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Post by dans on Feb 20, 2023 23:31:28 GMT
I am having some problems with the backstory for my mystery heroes the Volunteer and Raptor and wonder if you guys might have any thoughts that might help me out? It seems to me that a teenage sidekick almost certainly has to live with his or her mentor, and that mentor must have parental responsibility for the sidekick. If they don't live together, they must have some unassailable reason for getting together all the time, so nobody wonders why every night, Duke DuQuesne drops by Ron Watson's house and they go off together, sometimes staying out all night. And what kind of parent would allow their kid to do that?
- Can you guys think of any exceptions, or an circumstances where this might not be the case?
So it seems like I have to kill off Ron's parents, and then put him and Duke into a parental or guardian/ward relationship.
- Any other options you guys see for them always being together and hanging out all night sometimes?
Story set in 1942; being gay lovers probably wouldn't fly.
Finally, motivation - many sidekicks are motivated by the death of their parents. In a lot of cases I can think of, the sidekick's motivation seems to be 'it's fun', or 'it's the right thing to do'. I think there are some cases of hero worship - the sidekick wants to be 'just like the hero'.
- Any other good motivation for being a sidekick come to mind?
Finally... I would like for Raptor to be black. I think this may magnify some of the issues above - in 1942, what would the reaction be to a single white adult male living with a black male teenager?
I've actually come up with a possible backstory while writing the above. Ron Watson was raised in Great Britain, and his family emigrated to the US in the early 40s - and the ship carrying them was sunk by a German submarine. Ron survived to be rescued but his parents didn't. In the US, immigration authorities assigned him to live with a family of relatives who really didn't want him. He ran away and took up life on the streets, joining a street gang for protection. And the relatives never bothered to look for him...
Gotta stop here... are there actually kids who live 'on the street' in big cities?
In 1940, Major Power burst onto the scene, the first famous mystery hero and for many years the most powerful. The most powerful man in the world - and he is black. Ron really wanted to emulate Major Power...
This gives him motivation - he hates the Germans for killing his folks, and he wants to be like Major Power, and it gives him the freedom to live with Duke, but still stuck with the question of them living together?
So, any thoughts would be really appreciated. Thanks!
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Post by dans on Feb 21, 2023 0:13:01 GMT
It seems possible that Ron is employed in some sort of menial position at the school where Duke teaches and everyone assumes he has a home and parents but nobody cares enough about 'that kid we hired as a janitor' to find out more about him, as long as he does the job well. So nobody knows where he lives and nobody cares. But that would be kind of a lonely life, no friends, no relatives, never hanging out with anyone except Duke, and having to be absent when Duke has friends over.
Not really the answer... of course, since he's got a job, he could rent a room with a private entrance somewhere and just rarely go there - or maybe go there every night after work and then sneak out. Maybe there are separate entrances to the Pat Cave (short for 'Patriot Cave' from Ron's rented house and Duke's house?
I'm thinking there are people in the government who know that Duke is the Volunteer and maybe he gets some kind of government sponsorship, such as digging tunnels to the Pat Cave... hey, it IS a comic book.
Still looking for your thoughts about this. Thanks again!
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Post by redsycorax on Feb 21, 2023 0:39:50 GMT
One possible story twist- they're actually related to one another, so the sidekick is the hero's nephew or niece (like the Silver Age Flash and Kid Flash), or parent and child from a failed relationship and divorce, or older and younger brothers, and so on. If it's set in a Northern city, then there might be relatively greater acceptance of an 'interracial' relationship, although Loving v Virginia, which effectively sanctioned such marriages across the United States lies about twenty years in the future.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Feb 21, 2023 1:10:23 GMT
Yes, there are kids who live on the streets in big cities
Tim Drake began as Robin while his father was still alive, but Jack Drake was a pretty neglectful parent
I can think of a few jobs which would allow and man and boy to meet regularly at odd hours. He could be a scout leader, or in some other mentorship role.
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Post by redsycorax on Feb 21, 2023 1:53:17 GMT
Or more to the point, the Newsboy Legion of the forties.
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Post by dans on Feb 21, 2023 14:49:14 GMT
So, you guys have been functioning in the capacity of 'developmental editors' so far, and I appreciate it. After your comments and some more research, here's what I have in mind. It is still not set in stone, I'd like more critical developmental editor thoughts on this, if you would: *** After the Volunteer resolves a couple of very successful spy-related cases related to espionage and infiltration at West Point, US Military Intelligence Service investigates the Volunteer and discovers his Duke DuQuesne secret identity. These cases got a lot of local press, and MIS wasn't sure that stories about espionage at West Point were good for the national morale. Plus, they needed to verify that the Volunteer really was one of the good guys and these cases weren't cover ups or distractions for the real Axis espionage. And they were probably unhappy that a vigilante was doing their work and making them look bad... For a number of reasons (most of them classified, some of which are listed above), MIS decided they want the Volunteer to move and perform his future heroism in New York City. They have discovered his secret identity and make him an offer he can't refuse:
Duke will go to work for the Brooklyn Navy Yard branch of the Office of War Information and move to New York, they already have a house for him just outside the Navy Yard. And the Volunteer will establish himself as the second mystery hero in New York City. (Duke doesn't know this, but the plan is for the government to covertly 'encourage' the media to cover the activities of the Volunteer and raise his public profile as quickly and as high as possible.) (At some point, Duke will begin to become discontented as he realizes that some of what the Office of War Information does involves censorship and propaganda, and also the manipulation of the Volunteer's public image for propaganda purposes, but that is perhaps a year or so in the 'future'...) Shortly after he moves, the Volunteer will be investigating a series of thefts in Harlem by the so-called 'Robin Hood of Harlem' and he will discover that Robin Hood is a homeless black teenager named Ron Watson. He will discern that Ron is really a good guy at heart, and suggests that Ron move to Brooklyn, get a job at the Navy Yard, and take a room at Duke's house. A LOT of people of all ethnicities moved to Brooklyn during WW2 to work for the Brooklyn Navy Yard, so Ron can plausibly get a job there, especially if the Volunteer asks his MIS contact to arrange it. And it seems plausible that Duke might 'let' a couple of rooms to a kid who is working at the Yard. Ron really looks up to Major Power, New York's other mystery hero, and would like to emulate him. He agrees to the suggestion, as long as the Volunteer will take him on as a partner. The Volunteer argues that it is too dangerous; Ron points out that he just fought the Volunteer to a standstill and if it weren't for some bad luck, Ron would have probably won the fight, or it would have at least been a draw. The Volunteer thinks it over - he's never fought a tougher man, and he has fought a number of agents and probably even 1 or two villains with powers by then. He tentatively agrees... And the rest is history!
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Post by dans on Feb 21, 2023 15:05:39 GMT
If Raptor is old enough to get a job and let a room, even during war time, I am going to have to rewrite my published Raptor story a bit to make him more of a partner and less of a sidekick. Oh, well... or maybe I can blame the ubiquitous natural phenomenon the 'plot hole'?
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Post by lawrenceliberty on Feb 21, 2023 15:15:55 GMT
What if Ron can't read and his mentor gets to know him first as a tutor.
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Post by dans on Feb 21, 2023 17:39:27 GMT
What if Ron can't read and his mentor gets to know him first as a tutor. Not sure how to work that into the background I'm developing, but he may not have any marketable skills when he meets the Volunteer and though Duke gets him a job as a janitor in the Navy Yard, he doesn't want to be a janitor all his life. So maybe Duke can tutor him in something...
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Post by dans on Feb 22, 2023 14:29:48 GMT
So I have part of the association between Duke (The Volunteer) Raptor and Ron (Raptor) Watson in place. Duke now owns a home in Brooklyn near the Navy Yard that has separate living quarters and a separate entrance that he will sub-let to Ron. So they can share the same house without raising too many eyebrows.
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Post by dans on Dec 4, 2023 15:40:51 GMT
Thanks for earlier help. So I'm working backward now... got a sidekick name and I need a hero to go along with him. The sidekick is named Buster, the Teenage Fury (for now, at least) and he has to have a southern accent. The time is the 40s, so the hero should have a golden age name. Any thoughts? Thanks! OK, so Teen Fury it is!!
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Post by DocQuantum on Dec 4, 2023 19:17:58 GMT
Thanks for earlier help. So I'm working backward now... got a sidekick name and I need a hero to go along with him. The sidekick is named Buster, the Teenage Fury (for now, at least) and he has to have a southern accent. The time is the 40s, so the hero should have a golden age name. Any thoughts? Thanks! This is just me being picky, but in the 1940s they would have probably used "Teen-Age" since the single word form wasn't used until later. You could also use "Teen Fury" since Harold Teen popularized the short form as early as the 1920s, and in 1945 there were comic-books named KEEN TEENS and TEEN LIFE COMICS AND ADVENTURE, while in 1947 Marvel published TEEN COMICS and ALL TEEN COMICS. It was in the mid-40s on that the teenager/adolescents really began being differentiated in pop culture a bit more.
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Post by redsycorax on Dec 4, 2023 22:10:46 GMT
Although it wasn't until the postwar western boom of the fifties that teenagers became a viable market segment due to their disposable income from reliable, continuous employment and had music, foodstuffs, apparel, vehicles and other commodities marketed at them. Which seems to have occurred to Marvel earlier than it did to DC.
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Post by johnreiter902 on Dec 5, 2023 0:24:09 GMT
How about, the Fighting Fury? sound very golden age to me
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Post by redsycorax on Dec 5, 2023 1:13:38 GMT
Young Fury? Youthful Fury? Furious Youth? Fire and Fury?
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