By Britt Schramm
July 4th, 2005
Every once and awhile, I get a chance to go back to Maine during the summer. I was a military brat (Navy to be specific) and NAS Brunswick, ME was the place that I spent the most time without moving. It is also the place where I discovered comic books and sport teams as well as a certain "Mrs. Robinson" but that's a story to be told when I make my move to featured Penthouse columnist in a couple of years.
Well as kids of the mid to late 70's, there were only three channels on the boob tube (sorry but PBS was not in my realm of watching) and Al Gore was just starting on birthing his greatest creation latter to be known as the World Wide Web. So, during these long summer days, it was necessary to entertain ourselves with our imagination. It was about this time when the local High Street Gang came into being and ran rampant around the neighborhood.
Now, since Brunswick is about as white bread as it can be, our crew was not like the hard-core OGs in the Sean Penn/Robert Duvall pic "Colors" nor was it the freely expressive and flamboyant rite of passage that was "West Side Story". It was more like "Our Gang" but in color and without a sociopath like Robert Blake as the gang leader.
While we were waiting for dinner, this gang would get together and act out our own scripts. Everyone picked heroes that we wanted to portray (I know that it's shocking to admit but there were no girls in these "live action" comic books). But, there were rules. The use of towels as capes was frowned upon as since we were almost in middle school, which was signifying our entrance into adulthood. Only Marvel heroes were allowed to be used since they had all of the cool (meaning edgier) characters and practically zero sidekicks.
(In case anyone was taking bets, I was usually Ghost Rider. Come on, what 10-year old wouldn't like an entire bike made of Hellfire and Brimstone that you could make appear at your command? Obviously, you never knew me when I was 10.)
But, now that I think about it, what's so wrong with being a sidekick? Sure, you seem to be always taking orders from some adult. Usually, you're underage so driving a car is not an option. Dating is pretty much a non-entity. You still have to go to school and try to pass during the day while trying to survive from a night filled with punches to the stomach and blows to the head. And sometimes, you’re either killed off to become an iconic figure that has paid the ultimate sacrifice for the fight for good (Bucky, Jason Todd) or become addicted to drugs as a symbolic causality in the war against drugs (Speedy). Unless you’re really lame and get a sickness from being out of the water for longer than an hour and go into a coma (Aqualad/Tempest). Ahh, good times.
But since PftL is all about "accentuating the positives" (as old Dean would say) these days, I'm going out on a limb and taking the stand that being a sidekick would be the best job in superherodom. And here's why:
No money, no problems - Everyone knows that being a superhero is not cheap. So usually, the main superhero has a ton of cash due to being insanely wealthy. Not the Paris Hilton-type rich. That's easy. I'm talking about a mountain of cash so huge that it would make Bill Gates drool with envy. And if you have ever seen how insanely rich people act, you know that they have no idea of how much actual cost of things are in the real world. It's like monopoly money to them. And if you're the sidekick, just imagine the moneymaking opportunities like "Hey, (insert superhero's secret identity here), my teacher just told me that I need to buy a new uniform for this school year. Can you give me about ten large to cover it?" Or, "I need to get my girlfriend a gift. Could we get her that Hope Diamond she keeps talking about?" And even, "I need some lunch money. I don't need much - probably about a couple of grand." Pure cake, I'm telling you.
Don't Worry, Be Happy - Being a sidekick, for the most part, is very easy on the brain. You're not responsible for figuring out the bad guy's plan. If you screw up, it's due to your lack of experience or youthful energy. If the bad guy gets away, it’s your mentor’s fault. Sure, every once and awhile, you can come up with a nugget of clarity and figure out that Two-Face is hiding out at the old Double Down casino on the banks of the Gemini River. But really, if you’re a big time superhero and can’t figure out that Harvey Dent has a fetish for the number two, maybe it’s time to hang up the cape and underwear for good. Truly.
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Come Together – One of the best things about being a sidekick is the hooking up with other sidekicks; both in the literal and figurative sense. What’s the one thing that sidekicks do when they first meet? Create a team. Even though they have the altruistic meaning of fighting crime by using their complimentary powers in a team environment but really, they’re organizing together so they could have a cool clubhouse. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Titans Tower. It maybe one of the best all-around crime compounds this side of the JLI’s mountain HQ but let’s face it. That tower is so cool that Avengers Mansion seems like a museum. And with such a tower as a mood setter, it seems that the sidekicks tend to get busy more often than the recent two sets of cast from “The Real World” combined. C’mon, with all of those hormonal teens hanging out in spandex, what do you think would happen? Besides, why else did you think that Donna Troy was in almost every incarnation of Teen Titans? Granted, she had some great powers but she also wasn’t bad on the eyes – especially when George Perez was putting ink to paper.
On Our Own – If you’re a really good sidekick, you can get to move out and on your own either in the same city or in a new city that is worse off than the one that you just left. This move would be considered the “baptism by fire” technique that is commonly used by the adult superhero. There are usually two reasons that the sidekick has been sent away: 1) to test your internal fortitude for the possibility of inheriting the mantle of the adult superhero (see next paragraph) or 2) to bring in a new recruit while your ass is suffering in a DMZ that even the Punisher would throw up his hands and give in. But, hey, whatever the reason, you’re out from under the thumb of the oppressive adult and have your own place funded by the adult superhero. I don’t know about you but those sound like the ingredients for “Party Time” to me. That is until they decide to check in on you all the time. Then, that sucks.
Jump In The Line – Alright, you’ve suffered at the hands of every major criminal in your area and have survived. Here’s the big payoff – you get to become the successor to the superhero's mantle. And with that advancement, you automatically gain more respect from your peers as well as the general populace (since they don’t know that there were two different people in the costume), get access to the slush fund that the superhero was using and the autonomy that you so richly deserve. The downside to this graduation is that you must, in turn, start the cycle anew and become the adult superhero to some brash punk that you have to train into a reasonable sidekick. Talk about karma being a kick in the pants. Ouchie.
See? Did you think Uncle Britt would let you down? (Waitaminute. Don’t answer that.) Being a sidekick can be basically be summed up as a mindless cash cow of a part-time job that gives you access to other super hot sidekicks and the opportunity for advancement and relocation on the company dime. What other job out there can offer that? Other than being the head of Microsoft.
Since I liked it so much the last time, here's a quick PftL endorsement:
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30 Days is a show on FX, home to such recent cable greats like “The Shield” and “Rescue Me”. But this is one reality show that’s not based on some dumb ass eating maggots from a glass slipper or lying to someone’s face just in order to “shockingly” vote them off at the end of the show. Morgan Spurlock, who subject himself to 30 days of eating only McDonald’s food in the documentary “Super-Size Me”, is basing a whole series about people doing things that are totally foreign to them for 30 days. The first one, Spurlock and his fiancé living at minimum wage, was somewhat weak since it didn’t seem too life-changing but it did hit home some of the possible problems if jobs become more scare than they currently are. But the last two episodes, “Anti-Aging” and “Muslims and America” really showed how bad Americans are trying to stay youthful and how scared they are of foreign people. And the next three, “Straight/Gay”, “Off-The-Grid” and “Binge Drinking Mom” look very promising for some thought-provoking discussion or, at the very least, some cringe-inducing sights. Everyone should be tuning in Wednesdays at 10.
That’s all for now. See you next time, shiny happy people. And don’t forget to keep your boards and bags together and keep your continuity straight.
Send column-specific e-mail using the link below. You can also find me posting my terribly witty musings on anything and everything to do with Pop Culture at Kung Fu Rodeo.
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