DC's Worst Sidekick Mentor Is The Last Hero Fans Would Expect, Which Is Why It's Perfect

Published Sep 17, 2026, 8:30 AM EDT

Derek is the Training Lead for ScreenRant. Before his current position, he spent 20 years working in games, TV, and film while also writing for several entertainment sites.
Derek is also the co-host of three pop culture podcasts: Across the Omniverse, The Bad Batch, and Watch Men.

DC Comics isn't just the birthplace of the superhero sidekick, it is home to the best sidekicks in the medium. From Aqualad to Wonder Girl, DC's teen heroes are always learning new lessons and jumping in to save the day when they're needed most. But a sidekick is only as good as their mentor. Batman has trained a number of Robins, with each one being able to not only stand on their own, but also lead others into the never-ending war on crime. Green Arrow, who tends to copy Batman, has done the same (at least, after the hiccup with his first sidekick). And Wonder Woman has helped three powerful women — not to mention her daughter — become the best versions of themselves.

What Batman, Green Arrow, and Wonder Woman all share is patience. They are three heroes who understand that crafting a warrior takes time. And while they all have their own methods, they each find ways to connect with their sidekicks on a personal level, aiding the training by showing that they will be there for the good and bad moments, even if they sometimes lose their temper and yell. But there is one hero who has shown a complete inability to be a mentor to the next generation of heroes: The Flash. Which is surprising because he was once a teen sidekick himself.

The Flash Was A Horrible Mentor To Impulse

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One of the first sidekicks, Wally West became Kid Flash before he could shave. A founding member of the Teen Titans, Wally was mentored by Barry Allen, the Flash before him, and learned not only how to control his speed, but how to use it to help others. Barry was nothing if not patient with his young apprentice, and made sure to be a kind and upstanding father figure to the boy whose actual father was anything but kind or upstanding.

As he got older, Wally became something of an angry young man and that, along with issues controlling his own powers, led him to retire from the superhero business. But when Barry Allen died, Wally stepped up to fill the yellow boots and become Flash, carrying the legacy into the next generation. Wally did his best to live up to the memory of Barry Allen, and while he often stumbled at first, he soon found his footing and truly earned the title of Fastest Man Alive.

And then, out of the blue, Bart Allen, Barry's grandson, showed up from 1000 years in the future in need of mentoring. Wally West, who spent years being trained by one of the best, made it less than a week with his own sidekick. In fairness, Bart, who Wally deemed Impulse because of his tendency to act without thinking, was not the easiest young hero to deal with. But Wally barely even tried, spending more time yelling at the kid from the future instead of actually teaching him.

Wally ended up pawning Impulse off on Max Mercury, the Zen Master of Speed who is more than capable of being a mentor, and believed that his days of having a sidekick were over. Turns out, he was very wrong.

Flash Has Been An Even Worse Mentor To His Own Children

After handing Impulse to Max Mercury, a lot of stuff happened to Wally West and the Flash Family. We'll skip over a bunch of it and get to the meat: Wally West now has three children: two of whom are teens and have superpowers, though only his daughter, Irey, wants to be a superhero. And, along with Impulse, there's Ace West, the new Kid Flash who is Wally's cousin.

And, despite being a dad — and a really good one at that — Wally has continued to show that he is a horrible mentor. He still can't find any ability to deal with Impulse and instantly jumps to yelling at the kid whenever they're in the same room together. As for Kid Flash, Wally has promised Ace he would spend more time with him, but has literally only used him as a babysitter.

And as for Irey, Wally's method of training her is to never train her. To be fair, he is clearly a father who has seen the dangers of the superhero life — heck, he and his kids were all wiped out of existence for quite a long time — and worries about what could happen to her. But, as he should have learned from his own experience as a sidekick, it is better to prepare the kid than to hope they never needed to be prepared for anything. In the few times he has brought her along, he has done all he could to keep her from facing any danger and, even worse, refused to listen to her ideas. There is no learning for poor Irey as long as her dad is her mentor. Maybe she can jump over to Jay Garrick, the original Flash, and learn some tricks with the JSA. Cause while he can run around the world in the blink of an eye, being a good teacher isn't something her dad can do.

Of course, it isn't that surprising that Wally West would be a bad mentor. Unlike his own teacher, Wally has never been good at slowing down, even when he quit being a hero. And when he was a member of the Teen Titans, he found it difficult to get along with the other sidekicks. But, most of all, Wally is the boy whose dream came true — he became his hero's partner — and had a great mentor to show him the ropes. Sadly, Barry Allen was so good at it that Wally can't understand why anyone else doesn't pick up on the lessons as quickly as he did. So while he has all the knowledge a new hero would need from him, Wally sadly never learned the most important lesson: be patient.