Mission 6: Who’s Your Sidekick?

Mission 6 is now closed.

Much of the sixth and final section, “The League of the Golden Key,” focuses on the non-traditional relationships of our main characters. For this final mission, we invite you to tell us about your sidekicks.

You could win a $50 Powell's gift card and be entered to win an Apple iPad Air 2!

The Mission

For this mission, we want you to share who your sidekick is, whether real or imagined. In “The League of the Golden Key,” we see many -- from the secret relationship of Joe and Tommy, to the friendship of Joe and Sam, to the actual sidekicks in Sam's comic books on which the Senate committee focuses their investigation. Who inspires you? Who supports you?

Share your sidekick with us through a Tweet or a photo using the #OBOCMission6 hashtag.

Mission 6 Prize

One submission from Mission 6 will be chosen at random to win a $50 Powell's gift card, courtesy of BiblioCommons.

Grand Prize

There will be six missions over the course of the reading program.

At the end of the reading program, one submission will be chosen at random from across all six missions to win an Apple iPad Air 2, courtesy of BiblioCommons.

Submission Guidelines

Tell us about your sidekick by sharing a description or photo of who supports or inspires you:

We may share your submission on our website and social media too!

Submission Rules

  • You must be a registered Chicago Public Library patron.
  • You must be 13 years or older to enter.
  • Only submissions posted between midnight Monday, April 20 and 11:59 p.m. Sunday, May 10 will be entered for a chance to win the Mission 6 prize.
  • By using the #OBOCMission6 hashtag or submitting to the OBOC Facebook page, you are granting the Chicago Public Library permission to share your submission on the CPL website or on CPL social media accounts.

Background

“I know what you did. I know how it cost you something. I don’t deserve to have a friend like you.” - Joe Kavalier to Sam Clay.

Fast-forward to the mid-1950s and we see the Clay family of Sam, Rosa and Tommy living a settled, if not entirely happy, life. The comic book industry is coming under fire for its purported immorality; superhero comics no longer sell well; and it seems everyone’s American Dream hasn’t quite panned out the way they had hoped.

Through a series of increasingly incredible events, Sam and Rosa learn that Joe is still alive and has been living in New York City -- in the Empire State Building, as a matter of fact -- and that their son, Tommy, has known for quite some time. Hoping to reunite the former friends and move Joe to action, Tommy sends a letter to the papers announcing that The Escapist is going to jump from the top of the Empire State Building. After this hoax is worked out, Joe, Sam, and Rosa settle back into some semblance of their former routine.

A great deal happens in this final section of the novel: Joe -- and his 102 crates of comic books -- come to live with Sam and Rosa; Sam and Joe consider buying Empire Comics with the money Joe has been saving since before the war; Joe receives a mysterious crate from Prague that has the remains of the Golem of Prague in it; and Tommy discovers the truth about his parentage. Notably, Sam also is effectively outed as a homosexual on live TV during his testimony to the Senate where he is questioned about his reliance on sidekicks (even if they do increase circulation by 22%).

The reader is left with many questions about what might be next for Sam, Joe, Rosa and Tommy, as the novel ends with Joe buying Empire Comics and Sam leaving for California.

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