Hyper-Competent Sidekicks in Webcomics.
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja:
- Judy, the Doctor's receptionist. While Dr. McNinja is competent in his own way, Judy's dependability and no-nonsense attitude are pretty much the only reason anything gets accomplished in the office. She's also a gorilla.
- Also Gordito. In the Doctor's own words:"Do you think I run around with a twelve year old boy just because I like his inferior grasp of girls and higher level math? Do you think I left him with my psychotic parents because I wanted him to die? No, you undead pale ponce! Gordito is the effing badass kid. So go ahead and finish up your masterful scheme to make me let you kill me, because Gordito's going to slap around whatever ghost lackey you have like he was a pinata on the Mexican day of the dead."
- Namine serves as one to Governor Zexion in Ansem Retort. Given Zexion's habit of blowing the state budget on things like explosives, hookers, and Doritos, Namine is frequently the one organizing things so that the government doesn't collapse on itself.
- In Anti Hero For Hire, Union was a Hypercompetent Sidekick for Dr. Nefarious before breaking out on his own.
- Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth has Opal, working for Balthazar. Not that Balthazar's incompetent, but Opal is certainly better at dealing with people.
- Dr. Wily was tricked into becoming the hypercompetent sidekick for Mike Haggar's in Captain SNES: The Game Masta. When President Haggar's first act was to abolish taxes, Vice President Wily realized he'll be too busy fixing Haggar's horrible decisions and keeping the country afloat to take advantage of his position.
- In Commander Kitty, Mittens becomes one of these under Morris' tutelage
...except he's so good at his job that he threatens to render the rest of the cast obsolete. - Curse Quest: Minerva to the Owl Hunter. Minerva seems to be much more capable than the Hunter, but is still considered his apprentice. The Owl Hunter believes he took down the owl-bear, even though Minerva one shot it with her energy-tipped arrows in a few seconds.
- Darths & Droids: Chewbacca, since Jim gave him good stats in everything he made a dump stat in "Han", which includes Intelligence and Wisdom. This doesn't mean Chewie is any more capable of keeping him from doing spectacularly stupid things than anyone else, though. Usually because by the time Jim's done it, it's too late.
- Dresden Codak's Tokamak twins are superheroes, in fact.
- Baliir of Drowtales, to Kiel. Who outright acknowledges he basically keeps the whole mess she rules over running and working.
- Jasomet from the sequel to Elijah and Azuu (Pre-Teen Demon) could easily solve the lead characters' problems, but he's stopped partially by his Literal Genie mindset, and the fact that the other characters object to his graphically violent methods.
- Ennui GO!: Being Izzy's personal assistant, Renee's main duties mostly consisted of trying to get her boss to handle her responsibilities as CEO of her own video game studio and as queen of her own island nation, along with handling every other aspect of her life. Shortly before the end of Part 1, Izzy decides to just give her direct control of the company, properly reasoning that she's far more qualified for the position.
- Erfworld: Overlord Stanely is a very good fighter even before his possession of the mythical Arkenhammer is taken into account, but as far as tactics and strategy are concerned he is extremely inept. So much that he needs two hypercompetent sidekicks on that front. First is Wanda Firebaugh who has guided (i.e. manipulated) him into his overlordship position and through first couple conquests while also providing her impeccable magical talents to the cause. When nearly the whole world unites to take him down though, she also prompts him to acquire a spell to summon a perfect warlord, getting Parson Gotti whose unconventional strategies honed by years of wargaming are exactly what they need.
- Girl Genius has one in the form of the reluctant Moloch von Zinzer, who will be very quick to point out that he is not Agatha's alpha minion while he's not busy leading the rest of the minions and mad scientists currently working for Agatha. Granted, he's only helping repair Mechanicsburg's defenses so that he can live long enough to get the hell out of there, but when he steps up to lead a roving band of heroic repairmen halfway around and under the city in the middle of a siege, no one dares question his command. He's so competent that even Sanaa, a fellow ex-prisoner he had an obvious crush on, begins to take interest in him.
- Partly deconstructed in Girly, where sidekicks engineered to be perfect become too much so, rendering the "hero" of their relationships virtually unnecessary. However they end up evil, try to take over, succeed, and have to be taken out by pairs of hero/sidekick pairs of roughly equal ability or the more typical competency ratios.
- Also Otra APPEARS this to Winter, but it's been proven that Winter is what inspires Otra to be so competent and both are far weaker/more helpless alone. Otra, in general, can do everything by herself but would hate to and Winter can kick ass, but needs Otra around to be able thanks to Rule of Funny/Rule of Drama.
- Homestuck:
- Rose Lalonde is this to the main protagonist, John Egbert. She appears to be much more mature than her other friends, and also is a pro at Sburb compared to John.
- To some extent, this is true of all the leaders seen in the series. John is quite derpy, Karkat is overwhelmed by almost constant rage and self-loathing, Jane is overly skeptical and distracted by romantic angst, and Kankri spends far too much time explaining what he perceives to be discrimination. Being a leader in Homestuck seems to rely more on caring about other people than any skill in leadership.
- In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Molly is a Gadgeteer Genius and even has modest super-speed (she can outrun a bear, anyway), while her adoptive daddy Bob is, of course, nominally the World's Most Average Man. Bob's other big defining trait though is common sense, a quality Molly certainly lacks.
- In Kill Six Billion Demons Mammon's high priestess, 001, is the one who runs his empire, organizes his defenses, and even battles one of his fellow demiurges when she attacks. Mammon himself is partially blind, senile, and does nothing but count his infinite wealth.
- Last Res0rt has Adharia Kuvoe's servant and consort, Sedja the Efreet. Sedja is essentially a Benevolent Genie, but is bound to and protected by Adharia (as it's been heavily implied that Sedja would've been destroyed by the Star Org if not for Adharia protecting her, acting as a translator, and having hidden her up until the point Sedja was shot out of a pistol).
- Richard from Looking for Group is the most powerful member of Cale's team, being able to kill with his hands or use magic do perform whatever execution he has come up with for his enemies. Tempered a little in the fact he is an evil undead warlock and hinders the group as much as he helps them with his crazy antics, recklessness or beating up Cale for fun.
- Bill the Extra Guy is the sidekick to Fred the Spanyard from Neglected Character Comix, a Sprite Comic series involving Mario characters on the Neglected Character subpage of Super Mario Bros. HQ. A seemingly useless sidekick compared to Fred's death rays and other such powers, he freezes time and space with his "extra power" which leaves his friend more than impressed.
- Noblesse has lord Raizel and his battle butler Frankenstein. Sidekick Frankenstein does the bulk of exposition, the science, and a huge chunk of the fighting. Hero Raizel is almost devoid of personality. All we know about him is that he drinks tea, eats ramen, and doesn't make facial expressions. He always shows up at the last minute to save the day in mere seconds after every other battle capable character is exhausted.
- The Order of the Stick
- Redcloak is the sidekick who makes Xykon's evil organization run. Although Xykon is devastatingly powerful and capable of surprising cunning at times, he has no patience for details, and his idea of strategy consists of pounding obstacles with spells until they go away. It helps that Redcloak is Genre Savvy whereas Xykon suffers from Contractual Genre Blindness. Redcloak also frequently ends up in the role of the Beleaguered Assistant, while also running his own plan in The Man Behind the Man ploy.
- Tarquin and Malack are at first shown as this to the Empress of Blood. Later however, they reveal that they, alongside four other party members, play these roles for interchangeable figureheads in the constantly toppled and conquered kingdoms of the continent, with loyalty only lying to each other rather than their "employers".
- In Prezleek Comics, the titular character has his Pack Yak familiar, Baroo. He has more inventory space than Prez, more common sense than Prez, protects Prez's dignity on occasion, has curbstomped Sliske of all people, and is a competent DJ.
- A story arc in Questionable Content introduces Tilly, who is trying way too hard to be this to Hannelore. Tilly seems to actually be hypercompetent, the problem is they're trying to prove themself to someone who doesn't actually want or need an assistant, and won't always take "I don't need you to do this" for an answer. They eventually become assistant to Hanners's dad, an Absent-Minded Professor who needs an assistant who is "utterly relentless".Tilly: I can be utterly relentless!
Hannerlore: [deadpan] It's true. - Captain Kaff Tagon of Schlock Mercenary has several, depending on the situation. Normally it's Kevyn, but on more specialised subject (medical, legal, etc.) others step in.
- The Shufflers: Hiddenite actually gets hired as Märchen‘s bodyguard this way. Märchen is older than Hiddenite is, but his specialty lies in cartomancy. In comparison, Hiddenite is descended from a tribe of powerful mages and has the capacity to protect Märchen.
- Sidekick Girl has the titular character, Val. Val is competent, practical, and clever, but she's also very plain and is thus stuck managing Illumina, a Brainless Beauty of a heroine. This is later downplayed as Illumina has slowly come into her own.
- Sidekicks: Back when he was a Sidekick, Darkslug was this to his master hero Dunkelheit despite the hero being considered the strongest superhero behind Guardian. So much so that while Guardian easily defeats Dunkelheit in combat, Darkslug actually ends up defeating the superhero.
- Bun-Bun from Sluggy Freelance. The other characters still have to take care of things themselves most of the time, since Bun-Bun is a Sociopathic Hero who won't lift a paw unless there's something in it for him and/or the current bad guy did something to piss him off. However, when he does get involved, heads tend to fly.
- Elliot, Dr. Breign's assistant in The Snail Factory. He essentially does all of the work, cleans up after Breign's messes and keeps everything going.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: The Västerströms are the actual figureheads of the expedition, but have no experience dealing with people outside the academic field and have relied on their military acquaintances Taru and Taru's friend Trond to actually build a viable expedition plan, especially when Cutting Corners became a requirement. Taru and Trond also brought in four out of the five actual crew members that were picked among their various acquaintances, when all the Västerströms had to offer was a nephew who happened to have dropped out of the academic field to join the army.
