Where Comicbook Sidekicks Came From

For Christmas my son Adam gave me this big thick book, THE MARVEL VAULT which tells all about the birth and growth of Marvel Comic books.

It is very interested and I am very slowly reading and appreciating it like a good cigar. I thought cigars were suppose to explode in your face?

Today I read why super heroes have/had sidekicks. Artists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were doing Captain America for Marvel comics and they decided he needed a young sidekick – otherwise, Joe Simon said, “Captain America would have to talk to himself all the time.”

Now you know.

Captain America’s sidekick Bucky was born as a short little teenager-looking person.

Eventually Simon and Kirby left over a profit sharing dispute and that meant Martin Goodman had to find a new editor. He picked his cousin, who was an 18 year old staff member, Stan Lieber, whose made his pen name “Stan Lee”.

And now you know more.