The problem with the 90’s sidekicks...

[mathew101281]

They didn’t develop an identity outside of being Supergirl, Superboy, Robin etc. this always placed them in a precarious situation because new creators were always going to come along and want to create their new generation of sidekicks. I’ve always thought that the sidekicks that survived were the ones that were able to evolve into their own identity outside of the sidekick moniker.
Nightwing Red Hood, Arsenal etc. The ones that are to predicated on being the sidekick are the ones that ultimately struggle. In short...

You’re not going to be Robin forever. So you might as well start building some ground work for the character so when they have to give up the mantle, they have something to grow into.

[Primal Slayer]

I can kind of see it but at the same time DC wasnt trying to age the characters that much so if they grew outside of those titles then that means that someone comes to take their place. Even now we are seeing new "sidekicks" come along in those mantles but the 90s sidekicks are still stuck in a timeloop not being allowed to grow up and find an identity.

Cassie/Wonder Girl had a bunch of development and then New52 happened followed by Rebirth where she was de-aged and all of her development is gone. Yara comes along and....what does that mean for Cassie?

Some mantles like Robin...I dont necessarily think that it should be a rotating door? I think after 3 that is enough and it's normal that you'd have at least one who is fine with the mantle and it grows up with them but of course Damien comes along.... But even the, Tim, like Cassie kept getting pushed backwards instead of forwards.

Even BB/Raven arent allowed to grow up that much or leave Teen Titans.

They've just been dealt a bad hand in general.

[babyblob]

I think Tim may be one of the worst handled of all the side kicks sadly. I really love him but I havnt been excited about him for a long time.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

They didn’t develop an identity outside of being Supergirl, Superboy, Robin etc. this always placed them in a precarious situation because new creators were always going to come along and want to create their new generation of sidekicks. I’ve always thought that the sidekicks that survived were the ones that were able to evolve into their own identity outside of the sidekick moniker.
Nightwing Red Hood, Arsenal etc. The ones that are to predicated on being the sidekick are the ones that ultimately struggle. In short...

You’re not going to be Robin forever. So you might as well start building some ground work for the character so when they have to give up the mantle, they have something to grow into.

DC's fixation with keeping the Silver Age peeps forever young hurts the legacies in the long run. Plus the new 52 didn't help matters much by doing a soft reboot and screwing them up even more.

You are missing the forest for the trees.

[Alpha]

Bart Allen got lucky in the sense that he had his own unique mantle as Impulse. They haven't done much wjth him, but it's still a plus.

[9th.]

Bart Allen got lucky in the sense that he had his own unique mantle as Impulse. They haven't done much wjth him, but it's still a plus.

He really did, it's a name he can grow with. It sounds cool all on it's own and doesn't have the word boy,girl, gal, or lad in it.

[thefinalguy]

I was hoping the Young Justice run would've given them their next step but that was a fail. At the very least they deserve new identities outside sidekicks. Tim hasn't been Robin in over a decade, Conner's story at least lamented this, and I'm hoping the upcoming WW event gives Cassie something.

Also pouring one out for those introduced alongside them that have disappeared (Empress, Bunker, Arrowette).

They are really the perfect generation to showcase the late teens/early 20s era of life and they haven't been aged 19 since 2011.

[John Venus]

-Connor was Green Arrow then he got brain damage and lost his archery skills and slowly his relevancy over the years until becoming outright erased.

-Bart Allen had his own codename and even an ongoing title until a certain writer rebooted his personality and turned him into Kid Flash and then he got briefly aged up into the Flash before being unceremoniously killed off then brought back before getting erased in the Nu52 reboot. I haven't kept up with him since.

-Tim Drake started off as the 4th Robin, the 'forever Robin' and the first one to wear pants and managed to support a 100+ issue ongoing. Then his father got killed they tried to turn him into mini-Bruce and put him against Damian Wayne. Then he became Red Robin and for a while he was able to support another ongoing and even the leader of the Outsiders during the Batman Inc. Then that got wiped away with the Nu52 and we got a character who had very little of Tim's own history. Beyond making him bisexual, I have no idea what they are doing with him now.

-Cassie started off as Diana's fangirl turned superhero later the tomboyish leader of the Young Justice team until her personality got rebooted and she became a Connor simp. Then post IC she became less involved in the WW titles and she was stuck endlessly mourning Connor in the Teen Titans book. Then she got rebooted in Nu52 with an origin that had nothing to do with WW at all. It's only relatively recently that Cassie has returned to something resembling her original characterization.


So now, it's got nothing to do with their codenames or 'not growing into their own mantles'. As you can see, even ones who did grow into their own identities haven't had it easy. Their problem, just like all the other DC characters, is mismanagement and victims of ill fated reboots.

[Jabare]

It wasn't a problem until DC brought everyone back from the dead and stopped aging characters.

Some writers can accommodate franchises with a dozen "leading" characters and others can't.

[sunofdarkchild]

This can be said not only for every sidekick who ever existed, but every superhero who ever existed. For decades the idea of Dick Grayson having an identity other than Robin was absurd and not even considered. Barbara Gordon had no identity outside of Batgirl until several years after she was crippled. The idea of developing another identity for them didn't exist until right before it happened, and there was no reason that process couldn't be repeated for other character who aged out of their teenaged identities. Does Clark Kent have an identity outside of being Superman, Barry Allen outside of being the Flash? Why should the 90s characters be held to a standard no other character, sidekick or not, from any other era has ever been held to? The notion would seem to be disproved by Stephanie Brown, the Batgirl who had another identity to fall back on since for most of her history she was the Spoiler, who was still erased and declared 'toxic' because Dan Didio had the same bias against her he had against so many other characters.

Plus many of these characters were not sidekicks. Supergirl and Superboy were independent heroes with their own solos and their own towns to protect who didn't even interact with Superman very much. There was even a plan to have Supergirl graduate to Superwoman and become the mentor of the pre-crisis Supergirl which editorial didn't allow.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I was hoping 5G would just be a 5 year timeskip for the DCU. I would've preferred that instead of the ill-conceived restructuring Didio was going for. That would've benefitted the YJ crew and give them a chance to grow up. I'm more interested in them going through their 20s than redoing high school.

[AJpyro]

-
-Tim Drake started off as the 4th Robin, the 'forever Robin' and the first one to wear pants and managed to support a 100+ issue ongoing. Then his father got killed they tried to turn him into mini-Bruce and put him against Damian Wayne. Then he became Red Robin and for a while he was able to support another ongoing and even the leader of the Outsiders during the Batman Inc. Then that got wiped away with the Nu52 and we got a character who had very little of Tim's own history. Beyond making him bisexual, I have no idea what they are doing with him now.
.

Tim was robin no.3.

Not to mention the stuff unique to TIm got killed over the years. His supporting cast, his ex girlfriend died for a time, his father got kiled in a terribad story for BAtman angst.

Even his attempt at a new identity, Red Robin,was a hand me down from Jason.

[Digifiend]

I think John Venus was thinking of Carrie Kelley when he called Tim the fourth Robin. But Carrie isn't canon, and Tim is indeed #3, with Stephanie Brown being Robin #4.

Cassie/Wonder Girl had a bunch of development and then New52 happened followed by Rebirth where she was de-aged and all of her development is gone. Yara comes along and....what does that mean for Cassie?

Wait and see. Yara's writer has been using Cassie, so there's probably plans for what will become of her once Yara officially becomes Wonder Girl.

[Frontier]

-Cassie started off as Diana's fangirl turned superhero later the tomboyish leader of the Young Justice team until her personality got rebooted and she became a Connor simp. Then post IC she became less involved in the WW titles and she was stuck endlessly mourning Connor in the Teen Titans book. Then she got rebooted in Nu52 with an origin that had nothing to do with WW at all. It's only relatively recently that Cassie has returned to something resembling her original characterization.

Cassie was kind of a Conner simp before that but she just acted more maturely about it...

[AJpyro]

I think John Venus was thinking of Carrie Kelley when he called Tim the fourth Robin. But Carrie isn't canon, and Tim is indeed #3, with Stephanie Brown being Robin #4.

Wait and see. Yara's writer has been using Cassie, so there's probably plans for what will become of her once Yara officially becomes Wonder Girl.

If Yara becomes WG, then Cassie needs a new codename. I guess Donna is just Donna?