Back in the day, if one wanted to be a superhero, one had certain requirements. One had to own several sets of tights. One had to have a secret hideout of some sort. One had to have a hero vehicle: a car, a boat, a hovercraft, something.

And one had to have a sidekick.

Now, the sidekick rules were also quite clear. They had to be male, young, at minimum slightly annoying, and, ideally (though not always), they would be some kind of minority.

Green Lantern had the Inuit Tom Kalakmu (whom he called Pie Face because, no joke, the only Eskimo he'd ever heard of was an Eskimo pie). Green Hornet had the Japanese/Korean/Filipino/Chinese Kato (they never really settled on one). Batman had the homosexual Robin...

Kidding. Kidding. Mostly just kidding.

Anyway this leads to a good question: was there ever a Jewish sidekick? Would it help any if we told you you were looking at him right now?

Yes, Arthur, the Tick's somewhat enthusiastic, mostly cowardly sidekick is most certainly Jewish. Ordinarily this would raise our ire, what with the stereotype and all: the screaming, the whining, the former accountanting. But we love the Tick too much to care.

So we'll let it slide. Besides, there are fewer sidekicks these days than newspaper reporters, and far be it from us to knock another leg out from under an already unstable economy.