Blogotional

The young sidekick was a staple of the comics in the so-called "Golden Age." Of course, everybody knows Robin, but Flash had Kid Flash, Green Arrow had Speedy, Wonder Woman had Wonder Girl, Captain America had Bucky, The Original Human Torch had Toro - oh yeah, there was Aqualad, need I go on? Green Lantern never went there and Superman was, well, his own sidekick since they were publishing Superboy too.

Originally conceived as a device to give the young male audience a hook into the story, kind of a way to ride along on the adventure, some, most notably Robin, became characters in their own right.

DC comics got smart and banded all the sidekicks together in a group called the "Teen Titans." It has ended up being one of the more successful franchises in comics, even being a cartoon on Cartoon Network these days.

The original Titans line-up depicted in part in this first two images was pretty much all the sidekicks. Only Superboy was absent becasue he wasn't contemporary to the other characters and because he was teamed up, in the future, with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

The early Titans still struggled to get out from under the shadows of their adult dopplegangers, and the stories often centered on teen rebellion, correction for mistakes, and were, in sum a little adolescent. The title sold, but struggled.

It was when the sidekicks started to go away that the Titans really came into their own. In the '80's they added a few "non-sidekick" characters, retaining the core - Robin - and things really took off. More on that in a minute.

This is more or less the current Titans. The whole "Mini-Me" thing is in vogue, though these characters are definitely not side-kicks. Centered on a couple of the "non-side-kick" characters from the '80's this Robin is not Dick Grayson, Kid Flash is not Wally West, and Superboy, well he is a Star Labs clone of the big guy. The Wonder Woman doppleganger -- well, they are still trying to figure her out.

This new group is a fairly new title and I think the jury is still out as to whether they will be great or not. The elements are there, the characters are so active in other titles, that it may be a little hard to wedge them in here.

This, as far as I am concerned, is the classic Titans. These were some great books with some great stories.

Over the next few weeks, I want to take a look at the teen superhero and the sidekick phenomena -- it'll be fun. I hope you'll join.

In a related matter, the NYTimes had an interesting piece on the comic business last Monday. It notes great sales in 2005, but also notes that they are achieved through a bit of marketing as opposed to genuine creativity. They are using a "tent-pole" miniseries, the plot of which reverberates through all the titles, thus the avid fan is more-or-less required to buy dozens of books to get the "whole" story. This approach also makes for great novelization in the post immediate release area.

Since I buy a lot of comics anyway, the marketing concept doesn't bother me too much, but the uneven quality of the creative teams accross all the titles can be annoying. Sometimes you end up buying a title with an artist you really don't like just to get that piece of the story.

I also wish they would make it easier to follow the story lines -- publish guides through the title that are posted in the specialty stores and maybe offer special subscritpion services. When I was a truly avid collector (single renter, too much time and money) I didn't mind the effort to dope all that out, but as a more casual collector these days I could really use the help.