by Bart King
Q. Should I train a backup sidekick in case my regular one gets ill?
A. Yes. In superhero circles, this substitute is known as a “side-sick.”
Q. My sidekick wants a promotion. How do I deal with this?
A. This is the biggest drawback for a sidekick—being stuck in a dead-end job! The only way a sidekick can get promoted is if you die or retire. (See the problem?)
Q. Won’t supervillains try to kidnap my sidekick to hold as a hostage?
A. Yes. That’s why you shouldn’t get emotionally attached to your sidekick. You may have to hire another one!
Q. Being a sidekick sounds pretty hard. How do I get anyone to take the job?
A. Are you kidding? Sidekicks lead a life of fame and glamor! Batman’s creator, Bob Kane, said, “Every kid would like to be Robin...a laughing daredevil, free, no school, no homework, living in a mansion above the Batcave, riding in the Batmobile. It appealed to the imagination of every kid in the world.”[32]
Anyway, it’s true that sidekicks have lots of chores. But they also have way less responsibility than superheroes.
Weird Moments in Sidekick History! 1. Kato is the Green Hornet’s sidekick. This martial arts expert was originally Japanese. But after World War II started, Kato mysteriously became a Filipino!
2. Speedy was Green Arrow’s sidekick. In 1971, Speedy surprised everyone by becoming a drug addict. (After his sidekick shot up heroin, Green Arrow exclaimed, “My ward is a junkie!”)
Q. Who’s your favorite sidekick?
A. My choice is a sweet little old woman named Auntie May. As Peter Parker’s aunt, she somehow became Spider-Man’s sidekick. This is weird because Auntie May was really old and really unhealthy. For more than thirty years she always seemed to be in a hospital bed or a wheelchair. So Auntie May’s superpower was the ability to stand at death’s door without actually going in.
Best Quote: Hanging out in a coffee bar, Auntie May told her friend, “Cool it, sweetie! We don’t want those cats to dig that we’re hippies!”
But Auntie May had her adventures. For example, there was that time she needed a blood transfusion. So her nephew donated his blood. Bad move! His beloved Auntie Mae got radiation poisoning from Spider-Man’s blood cells.
I told you she was always sick. Anyway, enough of this sidekick lore. It’s time to play...
Superhero Activity
Sidekick Mania!
Supplies: Eight or more people, a big area to run around in.
Choose one person to be the sidekick and one person to be the superhero. All the other players should pair off and link arms. (If you have an odd number of people, have one group of three people linking arms.)
The game starts with the superhero and the sidekick on opposite sides of the people in pairs. The sidekick wants to tag the superhero—and the superhero wants to avoid being tagged!
When the sidekick is ready, she says, “Shazam!” or some other cool word. And the race is on! To avoid being caught, the superhero can run to a pair of players and link arms with one of them. When he does, the player on the other side of the pair is the new superhero! Now he must run away from the sidekick.
If the sidekick successfully tags a superhero, then they reverse roles. (Or the successful sidekick can choose to trade places with any other player.)
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[31] Cat-Man stopped fighting crime after he found a “claws” in his superhero contract.
[32] Hey, what if Jessica Biel had a son and named him “Batmo”? (Think about it!)
Animal Superheroes!
Animal Superpowers
Let’s face it, human sidekicks can be a total hassle. Instead of training, they’re uploading selfies to their Web sites and showing off to their friends. (This explains why Spider-Man ditched his sidekick, Alpha, so quickly!)
And maybe that’s why Superman has hung out with so many fine, furry friends! Below are some of them. See if you can spot the one I made up.
Streaky the Super-Cat
Beppo the Super-Monkey
Hamish the Super-Hamster
Krypto the Super-Dog
Comet the Super-Horse
Did you see through that question with X-ray vision? (Check out the answer below.[33])
In the “real” world, lots of animals already have superpowers. For instance, did you know a naked mole rat can chew through concrete? And then there’s a dog’s supersmelling, a cheetah’s lightning speed, and a chinchilla’s ability to...chinch. Now, here are—
The Eight Greatest Animal Superpowers!
Invulnerability! One animal just can’t be destroyed. It’s the water bear (a.k.a. “moss piglet”). This small invertebrate is found from the deepest oceans to the highest mountains. Water bears are at the North Pole and the equator. They can survive in hot springs at 300°F, or in the iciness of absolute zero.
Water bears can survive ten years without water. They can survive being in outer space without a spacesuit. Oh, and they can survive 1,000 times more radiation than most animals—including humans.
The water bear is indestructible! (And amazingly, it’s sort of cute, too.)
Superpunch! Nothing on Earth comes close to punching as hard or fast as the peacock mantis shrimp. This colorful little animal has arms like hammers! And when the peacock mantis shrimp sees something it doesn’t like, it punches it.
The shrimp developed its underwater punching ability to break the hard shells of mollusks, its main food. First, the shrimp’s arm rockets forward almost as fast as a speeding bullet! At that speed, a bubble of air forms around the arm. When the blow lands, the bubble collapses and creates a powerful shock wave. And this shock wave is so strong, the peacock mantis shrimp can break out of an aquarium!
Superstrength! The strongest animal can easily pull well over 1,000 times its own body weight. If you were that strong, you could pull six school buses at once. So is the strongest animal an ox? An elephant? A really buff Chihuahua?
No. It’s the dung beetle! As you may know, dung beetles are beetles. Beetles that like to eat dung.
“What’s dung?” you ask? Well, let’s put it this way:
Dung = Poop
So the world’s superstrongest animal eats...poop. This might make you think that eating poop will give you superstrength. (If so, good luck with that!)
Shape-Shifting! The amazing Indonesian mimic octopus can change color more quickly than a chameleon. And it can also change its shape and behavior.
So this octopus can undulate on the ocean floor like a flounder. Or it might spread its tentacles to look like the spiny (and venomous) lionfish. The Indonesian mimic octopus’s best trick might be sneaking into a hole, where it makes one of it’s tentacles striped. Then the octopus sticks the striped tentacle back out of the hole. And fish swim away in fear, because that tentacle looks like a poisonous sea snake!
Regeneration! If you lost your arm in a superhero accident, all you’d have left is a stump. Bummer! But if you had the superpowers of a newt, you could just grow a whole new arm back. And the arm would have complete muscles, nerves, bones, and skin. Amazing!
The regeneration superstar in this category is the axolotl. It’s a Mexican salamander that can regrow its tails, legs, and even parts of its heart, spinal cord, and brain.
Superclimbing! Spider-Man got his wall-crawling skills from a radioactive spider. But the best wall-crawler in the animal kingdom is the little lizard known as the gecko. The gecko’s feet are covered in tiny hair-like structures. These hairs act almost like one-way Velcro—anything they touch, they stick to!
As a result, a gecko can climb almost anywhere—including upside down on polished glass. In fact, a gecko can even hang its whole body weight from just one toe on a wall! (Let’s see Spider-Man do that.)
Iron Armor! At the bottom of the Indian Ocean, there’s a big mollusk named the scaly-foot gastropod. It’s unique because most shellfish have shells made of calcium. But the outer layer of the scaly-foot gastropod’s shell is made from iro
n. This makes the iron-armored mollusk safe from attacks by fish—and even most humans!
Electrical Power! There’s a type of knifefish with some very special organs in its body. Each of these organs holds thousands of cells that can generate electrical “sparks.” And if the knifefish combines all those cells together, it can make 600 volts of electricity. That’s enough to kill a human!
And that’s how this knifefish got its nickname—the “electric eel.”
Of course, there are more superanimals, but you get the idea.
Most of our superheroes use powers inspired by the animal kingdom! And sometimes superheroes even get their powers directly from animals. For example, the superhero called the Black Condor. See, as a young boy, he was raised by supersmart giant condors in Mongolia. By watching the huge birds, the Black Condor learned to fly himself.
Hmmm. Now that I think about it, that seems a little unrealistic.
Some superheroes even have animal parts. Take Speed Centaur. He has the upper body of a man and the lower body of a horse. (“Look at how fast that superhero gallops!”) It would have been weird if Speed Centaur’s top half was a horse. (“Look at how fast that superhero eats apples!”)
Marvel Tails was a comic book with animals taking the place of famous superheroes. So after a pig named Peter Porker got superpowers, he became Spider-Ham. Other heroes included Captain Americat, the Fantastic Fur, the X-Bugs, and Goose Rider.
The Greatest Animal Superheroes
There are so many animal superheroes, where should I start? With Atomic Bunny, of course. After eating his radioactive Carrot Cubes, Atomic Bunny gets superstrength—and he can use his rabbit ears like hands!
Batman and Robin also worked with a great animal superhero. It started when the Dynamic Duo pulled a drowning dog from a river. Batman decided it could be helpful in collaring criminals. So the dog got a mask and a new name: Ace the Bat-Hound.
You may be wondering why a dog needed to wear a mask to keep his identity a secret. I can answer that in one word: cats.
As for Superman, he had a pet named Krypto the Super-Dog. (And Lex Luthor even had his own hound, named Destructo.) Krypto went on to lead the SCPA. You know, the Space Canine Patrol Agents? They were a group of superhero dogs with amazing powers.
See if you can match up the superhero dog with its abilities! (See answers below.[34])
1. Tusky Husky a. Used his tail like a lariat
2. Tail Terrier b. Can turn into any animal you’d like
3. Bull Dog c. Can tell the future
4. Prophetic Pup d. Could grow a long tusk
5. Hot Dog e. This dog could grow horns
6. Paw Pooch f. Grows legs
7. Chameleon Collie g. Gets hot
Does this seem goofy to you? Please! The SCPA fought many important battles against evil gangs like the Cat Crime Club. Oh, and I almost forgot! The SCPA had a battle cry that went like this:
“Big dog! Big dog! Bow wow wow!”
Okay, maybe that’s a little goofy.
* * *
[33] Yes, the fake sidekick is Hamish the Super-Hamster.
[34] Answers: 1. d; 2. a; 3. e; 4. c; 5. g; 6. f; 7. b.
Secret Lairs!
Where do you work on your top secret superhero activities like [deleted], [censored], or [redacted]? That’s right, your Secret Lair. What? You don’t have a hidden headquarters? Then now’s the time to get one.
Location is very important when setting up your Secret Lair. For starters, it should be in a spot where your parents can’t find you. That means the best places are hidden caves, castles, abandoned warehouses, or active volcanoes.
Pop Quiz
Geography!
The address of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning is...
8149 Germone Road, Sebastopol, California
fictional
1407 Graymalkin Lane, Salem Center, New York
So which is the right answer? Sorry, I’m not authorized to tell you that.
But in a pinch, tree houses or even your own bedroom can also work. Of course, if you’re in your own room, evildoers like your sister will know where you are. So make up for this by making your Secret Lair superawesome!
Six Ways to Customize Your Secret Lair
Make It Sound Good: Never again call it your “bedroom.” Please! From now on, this is your Inner Sanctum, your Danger Room, your Secret Headquarters, or your Fortress of Solitude.
Secret Lair Hall of Fame: Lex Luthor calls his secret hideout the Nefarium. That’s where he keeps statues of his heroes, like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, and Al Capone.
Decoration: Your Secret Lair should reflect your own personality. So maybe you’ll set up a trophy case. Or you might activate a giant hologram of yourself looking superhero-ey.
Ooh, and here’s a great way to add some action to your walls—
Secret Lair Activity
Shadow Catcher!
Supplies: Glow-in-the-dark paint, portable lights, brushes/rollers, colored pencils or markers (like Sharpies).
Shadow-catching is a superpower that’ll make your Secret Lair kick. Here’s how to do it:
Paint a wall of your room with glow-in-the-dark paint.
After the paint dries, bring in some portable lights, like floor lamps. Then get in a fighting or flying pose and stand next to the wall.
Have your sidekick turn on all the lights in the room. If possible, concentrate the glare on you while you hold your pose. (You may want to flash the lights for the best effect.)
After a while, turn out all the lights and turn around. You should be able to see your own shadow, captured in the paint!
If you want, outline the shadow with your pencil or marker. Then do this with someone else and capture her shadow too!
Equipment: Be sure to stock up on superhero supplies. And keep them within easy reach!
Hiding Places: You need good hiding places to stash your secret [deleted]. So choose these spots wisely!
Hiding Spots!
Of course, the best hiding place for your stuff is on another planet or in a different dimension. (Write to me for instructions on how to access these resources.)
I have a question! Superheroes always live in big cities. Some are fictional, like Metropolis and Gotham City. Others are real, like Los Angeles and New York. But why aren’t there any superheroes in little cities, like Cleveland? Or small towns? Or the country? Our woods and farms need superheroes too!
Defense: Your enemies may get into your Secret Lair someday. By putting a fort or “safe room” inside it, you’ll have a safe place to hide.
Your bed, chairs, or dresser can all be used in your fort’s construction. Building below or on top of tables is always fun. And good props include big pillows, sheets, blankets, cardboard boxes, and even giant blocks.
Sidekick Trouble: If your trusty companion doesn’t like the nice fort you made, try using a kennel or large dog crate.
Two more small details. First, I recommend reinforcing the walls of your Secret Lair with five feet of steel-reinforced concrete. (Don’t worry, your parents will understand.) Oh, and make sure to build a landing pad for your jet.
Whew! That was a lot of work. After spending all that time getting your Secret Lair just right, you need to get away from it. Seriously, you need a breath of fresh air! So head out and...
Superpower Activity
Gaze Into Infinity!
Supplies: Stars.
Sleeping outside under a starry sky is an important step in your superhero education. That’s because gazing off into infinity allows you to think big superhero thoughts.
Sleeping outside will improve your chances of contacting aliens from another world. Plus, if you’re really lucky, you might see a meteor shower!
It’s also possible that your city may sponsor nighttime campouts. But however you go about it, unlocking the mysteries of the universe is a great way to unwind at the end of the day.
Optional: Get up early and watch the sun rise. (Of cour
se, you’ll need all of your superpowers just to get out of your sleeping bag.)
I guess it’s time to end this chapter on Secret Lairs. But I have the strange feeling that I’m forgetting something important...
The Five Coolest Secret Lairs!
5. The Batcave: It’s big, it’s dark, and it has room for a giant crime laboratory. On the downside, dampness can be a problem.
4. The Justice League Satellite: This is where the Justice League of America hangs. Of course, it is orbiting the planet, which makes it a little hard to get to.
3. The X-Mansion: Not only do you get your own private room here, you can also work out in the Danger Room!
2. The Fortress of Solitude: Do you know what’s cool about Superman’s arctic hideout? It’s a fortress. Plus, you can get some good solitude there.
