Are Sidekicks Back in Vogue?

Last week, Sebastian Stan was cast as Bucky Barnes, Cap's boyish sidekick in the upcoming "Captain America" film, much to the chagrin of much of the fanboy community. A sidekick in a superhero movie? NOOOO, they protest. Sidekicks should be relegated to cartoons and have no place in a "realistic" superhero movie.

But (in the immortal words of Adam West) not so fast! In "Kick Ass," out this week, Hit Girl ( Chloe Moretz) is a brutal, merciless killing machine who happens to be a prepubescent girl playing squire to the Batman-esque Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). She's also immenently likable and her father/daughter relationship with Big Daddy carries most of the film.

So why all the super-sized hate against the tagalongs?

The most infamous cinematic superhero sidekick is most certainly Batman's Boy Wonder Robin, played in Joel Schumacher's "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin" by Chris O'Donnell (and the latter film added Alicia Silverstone's Batgirl to make the Dynamic Duo a Terrible Trifecta), forever sullying the reputations of superpowered second bananas. O'Donnell's Robin was the object of much-deserved righteous indignation, but to assume that he'll be as ill-concieved as he was in Schumacher's films is ridiculous.

But whether you're Rob Schneider in "Judge Dredd" or Richard Pryor in "Superman III," if you find yourself wearing the sidekick's cape, you're probably screwed.

The hatred for assistant heroes is hardly limited to superhero franchises, lest we forget Indiana Jones' two sidekicks, Short Round from "and the Temple of Doom" and Mutt Williams "and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," both hotly vilified by the geek community. That's not to mention Jar Jar Binks or Justin Long's character in "Live Free or Die Hard," or scores of others.

Elizabeth Rappe of Cinematical has an interesting chat with comic book author Justin Gray where they discuss sidekicks and how they can properly translate into film without coming off as trite, lame, or homoerotic cliches. In the article Gray compares comic book sidekicks to their celluloid counterparts, and is convinced (as I am) that in the proper setting sidekicks can be something more cinematically than the chance to market a couple more Halloween costumes or action figures.

Of course, much of the problems with sidekicks narratively is the need to balance the needs of the film's main protagonist vs giving the sidekick a fully-fleshed "B" story. It's a tricky proposition, but if it's tied into the main arc of the film (say, the way Christopher Nolan tied in Harvey Dent's story to the antagonism between Batman and The Joker in "The Dark Knight."

In "Kick Ass," Hit Girl becomes the poster child for properly-used assistant heroes. There's a well-conceived backstory, an appropriate father/daughter relationship, and a decided duality to the character that isn't overstated. As Mindy Macready (yes, that's her name, and no, she doesn't sing country music), she's precocious and cute, but her dad is, while a wholly loving parent, he is something of a stage parent who allows hero training to dominate her life (and has gottenher to love it herself). It's a layered relationship that feels real and brings meaning to the action sequences. You just can't help but think that even though this girl is dispatching thugs with the efficiency of The Punisher, that she's still vulnerable.

The prototype good sidekick character is embodied by R2-D2 and C-3PO, though they actually cancel themselves out, since they fall into the opposite category in the prequels, Donkey in the "Shrek" films, Ron and Hermione in the "Harry Potter" flicks. All of them serve a distinct purpose (to push the protagonist down the narrative path to the film's conclusion while offering moral or physical support), and they all mix specific abilities to help the protagonist while not overshadowing his or her abilities ("Harry Potter" would be pretty crummy, for instance, if Harry was unable to defeat the villain, only for Hermione to sweep in and quickly dispatch the villain). Why can't this translate over to superhero movies?

So why can't this carry over to the Caped Crusader? At least part of it is the fanboy resistance, and Hollywood's occasional gutlessness in going against the grain. Sure we get the occasional odd choice, but anyone could have seen Robert Downey Jr. would have been a good choice for Tony Stark (who not-so-coincidentally adds a sidekick of his own in this summer's "Iron Man 2") or that Heath Ledger would have made a cracking Joker. But a large part of the reason fanboys are so cynical is because we're eager to be surprised. We're so frequently disappointed, subconsciously we figure if we hate everything, we'll be pleasantly surprised at some point, right?

Remember as you all will the collective groan that was emitted from fandom when it was announced that Nolan was rebooting the "Batman" franchise, and the deafening moment of silence when it was announced Heath Ledger would be playing Joker, followed by a million cries of protest. Many of the louder cries have been pleas that Robin remain on the sidelines, but I'm taking another tack: bring him in. Now.

First off, at this point I think we can assume that Nolan essentially knows what he's doing, and that if he chose to include Robin's story he would stage and frame his inclusion appropriately within his 'verse.

It also fits into Nolan's Batman mythos. Throughout the first two films we saw a Batman who didn't exactly grow to embrace his role in Gotham City, and in "The Dark Knight" we saw multiple hints that he was looking for someone to take the mantle.

Done well enough, Robin's story can be a poignant one that fits into the Nolanverse. He doesn't have to be campy or silly, and we don't have to see a young boy or even a gawky teenager beating up villains. As an apprentice, his skills shouldn't be where Batman's are, and we could even take a couple of films to let him get in the Robin suit. Add in the potential for conflict between the heroes, and we have a completely new thrust to the already rich series.

Don't forget that for every bad squire, there are plenty of good ones, and for every superhero film there's the possibility that yes, an atypical plot arc can be handled well even if on the surface it sounds silly or contrived.