Rick Jones
Despite the fact that he excelled at writing teen melodrama, Stan Lee hated sidekicks. Yet, he couldn’t help but create a teen companion to basically all of the 1960s Marvel heroes. In Incredible Hulk #1 (1962), Bruce Banner runs into a gamma bomb testing site after finding a teenager joyriding in the area, resulting in his exposure to the radiation that makes him into the Hulk. That teen is Rick Jones, who spends a few years paling around with Hulk, later becomes the new Bucky for Captain America, and even serves as the human host for the Genis-Vell Captain Marvel. As much as he was intended to be a rejoinder to Robin’s ilk, Rick Jones ended up being an update on the concept, a young person who gets to live the dream of hanging around with superheroes.
Kid Flash
Wally West lives the dream of every teen sidekick. From his first appearance in 1959’s The Flash #110, by John Broome and Carmine Infantino, through the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986, Wally was Kid Flash, a teen who had an accident similar to that of his uncle, Barry Allen, and also gained superspeed. However, when Barry died in the Crisis, Wally got to move up to the big leagues, continuing a maturation story that has turned him into easily one of the best characters in the DCU. Since Wally became Flash, a few others have taken on the Kid Flash mantle, but it has never worked as well. Bart Allen, Barry’s grandson from the future, works best as the non-affiliated Impulse, and Ace West, an alternate reality Wally based on Keiynan Lonsdale from the Arrowverse, has not yet found his own voice.
Kid Miracleman
Johnny Bates a.k.a. Kid Miracleman began life in 1955 as Kid Marvelman, the young sidekick of a Captain Marvel rip-off called Marvelman. Like Marvelman and Captain Marvel (and Captain Marvel Jr.), Kid Miracleman gained powers when he shouted the magic word. Marvelman long fell dormant until 1982, when Alan Moore revived the heroes, now called Miracleman and Kid Miracleman, for one of his first superhero deconstructions.
In Moore’s telling, Kid Miracleman decided to stop reverting to human form at age 13, and went through puberty and young adulthood in the body of a powerful grown man. That experience warped his sensibility, turning him into an unstoppable killer who can only be thwarted by the original Miracleman. It’s a dark, depressing story, but Kid Miracleman’s tale shows that the teen sidekick concept can be taken in different ways.
Cheeks the Toy Wonder
Talk to most people about superhero deconstructions of the 1980s, and they’ll bring up bleak and serious works by the likes of Alan Moore and Frank Miller. Yet, there was space for lighthearted explorations too, as demonstrated by the two Ambush Bug miniseries by Keith Giffen. Like Deadpool would do later and worse, Ambush Bug, the teleporter born Irwin Schwab, knows he’s in a comic book and understands ridiculous comic book tropes. However, rather than get snarky about them, he embraces them, and even gets his own sidekick in 1985’s Ambush Bug #1. Cheeks the Toy Wonder might just be a doll that someone left in a dumpster, but to Ambush Bug, he’s got the heart of a hero.
Jubilee
As we’ve seen, Marvel heroes don’t really lend themselves to teen sidekicks. That’s especially true of the X-Men, who are often young adults themselves. However, with the introduction of 13-year-old Kitty Pryde, writers soon realized that Wolverine pairs well with a young girl. Shortly after Kitty left the team, Wolverine gained his best sidekick, Jubilation Lee or, simply, Jubilee. A spunky mall rat with the power to create bright lights, Jubilee pairs perfectly with the sullen Wolverine, reminding readers that Logan is the best at what he does, and what he does is be a supportive big brother to young women.