(Captain America Comics 001, 1940)
I probably wouldn't have thought of this before writing so many entries about Golden Age super-heroes and their hastily shoehorned-in boy companions, but Bucky really is a top-tier sidekick, conceptually. Probably not the top, since Robin really set the gold standard, but close! Consider:
In terms of the How Does He Acquire the Boy aspect of things, it couldn't be simpler. There's no need for some contrived (or ridiculously omitted) adoption process because Bucky is the Camp Lehigh mascot, meaning that he and Steve Rogers are essentially work friends. And since they also basically live together (in the same field of tents as one another, at least) the process of Bucky learning that Steve is Captain America and subsequently becoming his partner is as simple as him not being very careful about barging into other people's homes without knocking.
Not only does Bucky get his own costume (not always guaranteed), but it's an unusually good one: thematically similar to his partner's but not derivative of it, and a smart enough look that it's appeared on various Bucky-inspired characters to this day.
I thought that Bucky might have been at the forefront of the "sidekicks without their own code name" movement but looking at the dates he is just a part of a larger trend. Similarly, he is just one of a wave of normal teenaged boys who adventure alongside a super-powered adult men. Neither of these are great features for a boy sidekick to have, but the fact that he is a victim of both trends rather than their originator goes a long way.
(case in point: crypto-fascist crook the Wax Man figures out that the two Buckys he has encountered are the same - it's a miracle that this doesn't happen more often) (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)
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