Blogotional

Our look at the teen sidekicks continues this week with a look at the Green Arrow's sidekick - Speedy. If Speedy has a weakness, it's that his original look, seen here, (He's looking a lot better these days but I couldn't find a current image that I wanted to use) it was just a little too derivative of the big guy. But it does illustrate one of the original "rules" of the sidekick.

Green Arrow was, in his original incarnation, sort of a Batman rip-off and his sidekick's costume had to reflect that. Have you ever noticed how bright Robin's costume is? I mean, the Batman is a creature of the night, and he has this kid hanging out with him all the time that looks like a glow-in-the-dark road sign. No night camoflague there. (Robin was fixed some years ago) Well, that explains Speedy's look - bright red and yellow

Speedy's been around for a while and this picture illustrates. I really love these older images of the heroes and their sidekicks. It's like the kid just sort of makes the picture "right."

Note also how Speedy is exactly paralleling GA. Can you think of a better way for a kid to put himself in the story. He sees a character his age, doing exactly what the hero is doing and man, there you are, transported into the story.

Speedy had another thing going for him that Robin did -- no superpowers. You want to be Speedy, all you have to do is practice. I wonder how many archery sets this kid sold. I know one for sure. Although I never got the costume.

Of course, all the sidekicks appeared in the title with their big guy, but only a blessed few made it into the great big leagues, like tagging along on adventures with the big guy on various teams. Speedy was one of those blessed few as you can see here.

Despite the fact that he is not all that well known, Speedy may be one of the most pivotal characters in all of comics. He changed the direction of comics hugely in the late '60's/early '70's run that combined Green Lantern and Green Arrow.

By the time, GL/GA came about, sidekicks were pretty well gone. The series brought him back in a whole new role -- as a junkie. In one fell swoop the comic got "socially relevant." Marvel was also doing some drug related stories about this time, and as such was the first publisher in forever to forego the "Comics Code Authority" seal. While that was huge, to my memory, this Speedy story, even though tamer and with the seal, was what made me go "Wow!"

Maybe it was because at the time, DC was kind of "stick in the mud" and this story was completely out of character for them. Marvel was liable to do anything at the time and drug stories seemed sort of par for the course under their banner, but not so DC.

Speedy's drug problem became great grist for the writing mill for a long time after, particularly in the Teen Titans where it caused all sorts of trust issues with his peers. Speedy is a character well worth getting to know.

And on a side note -- did you ever wonder who were the baddest of the bad and what it was they did? Well, somebody up and published a top ten list of most evil acts in comics. Joker rightfully makes the list twice for crippling Batgirl and killing Robin, but the modernity of the list leaves out some fun. Besides, how can you have a list of evil acts without Lex Luthor on it somehwere?