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The Importance of The Teen Sidekick
by Michael Condon and David R Black
1) What is Lagoon Boy's superpower? Other than being able to breath both air and water, which seems to be standard operating procedure for any undersea characters that appears for more than five panels.
a) He can increase his size like a puffer fish.
b) He can emit a high pressure burst of water from his mouth like an archer fish. A much greater volume of water than could ever fit within his body's volume.
c) He could emit electric blasts like his electric eel ancestors.
d) His coral like skin makes him bulletproof and explosion resistant and allows him to tear through tank armor.
2) A few years ago, in the Sins of Youth storyline, a villain turned the teen heroes of the DC Universe into adults, the adult heroes into teens and the senior citizen (can't believe I'm even writing this phrase) heroes into pre-teens. Who was the villain?
a) The Time Trapper.
b) Chronos.
c) Klarion the Witch Boy.
d) Mordru.
3) Teen heroes have problems their adult peers don't even consider. Robin once found his secret identity endangered when his school went on a class trip and encountered a school that employed this hero's secret identity as a teacher. Which one?
a) Guy Gardner, Warrior.
b) Ice.
c) Huntress.
d) Black Lightning.
4) Let's go old school. What event caused Superboy to leave the Legion of Superheroes at the same time his name was removed from the book that chronicled their adventures? The book had been Superboy until around #250, and was called Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes for roughly another fifty issues until the ingrates took over.
a) Spending extended periods of time in the future and returning five minutes after he left he was causing him to age much more rapidly than his Smallville peers. He was beginning to look older and he found himself outgrowing both his Smallville and Legion friends.
b) One of the Legion's many enemies revealed that Superboy's taking his foster parents on a vacation to pirate times exposed them to a disease unknown to modern medicine thus killing them. He gave up extended travel into the future to avoid other horrible revelations.
c) He believed that he was losing touch with ordinary people due to his extended visits in the future surrounded by other superheroes. In later life he admits that his detached attitude towards even his closest human friends (as shown by his superior attitude in the Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen comics) was a side effect of these early experiences.
d) The Time Trapper closed off a two year period of time from Superboy in an attempt to keep him from interfering. By the time Superboy was able to return he felt little chemistry with his friends, although he still remembers them fondly.
5) Let's go really old school. You should all know that Robin is DC's first teen sidekick. But which of the following comes next chronologically. (Note I'm not saying who was the second teen sidekick because for all I know Kid Lightning could have co-starred in Flash comics #3.)
a) Sandy the Golden Boy.
b) Stuff the Chinatown Kid.
c) Aqualad.
d) Speedy.
6) Wonder Girl was not always Donna Troy. What was the first incarnation of Wonder Girl?
a) She was the daughter of Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor who had her adventures in an undefined future. It was recent enough for Steve Trevor to be alive, although old, but far enough in the future for laser blasters to be standard equipment for crooks and for Paradise Island to have had an impact on American technology and culture.
b) Supergirl, Kara Zor-El, was named Wonder Girl in her first three appearances.
c) She was a 21 st century descendent of Wonder Woman and a member of the Legion of Superheroes. She was romantically interested in the time travelling Superboy. When Otto Binder became editor of the Legion stories he moved the time period from the 21st to the 30th century, and dropped Wonder Girl without any explanation.
d) The character was supposed to portray Wonder Woman's adventures when she was a girl.
7) What was Wendy and Marvin's connection to the Superfriends?
a) Wendy was the niece of Harvey Harris the man who taught Bruce Wayne how to be Batman. Marvin was the son of Diana Prince, the woman who sold her identity to Wonder Woman the Amazon could have a secret identity.
b) Wendy is the daughter of the Crimson Avenger, who is first superhero in the Superfriendsverse. Marvin is her best friend and is just along for the ride.
c) They happen to live across the street from the Hall of Justice and became unofficial mascots through their always being underfoot.
d). Marvin is the son of Captain Ebenezeer Green, the first surface man to welcome Aquaman. Wendy is the younger sister of Stephanie Grant, a reporter at the Daily Planet.
8) Which Superhero had his younger brother as a teen age side kick? This one is really obscure. The character only appeared once and doesn't exist post-Crisis.
a) Creeper.
b) Martian Manhunter.
c) Metamorpho.
d) Black Lightning.
9) Just about every hero seems to have a teen sidekick. Which teen hero had an incorporeal old man as a sidekick?
a) Secret.
b) Apparition.
c) Firestorm.
d) Kaliber.
10) Who took over of the rave after Kindred Marx left?
a) Sparx.
b) Hero.
c) Booster Gold.
d) Aura.
11) According to the biographies section of DCU the Next Generation, who has the eye popping stats of being six foot four and only 40 lbs. Any other character and I would have assumed that it was a typo, but with this one I'm not too sure. Which one?
a) Secret.
b) Offspring.
c) Prysm.
d) Legion.
12) Most of the members of the Teen Titans Team lead by the Atom had a common origin. What was it?
a) They were human-alien cross breeds that were raised by their human mothers but were intended to serve as soldiers for the invading H'San Natall aliens.
b) Their were injected in utero with an experimental drug.
c) They were students on a field trip when the dominator's gene bomb exploded nearby.
d) They all had their metagene activated by having their spinal fluids drained by enormous alien invaders.
13) The "J. J." in J.J. Thunder stands for what?
a) Jonathan James
b) Jakeem Jonathan
c) Jonathan Joseph
d) Jakeem Jeremiah
14) Courtney (the Star Spangled Kid) Whitmore's best friend in Blue Valley is?
a) Cindy Burman
b) Travis Thomas
c) Mary Kramer
d) Josh Hamman
15) Wendy Jones, a teenaged member of the Masters of the Disaster, reformed and became a heroine. What was her code name?
a) Halo
b) Element Lass
c) Night Girl
d) Windfall
16) This teen pilots the Forever People's supercycle:
a) Beautiful Dreamer
b) Big Bear
c) Serifan
d) Mark Moonrider
17) Who does Amy Winston become when she travels to Gemworld?
a) Amethyst
b) Fire Jade
c) Star Sapphire
d) Citrina
18) After Robbie Reed's superhero career came to an end, two teens continued to Dial H for Hero. Who were they?
a) Sandra Reed and Sarah Reed, Robbie's twin sisters
b) Cindy Burman and Josh Hamman
c) Nick Reed and Ralph Benem
d) Victoria Grant and Christopher King
19) The villainous Dr. Light suffered his most humiliating defeat at the hands of what group of pre-teen adventurers?
a) Sugar & Spike
b) Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys
c) The Boy Commandos
d) The Junior Justice League
20) Nura Nal would know the answer to this question before reading it. Do you know who she is?
a) Psimon
b) Saturn Girl
c) Dream Girl
d) The White Witch
21) Razorsharp and Hackrat are two members of which teenaged group?
a) The Psyba Rats
b) The Teen Titans
c) The Legion of Super Heroes
d) The "Fatal Error" Five
22) Shiv, a member of the Injustice Society, is the teenaged daughter of a World War II villain. Who is Shiv's father?
a) Zyklon
b) Kung
c) Baron Blitzkrieg
d) The Dragon King
23) This renowned pilot was still a teen when he formed All-American Aviation Company. He later went on to join the US Army Air Corps in WW II. Who was he?
a) Captain X
b) Hop Harrigan
c) Steve Savage
d) Carl Ferris, father of Carol Ferris (Hal Jordan's girlfriend)
24) Teenager Charley Parker took his winged costume west and joined the Titans as?
a) Golden Eagle
b) Bumblebee
c) Flame Bird
d) Azrael I
25) If an irate inhabitant of the 5th dimension puts a curse on you, you could end up like which member of the Substitute Heroes?
a) Polar Boy
b) Color Kid / Color Queen
c) Porcupine Pete
d) Double Header
26) By using her imagination, which young lady transforms into the current Promethea?
a) Danielle Silverson
b) Sophie Bangs
c) Barbara Shelley
d) Jackie Faust
27) You'll find which former teen "mascot" and member of the Blasters at the Mad Yak Cafe?
a) Snapper Carr
b) Rex the Wonder Dog
c) Johnny Thunder
d) Ace the Bat-Hound
Answers
1) A In his first appearance he merely had the ability to increase his volume, not his weight or strength. His power may be similar to Colossal Boy's now. Or like many superpowers, its nature may fluctuate depending on the writer's whim.
2) C The Time Trapper and Mordru have been known to play with their foes' ages and Chronos avoided the accelerated aging that was a side effect of time travel by forcing teenagers and young children, like Lori Morning to absorb the excess chronal radiation.
3) C. Guy Gardner and Black Lightning have worked in education, but not in Gotham
4) B. He later rejoined when Saturn Girl erased the memory of the Kent's death. He rarely visited the Legion's time after that. He mainly appeared for special occasions such as Karate Kid's and Princess Projectra's wedding, and the battle against Darkseid, a storyline that brought in just about every Legion ally. I had to change the wording of the of the question, I first had asked about the first time Superboy had left the Legion, as opposed to any reasons shown in adult Legion tales or related to Superboy's being a creation of the Time Trapper. Nicolas Juzda wrote to tell me that Superboy first resigned from the Legion to comply with a 30th century tax law that would have forced the Legion to pay taxes if their membership rose above 25. So they kept Matter eater lad or Bouncing Boy or someone similar and let possibly their strongest member go. (He seemed more effective than either Mon El or Wildfire.) How much could their taxes be? They had a member who could easily create ten tons of gold, diamonds or inerton depending on what will be valued.
5) D. Speedy first appeared in More Fun Comics #73, which was also Aquaman's first appearance. The issue is dated Nov. 1941 so he narrowly beats Sandman's partner Sandy who first appeared in Adventure Comics #69 dated Dec. 1941. Next comes modern cowboy mystery man Vigilante's sidekick Stuff who first appeared in Action Comics #45, dated Feb. 1942. Bringing up the rear is Aqualad who debuted in Adventure Comics #269, dated Feb. 1960.
6) D The teenaged princess Diana stories worked out OK until a writer started having Wonder Woman and her teen self team up in the present, necessitating a new origin for Wonder Girl. Don't even get me started on Wonder tot.
7) A
8) B You know, I am just completely stunned by what my research turned up. I was going to make a wisecrack about the character's name not being Me'l E'ffic and moving on. But I was curious about the character's name. I performed an advanced Hotbot search looking for the separate phrases Martian Manhunter and younger brother and got fifty matches. The Internet is a frightening place people. Not all of the articles deal with J'onn's younger brother. One was a Fanzing article written by Michael Hutchison on retcons, Retcons Revisited. He mentions the Martian Manhunter and refers to Ocean Master as Aquaman's younger brother. Darkmark (another Fanzing contributor) gives the full story on his J'onn J'onzz Manhunter from Mars index. The character's name is T'omm J'onzz. What's new pussycat! However, as the character first appeared in 1961, three years before the singer's first album and two years before the movie starring Albert Finney. Then again he did appear two centuries after the novel that served as the namesake for both the singer and the movie. According to the index, the character was even more obscure than I realized. I thought the character appeared a few times in World's Finest in the early 70's. Instead, he only appeared in Detective # 287.
9) C. You know, I was going to include Kid Eternity as a choice, but I'm not sure whether Mr. Keeper had a solid body or not. So there are possibly two teen heroes with incorporeal old men as sidekicks. Teen aged Ron Raymond became Firestorm when he and physicist Martin Stein were fused into one being by an explosion in a nuclear reactor. Since Martin Stein was unconscious during the explosion, Ron Raymond controlled the body and Stein was a ghostly head in the background who was as annoying as C3PO at a Hell's Angel convention. Kaliber was able to sense Half-Life's spirit when the deformed hero died, and let that spirit act as his eyes in a battle, but Half-Life's spirit went on to his final reward after that battle. Interestingly enough, Half-Life although physically a teenager was chronologically a man in his 50's as the process that gave him his powers also prevented him from aging.
10) D
11) C. As she was an energy being she wasn't tied to the rules that we meat puppets follow. Then again why does she have a weight of 40 lbs? Secret's constituent gases probably weighs at most a pound, but she's shown as being about five feet tall. Offspring was Plastic Man's son who appeared in the future timeline Elseworlds the Kingdom. His height is variable, but his weight is probably close to his dad's 180 pounds. Hey, I think I have a question for next month's quiz. Marvel's Legion was Charles Xavier's bizarre looking illegitimate son. Couldn't find my handbook of the Marvel Universe, but I think he was something like six foot five and ninety pounds. He's best known for traveling back in time in an attempt to kill Magneto before he became a super-villain and wound up killing his father before he was conceived and caused a time paradox that ushered in the four month long X Men storyline known as the Age of Apocalypse.
12) A. Item B. was the origin for Infinity Incorporated foes Helix, whose most famous member is Mr. Bones. D was the origin of the New Blood heroes. By the way, was anyone else annoyed by those aliens being called parasites? Parasites usually allow their host to live for some period of time after infestation. These guys killed most of their prey instantaneously. That's a predator in my book.
13) B. Jakeem Jonathan. This was revealed in JSA #29
14) C. Mary Kramer
15) D. Windfall became a member of the Outsiders.
16) B. Big Bear
17) A. Amethyst
18) D. Victoria Grant and Christopher King
19) B. Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys
20) C. Dream Girl
21) A. The Psyba Rats
22) D. The Dragon King
23) B. Hop Harrigan
24) A. Golden Eagle
25) C. Porcupine Pete gained his powers this way!
26) B. Sophie Bangs (Half credit if you guessed Barbara Shelley, who was the Promethea before Sophie.)
27) A. Snapper Carr
Mike Condon, Fanzing's trivia quiz guru, is a librarian who lives in Brooklyn.
David R. Black is Fanzing.com's magazine editor and chief archivist. A big fan of "The Warlord," he has a cat named Shakira and is looking for a girlfriend named Tara....
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