Sidekick Glass Ceiling: Difference between revisions

All the reasons why [[Status Quo Is God]] exists apply here, good and bad: To maintain the premise, a [[Authority Equals Asskicking|hero and leader]] needs to be better than the [[Sidekick]], [[What Measure Is a Non Super|civilian]] [[Love Interests]], and pretty much [[Superpower Lottery|all the other good guys]]. The characters may complement each other with different specializations, but the hero, ultimately, has to be tops, or his title is void. Otherwise it'll have to be played for laughs, because the ensemble would be completely unbalanced; you'd end up with an [[Hypercompetent Sidekick|incompetent hero and a bad ass sidekick]] (see [[Duckman]] and hyper-competent Cornfed, or [[Inspector Gadget]] and his niece Penny). Or worse, a [[Sidekick Ex Machina]].

 

 

A few typical situations where the sidekick gets empowered can be:

* In a [[Powers As Programs]] setting like ''[[Smallville]]'' where frakkin' ''everyone'' has gained one of Clark's powers accidentally, or from [[Green Rocks|meteor rocks]], ''or'' crotchety [[Cryptic Conversation|cryptic]] Kryptonians.

 

When this trope is not in use:

 

The more general case, where it doesn't have to be a sidekick, is [[Superpowers for A Day]]. The specific case where a particular sidekick has this happen to them every other issue is [[Superpower Silly Putty]].

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* ''[[Lois and Clark]]'' had Clark drained of his powers by bad guys, who also accidentally gave Lois all his powers for the episode. She even got a costume--with an actual mask; take notes, ''[[Clark Kenting|Clark]]''-- and fights crime as Ultrawoman. There were several other instances of power transfer in the show.

* ''[[Smallville]]'' has often given Lana, Lex, Lois and Pete (damn, ruin[[Heterosexual Life Partners|ed the alliteration]]) super powers, but they're always gone by the end of the episode. Chloe is the only exception, and even then, [[Healing Hands|her costly power]] isn't going to get much use.

** Lex still ''technically'' has a meteor-freak super-strong immune system, which gave him decidedly temporary [[Healing Factor]] when combined with something else.

** In a later season, however, it turns out that Richie's early exposure to Virgil after he was exposed to the Big Bang mutagen has resulted in the latent power of superintelligence. He designs some gadgets and becomes "Gear" just in time to stop the bad guys from figuring out Static's secret identity (ironically discovered because of Static/Virgil's friendship with him in and out of costume). Gear, unlike Push, would continue on as Static's partner.

* During one episode of ''[[Kim Possible]]'' the [[You Suck|sidekick Ron Stoppable]] got this incredible [[I Know Karate|Mystical Monkey Power Kung Fu]] that made him kick ass while having an [[Badass]] [[Battle Aura]]. Yet he forgot about the power before the next episode, so he could stay as the bumbling. It was even [[Lampshade|lampshaded]] when some mooks wondered if he isn't supposed to have this Mystical Monkey Power Kung Fu. Except for in The First Movie and The [[Grand Finale]], where he proved to be more of a hero than Kim Possible...

* In the [[Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog]] episode ''Full Tilt Tails'', Robotnik decides to make his [[Goldfish Poop Gang|Super Special Sonic Search & Smash Squad]] faster via a new super weapon that took years to make- Speedamint gum. It works wonders and during a test drive, Grounder does a full lap of Mobius in record time, but has a crash and loses the gum. Tails comes along and steps in it, making him faster than Sonic. He gets so excited about it that he almost gets run over by a train, ruins a parachute free fall event and almost gets beaten up by a biker. At the end of the episode, he loses the gum and learns a lesson about not being ready for what he wants the most.