Nominated for the 2019 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Comics-Related Book More than one hundred of the strangest sidekicks in  comics history,  complete with backstories, vintage art, and colorful commentary. This collection affectionately spotlights forgotten helpers like Thunderfoot (explosive-soled assistant to the Human Bomb), super-pets like Frosting (polar bear pal of space hero Norge Benson), fan favorites like  Rick Jones  (sidekick to half of the Marvel Universe), and obscure partners of iconic heroes ( Superman Junior's career barely got off the ground). Included are pernicious profiles of henchmen and minions, the sidekicks of the supervillain world. Casual comics readers and diehard enthusiasts alike will relish the hilarious commentary and vintage art from obscure old comics. Nominated for the 2019 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best Comics-Related Book “This snarky, vividly illustrated ride through comic book history is a hoot.”— BookPage “A gorgeous technicolor reference tome.”—Tor.com  “ The League of Regrettable Sidekicks  is the perfect gift for the comic fan in your life.”— Free Press “The exquisite artwork allows readers to visualize each character as they make their way through the book and is an entertaining read all the way to the end.”— Bio Gamer Girl. “Even non-comics fans could have a great time flipping through this reference and laughing with a friend…or a sidekick for that matter.”— Pop Matters   “Entertaining, well-written and researched…Highly recommended!”— My Comic Book  Praise for national bestseller  The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains : “Fascinating.”— Entertainment Weekly “A sequel to Morris’s acclaimed  The League of Regrettable Superheroe s, this quick-read volume is a chronological encyclopedia of the strangest and silliest antagonists ever to appear in sequential art.”— Vulture “In the realm of comic books, the undisputed guru of all things ridiculous, forgotten, and regrettable is Jon Morris.”— VICE “[A] delightfully fun rundown of more than 100 of pulp history’s most marvelous forgotten baddies.”— Parade “Full of gorgeous vintage comic art and poignantly entertaining character entries.”— PRINT magazine Praise for  The League of Regrettable Superheroes: “A volume rich with historical anecdotes and informed commentary on every era of comics history.”— A.V. Club “With its gorgeous full page images of the comics and humorous descriptions of the heroes, each second-stringer gets a few pages of glory.”— BoingBoing “Jon Morris has compiled the histories and art of some of the strangest and most unusual superheroes that ever saw print and collected them here for you. Definitely check it out!”— Nerdist “This compendium of short-lived superheroes (from actual comics) will thrill and amaze.”— Mental Floss “A great idea, executed with adroit prose, attractive design and painstaking production quality… turning what could have been a merely dutiful archive into a vibrant, living, expertly curated tour of a long-neglected and seriously goofy facet of American cultural history.”—NPR’s  Monkey See   Jon Morris  is a cartoonist and graphic designer and author of  The League of Regret­table Superheroes  (Quirk, 2015), The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains (Quirk, 2017), and The League of Regrettable Sidekicks (Quirk, 2018). Since the late 1990s, he’s operated the blog  Gone & Forgotten , an irreverent in-depth look at the worst, the lowliest, and the most unfortunate stories and characters comic books have ever offered. Introduction What would a superhero be without a plucky, pint-sized partner? What would a villain be with no obedient underlings? What would the landscape of superhero comics look like if there were no sidekicks—or their felonious equivalents, henchpersons?      The answer to this last question is: “Roughly the same.” Nothing requires heroes to pick up a junior partner, or villains to acquire a minion or two. Many high-profile comic book characters do well without them. Nevertheless, sidekicks bring something different to the average super-powered grudge match between good and evil. Sometimes it’s humor, sometimes it’s vulnerability, sometimes it’s merely someone with whom the lead character can share a confidence or two. As superfluous as they may seem at first glance, sidekicks serve a valuable role in their senior partners’ stories.      They also serve a long tradition. The pulp magazines, radio shows, and dime novels that preceded comics produced a veritable army of underlings and assistants. The Lone Ranger and Green Hornet had Tonto and Kato; the Shadow had his sprawling network of secret operatives. Fu Manchu commanded the Si-Fan assassins. And the concept goes back even further, into literature and mythology: Don Quixote’s Sancho Panza; Robin Hood’s Merry Men; even the hairy wild man Enkidu of the Gilgamesh myth. If anything, comics were late to the game when it came to including these c