Sidekick Graduations Stick: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Yet, take a look at the major characters of [[The DCU]] or the [[Marvel Universe]] today and five or ten years ago. Things will be different, but not ''that'' different, and most of the major changes will seem to have happened recently. The companies that own these characters, like all large corporations, are conservative, and all these dramatic changes have a noticeable tendency to cancel out in the long run. Once a character establishes an iconic status quo, or becomes part of another character's iconic status quo, it can be extremely difficult to change anything major about that character.

 

 

Still, it also seems that negative fan reaction to these changes is also much, much rarer than with the average change. What little of it there is tends to occur [[Legacy Character|when another character's mantle is taken by the graduating sidekick]], with [[Replacement Scrappy|fans of that character being understandably upset at the displacement]], rather than desire to see the sidekick remain a sidekick. When that sort of thing happens, it's most often remedied by simply having the character graduate ''again'', creating their own hero identity and handing the [[Legacy Character]] baton back to its proper holder.

** She's a really unique case. Both the confusion and Donna's subsequent promotion stem partially from the fact that Wonder Girl was originally supposed to be [[Wonder Woman]] as a young girl who occasionally interacted with her adult self via [[Time Travel]]. A writer saw the cover for one of these stories and got confused when he was writing the Teen Titans.

* Borderline exception: Stephanie Brown, the Spoiler, "graduated" to replace Tim Drake as Robin. It lasted only a few issues, and she then returned to being the Spoiler... but only for the [[Bat Family Crossover]] that [[Stuffed Into the Fridge|ended with her death]]. ([[He's Just Hiding|She's Just Hiding]], actually). Now she's graduated again to be the current [[Batgirl]]. As of the post-''[[Flashpoint (comics)|Flashpoint]]'' relaunch, Barbara took the mantle of Batgirl back. Stephanie Brown [[Butt Monkey]] of the Bat Family

** As for the other major Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, she stepped away and gave the role to Stephanie. She was eventually appointed as the "Batman" of Hong Kong, using the code name "Blackbat".

** Though recently Bucky went back to the Winter Soldier codename after [[Not Quite Dead|supposedly dying]] during [[Fear Itself (Comic Book)|Fear Itself]]. He still operates as a hero, and will be getting his own independent on-going series next year.

 

* The current Knight (the "Batman of Britain") is the original Squire. Admittedly, the Knight and Squire hadn't appeared anywhere for about fifty years until this version showed up, so it was less a change in the status quo and more the introduction of a might-as-well-be-new character...

** Similarly, the Ranger of Austalia was killed during his reintroduction, and his sidekick Scout took over. Chief Man-of-Bats' sidekick Little Raven went the more Nightwingy route of creating his own adult identity (Raven Red). Man-of-Bats still tends to call him Little Raven, though.

 

== Literature ==

== Live-Action TV ==

 

** The only reason Rose Tyler isn't holding down the fort in modern-day Earth is because she's doing the same on a parallel version thereof. Mickey did it as well during series 2, though he eventually moved back to his own Earth. (In fact, there was originally supposed to be a Rose Tyler-based spinoff called ''Rose Tyler: Earth Defence,'' which got pretty far into pre-production before being cancelled by Russel T. Davies on the grounds that a spin-off would kill the emotional impact of her departure in ''Doomsday.'' Between what information we know and how she appeared in later episodes like ''Turn Left,'' it appeared to be something of a proto-''Torchwood.''

** This seems to happen to everyone the Doctor takes on as a companion in the new series; they all grow from their time with him and become heroic alien-fighters in their own right. {{spoiler|Except Donna. Poor, poor, Donna. Although even she qualified, before she got her memory wiped.}} Davros brought this up during the season four finale, although he put a rather dark spin on it.

* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'', just like in the comics, Dick Grayson leaves the mantle of Robin to become Nightwing.

** Barbara Gordon going from Batgirl to [[Batman Beyond|Police Commissioner]] could count too.

** As of season two, Robin is now Nightwing, with Tim Drake taking up the Robin identity.