With the lion’s share of E-I-C Stephen’s attention being devoted to graduation this week, I’ve been thinking back to my own graduation, whiiiiich was 25 years ago and now I hate everyone. Luckily, I’m a comic nerd, and can ignore such depressing minutiae in favor of talking ephemeral nerdery. The return of the artist once known as Kid Flash has gotten me thinking about the devalued nature of the “sidekick” role in comics, and what a bummer it is for the fans of folks like Donna Troy (retconned endlessly), Garth of Atlantis (mercilessly killed in trade for his mentor’s return from the dead) and even Dick Grayson, whose well-done tenure as Batman has been subsumed by another in a series of multiversal schisms. Indeed, having a new version of Wally West back really rubs dirt in the wound of his editorially-mandated obsolescence, but raises today’s commencement-inspired query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) finds the nerfing of all the classic sidekicks to be one of the most lamentable parts of DC’s New 52, asking: What current or former superhero sidekick do you believe most capable/deserving of taking on their mentor’s super-mantle?
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Dick Grayson, Wally West, or Bucky Barnes. I really think they have the best chance of the doing right by their predecessors.
Wally West of people who have already taken up the mantle, more than proved there might be something to having a sidekick. I’m the sort of person who thinks Dick Grayson never needed to be Batman, because he was fine as Nightwing.
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