With Great Power...Comes Great Liability!
When disaster struck Gotham City, Ordinary High-School Student Derek James was separated from his mother and was later found by her, unconscious in a hospital filled to the brim with other injured survivors. Since the event, Derek's mother has become extremely protective of him, even insisting on picking him up and dropping him off right in front of school. Derek has no problem going out and getting some space, however, as the events that transpired in Gotham City left him with the ability to open portals to anywhere he knows of. He simply has to step through them. Derek commissioned a friend of his who knows how to sew to make him a costume, and now wants to become a hero and social media star. Live on his first stream, an interdimensional entity appears and threatens to kill him unless he stops using his powers.
The Sideways book, written mostly by Dan DiDio, was a part of DC Comics' Dark Matter line. It ran for a total of 14 issues, including an Annual issue co-written with Grant Morrison, before being cancelled. However, Sideways the character stuck around, making appearances in some of DC's other books and joining Young Justice in the 2019 book.
This work contains examples of:
- Alternate Company Equivalent: His design and his status as a Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World teenage Superhero reminds heavingly on Spider-Man, especially the Ultimate Spider-Man-series, transporting Spidey in a more modern setting. That Derek James is Puerto Rican to attract new readers by adding more represantation is often likened to Miles Morales, Peter Parker's successor as Spider-Man.
- Alternate Self: Derek becomes trapped in a part of the Dark Multiverse that has refugees who are grotesquely mutated counterparts to various mainstream people.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": A rather complicated example. While the rifts Sideways creates are shaped like the letter "S", he must first summon them by tracing a letter "V" in the air, a consonant that his costume is decked with rather than the one that begins and ends his alias.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Derek is less than impress that his mother was murdered by her assistant and a security guard to cover up some corporate espionage they were trying to do to get a promotion.Sideways: Are you saying my mother's dead, my family destroyed, just because you HATED YOUR JOB?
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted. Leto slapping Derek in the face is not treated as a joke.
- Emotion Control: A one off villain, the Showman, can incite negative emotions in crowds and feed off it to empower himself. This is only limited to emotions he inspires, as someone irate enough to incite people against him can dampen his influence.
- Enemy Mine: Realising that Derek's abuse of his powers has damaged the dimensional lines too badly for him to fix by himself, Tempus Fuginaut forgoes his assassination attempts on Sideways' life and offers to train him so that he can use the rifts to repair what he broke and perhaps save space-time.
- Evil, Inc.: Dark Star Sciences. Complete with its own benignly named CEO who is most definitely not a Distaff Counterpart Alternate Company Equivalent version of Norman Osborn, Leto Dominus. Derek's mother runs their public relations department.
- Happily Adopted: Derek's parents are both white and he's Puerto Rican. They couldn't be happier together.
- When his mom is murdered his dad eventually admits that adopting him was primarily her idea and with her gone he doesn't know if he has it in him to continue being a father to Derek.
- Hero Antagonist: Tempus Fuginaut only antagonizes Derek in an attempt to prevent the young hero from accidentally destroying reality with his reckless, untrained power usage.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Derek is initially not inclined to be a superhero for the purpose of doing good, but just put on the costume so he could exploit his powers for internet fame and fortune. His plan for dealing with a supervillain in his fourth issue basically amounts to teleporting the bad guy far away, making it someone else's problem as he mugs for the cameras.
- Jerk Jock: One of the kids gossiping about Derek's accident and his mother's recent protective stint wears a football uniform.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The scientist who took sadistic pleasure in hurting Derek when he's helpless winds up devoured by monsters from another dimension.
- Made of Indestructium: The edges of Sideways' rifts are incredibly durable and can be used for constructs as small as rudimentary tripwires or as large as immense blockades.
- Magic Mirror: Sideways can open several rifts at once to different locations to see what's happening in distant areas. By focusing on a specific person he can track them.
- Mistaken for Murderer: The public believes that Sideways murdered Replicant due to footage of rifts appearing on his body before he exploded, not knowing that it was Replicant himself who caused his own death.
- My God, What Have I Done?: In #12, Derek's father admits to feeling guilty for how he's been treating him after his mother's death. He was scared and angry, and had no right to add to his son's grief. The two reconcile to grieve together.
- Mythology Gag: The Dark Multiverse refugees Derek meets are references to silver age Superman stories.
- There is a Lois Lane who is mostly a giant brain on insectoid legs, referencing the storyline where a bunch of uploaded information enlarged her head.
- A Jimmy Olsen who became more wolfman than the mainstream one ever did.
- An ant monster Superman, referencing the time red kryptonite gave him an ant head.
- Portal Cut: Sideways accidentally chops off one of Killspeed's arms when he tries to teleport away from her.
- Power Incontinence: Replicant, a supervillain who is capable of copying and keeping the meta human abilities of others, duplicates Sideways' powers and then accidentally opens two rifts on his own body when he tries to wipe water off of himself, causing him to violently explode.
- Super-Strength: A secondary benefit of the incident that granted his powers gives Derek a degree of super strength. Stronger than the average person, but not Superman level.
- Teleport Spam: More like a portal spam, but it functions the same way.
- Thinking Up Portals: Derek has the ability to open rifts in the fabric of spacetime at his fingertips and swipe them across the air to make them large enough to walk through to any person or place he can think of.
- Tragic Villain: Killspeed is a speedster who at first only stole to get the money she needed for her cancer treatments. Using her powers accelerated the cancer to the point where no treatment could save her.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Both of Derek's parents are pushing 60, but while his father is a portly construction worker, his mother is a very well-added corporate publicity agent with an hourglass figure.
- Villain Takes an Interest: Leto Dominus is very interested in studying Sideways's portal powers.
- Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Derek is in high school.
- Would Hurt a Child: Soon after Leto's introduction we know that she's aware of Derek's powers and is willing to do some very unethical things if it means harnessing them. When she has him captured and helpless she slaps him in the face for yelling at her.
