Best cape & non-cape friendships

[Tzigone]

There are plenty of very good friendships between heroes. I thought of starting a thread for them. But then I thought it'd be more fun to hero friendships with non-costumed parties. No love-interests allowed - platonic friendships only.

Jaime Reyes with Paco & Brenda - From the 2006 Blue Beetle series. I absolutely love these three.

Bruce Wayne with Jim Gordon - It's a classic.

Bart Allen with Preston Lindsay - From 90s Impulse title. These two are a lot of fun.

Honorable mention to Clark Kent with Jimmy Olsen - I like the idea of these two a lot, but finding an era where Jimmy's not written like a doofy loser, Clark isn't dismissive of him, I actually like the storyline, and they actually interact is more difficult than it seems.

[Jackalope89]

Jason Todd and his gargoyle during his Robin years.

[j9ac9k]

Charles Victor Sage and Aristotle Rodor.

[Adekis]

There's some good Clark and Jimmy content in the late New 52 that I really appreciate. You're right that too often, the idea of the Clark and Jimmy friendship works better than the execution. The Silver Age is probably the best source, but there's often way more Jimmy content than Superman content in those Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen stories. And I think that the post-Crisis desire to ground Superman brought down most of the zaniness that made Jimmy centric stories work whether he was treated as a goofball or not.

[Tzigone]

And I think that the post-Crisis desire to ground Superman brought down most of the zaniness that made Jimmy centric stories work whether he was treated as a goofball or not.

While I had, of course, been exposed to the character before, one the earlier prominent roles I knew of Jimmy in was when I binge-listened to the radio show. He starts off as a kid and copy boy and grows up into a young man and cub reporter. He's quick-witted and capable and there's no real zaniness associated with him, though I rather wondered if he was something of an audience-insert character. In a number of the comics (when they actually bother to have him do anything), he's kind of joke to other characters (including Lois and Clark), which I don't care for. There's some pretty good bronze-age stuff for Jimmy, but there he's "Mr. Action," which is too far in the other direction. And, like you said, he doesn't really get to interact with Clark much. Lately, it looked like he might be getting a storyline (before I quit following the title), but Clark wasn't being too good a friend and wasn't actually listening to him when he spoke.

[mikelmcknight72]

Diana has had some great ones during every era. Etta Candy, Julia Kapatelis, Myndi Mayer, and Helena Sandsmark to name a few. Plus, Steve Trevor if he counts. Lois Lane-Kent has arguably counted in some eras.

[married guy]

Clark & Jimmy
Kyle & Guy
Jaime & Paco
Wally & Hartley
Wally & Iris
Bart & Carol
Kyle & Connor

[CaptCleghorn]

No Ted Kord and Michael Carter yet? Seriously?

[married guy]

No Ted Kord and Michael Carter yet? Seriously?

I can't believe I forgot the Blue & Gold!!!

[Tzigone]

No Ted Kord and Michael Carter yet? Seriously?

Because the thread was meant to be specifically about hero friendships with non-heros. A cape and a non-cape. Some people just put in two-hero friendships. Like I said, there's lots of great hero-duo-friendships,and they've been discussed before. I wanted to do friendships outside the hero comunity.

[Jim Kelly]

Be a hero's friend long enough and you get to be a hero, too (or a villain). Jimmy Olsen and Jim Gordon both eventually got to play super-hero.

Jimmy was supposed to be a lovable idiot in the classic run. But getting his own comic elevated him to an action star. There were funny stories about him, but to fill all those pages they had to do a variety of stories and there are hundreds where he's a real adventure hero and a good friend to Lois and Clark.

Mal Duncan started out as a friend to the Teen Titans and being more the everyman character, before he went through different super-hero manifestations. Likewise, Snapper Carr was the young everyman character in the Justice League with no super-powers--and also the character who could bridge the gap between the life of young people in the real world and the heady world of capes and cowls. He even got the Justice League to care about the suffering of diverse people in the famous, "Man, Thy Name is Brother."

Diana Prince/Wonder Woman has had several friendships. But because the creative direction keeps changing, she never gets to hang onto her friends for long. She's had several different friendships with numerous iterations of Etta Candy. When Diana was a mod action hero, she formed a great friendship with Cathy Perkins. When she was rebooted in the 1980s she was good friends with Julia Kapatelis and her daughter, Vanessa.

I liked the friendship between Hal Jordan and Thomas "Pieface" Kalmaku. I didn't know I was supposed to hate it and think that Hal was some sort of racist because he was buddies with a Inuit mechanic.

Not including all the love interests, most heroes had at least one other "normal" friend in the classic comics. Alan Scott and Doiby Dickles, Plastic Man and Woozy Winks, the Vigilante and Stuff, Jay Garrick and the Three Dimwits, the Spirit and Ebony White, the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, Johnny Thunder and Peachy Pet, Mr. America and Bob Daly, Johnny Quick and Tubby Watts. But as comics have become more and more just about the super-hero aspect of the character, the normals have gotten less attention. Sometimes it seems like the only people in the comic book are super-heroes and people like us don't matter.

[caj]

Brainiac Five and Rond Vidar (before he became a Green Lantern)

[WallyWestFlash]

Mattie and Cutter from Supergirl/Linda Danvers were great. Most of the cast were actually.

Wally and Chunk.

Hal and Tom Kalmaku.

Superman and Bibbo.

[CaptCleghorn]

Scott Free and Oberon.

[mikelmcknight72]

Over at the competition, the X-Men used to have some great ones. Harry of Harry's Hideaway, Stevie, Sharon, Tom, Corbeau, FBI agent Duncan, Gabi, Moira, etc. Most of those don't get seen anymore either. Friendships putside the hero community, particularly with the normals treated as equals, enhance every character involved!