text: In 1940 DC Comics introduced comics' first teenage sidekick, Robin the Boy Wonder, created to soften the dark tone of the Batman comics and make the Dark Knight more attractive to younger readers. Robin's instant popularity spawned a host of imitations, including such iconic characters as Bucky, Toro, Sandy the Golden Boy, and Speedy. (Stripesy was the exception to the rule: an adult sidekick to a teen hero, the Star-Spangled Kid. Another unusual sidekick pairing was the Blonde Bomber [a.k.a. Honey Blake], a newsreel camerawoman, chemist, and crime-fighter with a male sidekick named Jimmy Slapso.)
  The prevalence of so many adult male superheroes and their teenage "wards" caused some observers to look askance at the trend. Psychologist Fredric Wertham decided that the phenomenon was a landmine of hidden and repressed Freudian issues, and that a sidekick's participation in violent encounters alongside his hero masked a sexual subtext. In 1954, Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent coincided with Congressional hearings on (among other topics) the negative influence of comic books. For a time, superhero comics lost their popularity, and many teenage sidekicks faded into obscurity. (Rick Veitch's graphic novel Brat Pack, and issues of Alan Moore's Top 10, directly address the seamy, exploitative, and potentially pedophilia-related aspects of the adult hero-teen sidekick relationship.)