jayjay isn’t referring to Marvel Comics, but to the “Marvel” family of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, etc. They were originally published by Fawcett (and DC sued over the similarities), but DC eventually got control of ther characters , and began printing its own Captain Marvel comics around 1972, so that Cap ended up in Kingdom Come.
This “Marvel Family” is responsible for characters like “Tawkey Tawney”, a talking Tiger, and Mr. Mind, a super-intelligent worm.
Of course, DC, with Gorilla Grodd, and Detective Chimp, and Comet the Super-Horse can look down on this kind of thing.
Oh. Hah. The sad thing is, I know who Captain Marvel is and knew Uncle Dudley was one of his supporting characters from reading his wikipedia article yesterday before this thread was even posted but I still didn’t make the connection. My brain just automatically equates anything Marvel with the publisher.
Captain Mar-Vell and Ms. Marvel; The Thing’s female counterpart, Ms. Marvel; Wolverine’s female clone, X-23; Spidey had a clone, and the Slingers, and there’s Arana, and Spider-Girl. And couple of different (mostly unrelated) Spider-Women. Captain America has a family of sorts - Bucky, Nomad, Falcon - but at least they’re differently named. The Human Torch had Toro. Namor’s got Namorita.
The Young Avengers had several junior hero types, the most egregious name of the bunch would be Iron Lad.
It’s not as prevalent at Marvel (and neither are sidekicks in general, for that matter.) But it’s there.
The Wonder Twins
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Snapper Carr
The Wonder Twins
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Ed Wheelan’s Minute Movies, an early 1930s Sunday comic re-run in the early DC books. The guy couldn’t draw, letter, or write a story to save his ass. The stuff must have been available for free.
Siegel and Shuster’s Dr. Occult, one of the many grade-C features they turned out before anyone wanted anything to do with Superman. In addition, he probably had the lamest name of any comic hero. (“OCCULT! LOOK OUT!”)
Krypto, the Super-Dog. And, for that matter, every Super-Anything except Superman himself. Yes, I know this will get me flamed, but really, Superman is himself such a silly character, and applying it to animals just seems to be asking for trouble.
Just don’t include Super Turtle in that list. NOBODY filled up the half-page of space above the Palisades Park ad better than Super Turtle!
I’m suprised Bizarro is here. The latest story arc in Superman/Batman featuring Bizarro (and even cooler- Batzarro!) was pretty good. It’d be nice to keep Bizarro in the continuity without him being part of a competition between The Joker and Mr. Mzylptkx (sp?).
I will nominate the Joker’s Earth-2 daughter, The Harlequin, for the bad list.
But they weren’t DC – they were Fawcett. And the Marvel Family were (like most of Captain Marvel) aimed at kids; they were supposed to be cuddly and fun.
A better choice was Egg Fu from Wonder Woman – a stupid concept and racist to boot.
Superman isn’t the only one with stupid pets: other 40s heros had animal sidekicks. Dr. Mid-Nite had an owl (which fit his darkness theme, but was rather impractical and poorly drawn – it was as though it were standing on a branch even in flight). Air Wave had “Static the Proverb Parrot,” who would come up with “a stitch in time saves nine” or whatever was appropriate in the fight.
But nothing holds a candle to Robbie Reed and Dial H for Hero, which featured not just one terribly lame character in each issue, but three of them, all of them stupid (except when he’d occasionally change into an existing hero like Plastic Man). They’ve revived the concept with new people getting the hero dial, but anything would be better than the Robbie Reed version.
I think you have to look at Robbie Reed in the same way you do the Marvel Family - fun stories for a younger audience. They were pretty good in a goofy sort of way.
Now, some of the other characters mentioned were MEANT to be taken “seriously”, but turned out lame.
