There’s this idea that supporting cast members aren’t important. Sometimes your favorite character can be supporting cast. Some of my favorites are. However, unless your character is the most important person ever, there are writers who can’t get a grasp on them. Poor Jimmy Olsen, despite having had his own comic series and adventures, falls into that category quite often. When it comes to the Salkind group of Super movies, Supergirl made more use of him than all four Superman movies put together, and he was still just there to keep Lana company. The activist community is worse since unless your (insert group you’re poorly championing here) is the mainest character it’s not considered “proper representation”. There’s a reason award shows have a “Best Supporting Actor/Actress/Character” award.
The biggest problem comes when writers don’t seem to know what to do with a supporting character, making them just as “there” as Jimmy Olsen so often is. A good supporting cast offers to support to at least one aspect of the main character (or characters) life as well as helping push the story without overshadowing your lead(s). As I go through my backlog I found Cedar Sanderson writing a guide for writers in how to use a supporting character in this article from Mad Genius Club.
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