Supporting casts

[phonogram12]

How does everyone feel about supporting casts? What characters do you feel have the most consistent and iconic supporting casts in all of the DCU? The two most obvious one's I can think of are Superman's and Batman's.

Also, how do you feel when supporting casts are a bit more fluid?

[Lightning Rider]

I actually think they're an underrated aspect of major characters. Whenever people speculate on how to better a character, the villains often come to mind, and they are quite important. But characters need relationships to challenge them, help them grow, and make the world around them seem real. They also make the reading experience a lot fuller.

Fluidity can work as long as the cast fits the setting.

[married guy]

Like Lightning Raider said, they're an underrated aspect of a major character.
A great supporting cast can not only open up great story avenues, but also assist in showing how great the main character is.
Batman & Superman are obviously the leaders here.
Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson, Jim Gordon, Lex Luthor, Perry White. All iconic characters themselves, but all supporting characters who can carry a storyline themselves.
I think it's a big reason why I love Messner-Loeb's and Waid's Flash so much.
They pushed the supporting players front & centre and the book was infinitely better for it.
Mason, Piper, Chunk, Linda, Max, Jay, Jesse, Bart.

The trick is to remember they ARE supporting characters. On the rare occasion you'll strike gold and have a supporting player who can step up and become the headline act (Impulse anyone?) but for the most part I like to se them every now and again to remind me the main character isn't a hero 24/7.

[PCN24454]

I actually think they're an underrated aspect of major characters. Whenever people speculate on how to better a character, the villains often come to mind, and they are quite important. But characters need relationships to challenge them, help them grow, and make the world around them seem. They also make the reading experience a lot fuller.

Fluidity can work as long as the cast fits the setting.

This is arguably the reason why people still view Nightwing as a Batman character. They prefer him to be part of Bruce’s supporting cast rather than develop his own.

[Factor]

They’re one of the most important elements in any book. For me good supporting characters are what truly makes the world of the hero “sing”.
Case in point: PAD’s Supergirl. Leesburg felt like a true unique setting because it was populated with so many complex and interesting characters. Most other Supergirl runs failed in giving her a unique cast that’s not trying to replicate Superman’s.

[Restingvoice]

Alfred

What do you mean by fluid? Example?

[scary harpy]

I feel supporting characters are a relic of a bygone era, sadly.

With lesser page counts and too many 'special' events, there seems to be almost no time for supporting characters to appear much less shine.

[witchboy]

Supporting characters are important in grounding the heroes and giving them full lives. Without them they can become hollow fighting machines.
Superman and Batman have the most iconic supporting casts. Wonder Woman really only has Steve Trevor who has any kind of household recognition.
I think casts not sticking around long term weakens the lead character. Much like how Byrne ejected Perez's cast to create his own, and now the Perez cast is forgotten. Cassie has become a character with lasting legacy, but I'd argue that's because Peter David took her on in Young Justice.

[scary harpy]

Supporting characters are important in grounding the heroes and giving them full lives. Without them they can become hollow fighting machines.
Superman and Batman have the most iconic supporting casts. Wonder Woman really only has Steve Trevor who has any kind of household recognition.
I think casts not sticking around long term weakens the lead character. Much like how Byrne ejected Perez's cast to create his own, and now the Perez cast is forgotten. Cassie has become a character with lasting legacy, but I'd argue that's because Peter David took her on in Young Justice.

I agree with every word.

Unfortunately, comics today have around 20(?) pages in 2 issues to tell a story (unless it's an event, crossover, etcetera); there isn't really much space for any supporting characters today. Most of the story is about the hero versus the villain.

[Psy-lock]

Supporting characters are important in grounding the heroes and giving them full lives. Without them they can become hollow fighting machines.
Superman and Batman have the most iconic supporting casts. Wonder Woman really only has Steve Trevor who has any kind of household recognition.
I think casts not sticking around long term weakens the lead character. Much like how Byrne ejected Perez's cast to create his own, and now the Perez cast is forgotten. Cassie has become a character with lasting legacy, but I'd argue that's because Peter David took her on in Young Justice.

I'd argue that Hippolyta (and the Amazons as a whole) is at least equal to Trevor in terms of recognition.

[John Venus]

I'd argue that Hippolyta (and the Amazons as a whole) is at least equal to Trevor in terms of recognition.

Only Hippolyta though. People might recognize the Amazons as a group but might not be able to name individual Amazonian characters like Phillipus or Io.

[Psy-lock]

Only Hippolyta though. People might recognize the Amazons as a group but might not be able to name individual Amazonian characters like Phillipus or Io.

Yeah, but Nubia and Artemis might get close to her level in a few years.

[NathanS]

I agree with every word.

Unfortunately, comics today have around 20(?) pages in 2 issues to tell a story (unless it's an event, crossover, etcetera); there isn't really much space for any supporting characters today. Most of the story is about the hero versus the villain.

There's also been an increase in having heroes mostly interact with other heroes so they are each other's supporting cast. Which tends to leave non-heroes with less and less room, and makes the heroes feel distinct from the average people. Metropolis could be made to feel like a living large place because so many of Superman's supporting cast are just people who can get caught up in things like construction sub-plots or other little things like that. Some of this is the ever-growing Superhero families and decreasing sales meaning you can't give the ever-growing heroes their own books, so you make them big supporting cast members in the main character's book, but that pushes out room for non-heroes. Which I feel hurts everyone. And then of course in the 80s we had the explosion of team books, and those have always mostly not had room for no more than one or at push two non-hero supporting cast members, and that likely influences people who grew up reading those.

If your most influential books growing up were X-Men and New Teen Titans how important are you likely to see non-hero supporting cast members? So when you become a writer how much time are you going to spend cultivating them?

[Frontier]

Supporting characters are important in grounding the heroes and giving them full lives. Without them they can become hollow fighting machines.
Superman and Batman have the most iconic supporting casts. Wonder Woman really only has Steve Trevor who has any kind of household recognition.
I think casts not sticking around long term weakens the lead character. Much like how Byrne ejected Perez's cast to create his own, and now the Perez cast is forgotten. Cassie has become a character with lasting legacy, but I'd argue that's because Peter David took her on in Young Justice.

There's also Etta Candy, although not to the extent of Steve and Hippolyta.

[j9ac9k]

Milligan and Bachalo's "Shade, The Changing Man" was basically about Rac, Lenny and Kathy, but since the book was called "Shade" I guess they'd be called supporting characters. (I forgot the ghost's name, but he was there for a big part of that as well)