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A bit of world building.

Our city — maybe yours too — has had supers since at least the 1950s, and one of them was a possibly-grim definitely-human vigilante called “MidKnight.” (I’m sure the name looked clever in 1958.) Possibly because child endangerment laws were different then, he had a sidekick, “Squire.”

Actually, he eventually had a metric butt-load of Squires.

At least one went on to become a superhero in his own right, Wild Justice; some later retired (one founded a sporting goods chain and capitalized), and one probably died in the course of superhero-ing. Teenagers made their own costumes, became vigilantes, and sometimes MidKnight picked them and they became the real official-as-it-gets Squire.

MidKnight stopped being active in 1974, which made him positively ancient by urban vigilante standards. By then, being the Squire was like being in a garage band: many tried it, and a few went on to be actual superheroes. The trend mostly died out by the 1990s but it never vanished.