‘We prefer protégé’: The temporal function of sidekicks in Young Justice and Titans

Abstract

Over the past four decades, since the transition of Robin into the Nightwing superhero persona in DC’s Tales of the Teen Titans #44 (July 1984), sidekick characters have become increasingly relevant in their narrative function for DC’s overall superhero storytelling and world-building strategies. By examining the comic book and television narratives across Teen Titans and Young Justice titles, this article argues for a critical examination in how sidekicks mature into independent superheroes and how this impacts the broader storytelling paradigm for DC and their related media. The animated Young Justice and live-action Titans series highlight the progression in a sidekick’s temporal function, guiding not only their own maturation into independent superheroes but also the overall evolution of the superhero storytelling genre, allowing the passage of time, the inevitable death of the superhero and the renaissance of the sidekick-turned-superhero.