth team.

 

Really the only reason I see sidekicks existing are legacy heroes training up their successors or a mentor relationship with a teen hero who is to dangerous to allow to develop in a teen team or on their own.

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I really think mentoring makes a ton of sense though.  Kid with powers, give them someone to work with and learn from.  Learn the reason why all those superhero things are done, why the costume the secret ID, why you don't murder enemies, how to stay within the law, etc.  I get that kids don't read thinking they're Kid Superdude any more, but there's still good writing reasons to have sidekicks.  Having a few go out, make a team, and botch it horribly would be a good story to set up the idea.  "Remember the Young Guns?  Yeah, that's why we train them now..."

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In my current Champions campaign, the hero team was contacted by Make a Wish to have a terminally ill teen become sidekick to the hero Honey Badger.  A local tech company built a exoskeleton, and several of the PC heroes gave him some gadgets and protective spells.  Thus, was Badger Boy born!  The MaW foundation arranged a (fake) supervillain for Honey Badger and Badger Boy to defeat... but an actual supervillain team put in an appearance, and Badger Boy (played by one of the players in addition to his normal character) managed to capture one of the supervillains.

 

But, but, I would never take on a sidekick.  :fear: 

 

 

 

Anyhow,  if my Badger character were to take on a sidekick, it'd probably be more of someone who fills in his weaknesses.  Given him being anti-social, might be someone able to deal with the public in some capacity  (he isn't going to stick around for interviews after all).  Don't know how the dynamic would be, "mentor" probably doesn't describe him, has the knowledge but not the temperament.

 

On the other hand, I could see him ending up with some bubbly teenage sidekick, because that would drive him nuts. 

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In my first Settle Sentinels campaign, the PCs became occasional mentors to a teen would-be hero, Volt (and encountered Volt's teenage nemesis, Kilowatt; yes, they gained their powers in the same electrical accident).

 

In a friend's Dark Champions campaign, my PC Repairman's genius teenage daughter set out to become a vigilante hero like her daddy. Wackiness ensued, with moments of grief and horror. (Dark Champions, after all.)

 

Not quite tag-along, played-as-PCs sidekicks, though.

 

Dean Shomshak

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Huh...

 

Let's see... Sidekick Program for the New Samaritans

 

Arctic Fox - Arctic Fox finds herself saddled with a geeking out perky fan girl who gets on her ever loving nerves. Probably with fire powers because someone brilliant in this program thought hey, both are blasters with a temperature thing going on! So Arctic Fox ends up with Bellafire (God help us, she's a Twilight Fan). Eager to prove herself, and hoping to be as awesome as her mentor, Bellafire and Arctic Fox's relationship will be akin to a playful kitten that won't take the hints an older slightly disgusted cat gives her.

 

 

Eel (Aka "Fish Guy") - Fish Guy finds himself saddled with a mouthy angry punk kid who keeps calling him a hick, has a real attitude, and thinks water breathing is the lamest power ever. The kid is superstrong, and pretty tough which is why Eel is expected train him, but doesn't seem to want to do anything. It seems there is nothing about heroing he respects, at least when asked about it...yet he acts heroically when he thinks no one is looking. Currently codenamed Hardcase , the superstrong pain in the ass is Eel's mystery to solve. 

 

Lady Obsidian - Lady Obsidian is getting on in years. Naturally, she gets the youngest of the sidekicks, a boy who is borderline autistic, and has bouts of supergenius and almost innate engineering skills. Vivian finds him fascinating, but frustrating as she's not sure she's qualified to deal with someone with his special needs. Of course, Patchwork is a good kid, he wants to help even if he has trouble finding the words. Too bad he's the grandson of one of her oldest and most bitter enemies.

 

Pinprick - Despite the man's knack for archery, the adversarial and snarky Pinprick is not  who Upshot would have chosen to teach him. Upshot comes from a family of superheroes, and without powers, skills are going to have to do if he's going to carry on the family calling. Polite and humble and obedient, most mentors would envy such a student, but the kid gets on Pinprick's nerves, particularly since he seems to treat being an archer as some sort of consolation prize at best since he doesn't have real powers.

 

Tornado- The Latino speedster has a swashbuckler attitude, and so to does his young apprentice. While Viento is a ground speedster, he seems to be the most compatible with his mentor. Heck, he's even good with the girls his age, just like Tornado is with adult women....of course, it turns out that Viento isn't a hero in training, but a villain wanna be who took the real viento's place when a family emergency for the latter came up. Will Tornado figure it out, or will he end up getting had?

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Being a sidekick to a hero can sometimes have a drawback if your mentor is a greedy,sociopathic gloryhound who's in it for the money.

Case in point: in the YA novel,SIDEKICKS by Fred Fariolo, Bright Boy,who's superstrong and superfast [not FLASH fast] is partner to Phantom Justice who is superstrong but twisted and vain,stages fights with villains and kills paranormals who don't follow his scripts. What puts a crimp in Phantom's plan is the fact that BB is dealing with peuberty,and falling in love with the sidekick of his mentor's archfoe Dr. Chaos.

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Badger's most common sidekick was Leroy the Bison. Though many of the supporting cast filled in.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_(comics)

 

Well, to be fair, my own creation did pre-date my knowledge of the existence of the comic character.  :winkgrin: 

 

(I didn't know about the comic character until a while after I'd come to this website.)

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Being a sidekick to a hero can sometimes have a drawback if your mentor is a greedy,sociopathic gloryhound who's in it for the money. Case in point: in the YA novel,SIDEKICKS by Fred Fariolo, Bright Boy,who's superstrong and superfast [not FLASH fast] is partner to Phantom Justice who is superstrong but twisted and vain,stages fights with villains and kills paranormals who don't follow his scripts. What puts a crimp in Phantom's plan is the fact that BB is dealing with peuberty,and falling in love with the sidekick of his mentor's archfoe Dr. Chaos.

 

Someone should do a thread on best/worst types to mentor a sidekick.

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It was also deconstructed in Rick Vietch's Brat Pack back in 1990-1. Be warned, there's some nasty stuff in that one.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratpack_(comics)

 

Earlier covered a bit in Pat Mills and Kev O'Neil's Marshal Law (1987 onwards), although sidekicks aren't the focus of that one.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshal_Law_(comics)

 

After reading those you'll probably find the answer to "who would be the worst type to mentor a sidekick?" is "every damn one of them".

 

I'm a hero hunter. I hunt heroes. Haven't found any yet. - Marshal Law.

 

WARNING: READING LATE EIGHTIES DECONSTRUCTED SUPER HERO STORIES CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR FOUR COLOUR CAMPAIGN. GO AND READ SOME SILVER AGE STUFF BEFORE PROCEEDING! EXCELSIOR!!!

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