SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN
THE ARTICLE!

Jimmy Olsen is one of those characters that’s been around long enough for just about everybody to know him, purely by his association with someone uber-popular. He’s what you call a classic “filler” character, someone there to round out a cast of supporting characters to create a complete setting that we the readers/viewers/listeners can then more readily believe, even if that world embraces a super-powered protagonist.

But why write about Jimmy?

I find Jimmy Olsen interesting because I believe he is one of the closest, if not the closest character to truly fulfill and realize the archetype of the sidekick role, a role that began in comic form with the introduction of “the kid” who became Dick Tracy, Jr.

Chester Gould realized that kids, along with fantasizing that they are in fact their favorite hero, also fantasize about hanging out with their favorite hero, and maybe even learning from them or becoming like them.

Junior was great and inspired countless kid sidekicks, but that’s the subject of a separate article. Here we’re concerned with Jimmy Olson and the importance of being Jimmy.

Jimmy is perhaps the closest to fulfilling the sidekick fantasy as we know from the get-go that Jimmy could never fulfill or take over Superman’s role. On the other hand, Junior may very well grow up and take over the role of Dick Tracy Detective. Robin in turn could become Batman. Jimmy, however, remains sort of a dork, but he’s a dork savvy enough to get a cool job as a cub reporter for a big metropolitan newspaper and become friends with both Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent.

Something that you or I could actually, possibly, do, if in fact Superman or other superheroes existed. If we just lucked into the right setting we to could become privy to the super scene, the world of Jimmy Olsen, a reality where you’re seeing the super landscape through an insider’s view. True enough to give Jimmy Olsen his own comic book in 1954: Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, which amazingly ran for twenty years--in a time when the comic book companies took more chances.

But Jimmy wasn’t always a part of the super scene, like Lois Lane. Lois was there from the very beginning in Action Comics No. 1 (1938), but Jimmy Olsen popped up on the radio show, The Adventures of Superman (1940). Jimmy’s character works well, perhaps, for that reason. The radio people knew how to round out casts in terms of dialog and characters playing off each other to keep that dialog flowing.

I really liked the first guy to play Jimmy Olsen on the big screen. Tommy Bond played Jimmy Olsen in the Columbia movie serials, Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950). At the time Jimmy Olsen wasn’t very well known and Tommy Bond really helped flesh out the determined photojournalist side of Jimmy. Bond’s portrayal wasn’t a dorky Jimmy at all. Jimmy was ready and willing to get in there, in true red-blooded 1940’s American style and box it out with the bad guys if necessary. Tommy Bond was one of the original tough guys in the Our Gang series, so perfect to give Jimmy Olsen the guts he needed to keep company with Superman while wearing a bowtie at the same time.

The bowtie, truly a product, affectation of the time, only really became silly when Jimmy continued wearing it into the 60s and 70s.

Okay, but my favorite thing about Jimmy Olsen was that he existed as one of those characters that the publishers, writers, and editors felt comfortable doing anything with. Jimmy could take a secret serum and turn into “Elastic Lad” and actually become a real superhero. He also turned into a giant turtle and all sorts of crazy monsters along the way, but the coolest thing existed in the form of a secret signal watch to call on Superman whenever he got into a jam. Talk about fulfilling the sidekick dream, Jimmy had direct access to the ultimate big brother who could kick anybody’s ass.

In truth, though, Jimmy Olsen was a sidekick/supporting character that worked well in an age when spin-offs were common for kids to buy. With four different Superman titles hitting the comic racks each month, you could buy one each week: Action Comics, Superman, Superman’s Pal: Jimmy Olsen, and Lois Lane: Superman’s Girlfriend. Later this concept spun wildly out of control with far too many spin-offs of popular characters and basically ruined the whole concept. A spin-off, if more than one exists, needs to have its own identity. Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane provided those separate vibes, but as comics started becoming more serious Jimmy and Lois moved onto the endangered comics list.

Enter Jack Kirby. When he moved from Marvel to DC to usher in a whole new adventurous world for the 1970s Kirby insisted on taking over the book with the lowest sales so someone with a steady job wouldn’t lose work.

That book, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, is where and when the Jimmy Olsen series truly became a vitally interesting comic book, containing a continuity of stories that every serious reader of comic literature should own.

Jack Kirby made Jimmy Olsen modern, relevant, and totally far out. Jimmy throws away his bowtie and basically becomes an action-packed superstar that isn’t afraid to tell the authoritative Superman where to fly.

Jimmy’s far out “Fourth World” trip lasted about four years until his book hit cancellation, no doubt because it has gone too far into the “wild.”

Where is Jimmy now? I’m sure he appears in all of the wacky projects both on and off screen pertaining to Superman and I’m sure he’s primarily regulated back to the corny supporting cast, and no longer relevant to modern kids. The last time I saw Jimmy he appeared in the horrendous train-wreck called Superman Returns. The role of Jimmy Olsen, very forgettable in that badly-written film.

But if you want the good stuff, the really fun retro Jimmy with the door to imagination wide open, check out the DC Showcase Presents Superman Family Volume 1. For $16.99 you get 500 pages packed full of classic Jimmy Olsen + the first ever solo Lois Lane story.

Then, if you want the ultimate ride, check out Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Volume 1. There you will find the Fourth World stories collected chronologically, beginning of course with Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen No. 133 (October 1970), the comic book that changed the face of the comic book industry forever.

What’s that?

I hear Lucy Hell’s secret signal watch …

Time for Alcoholman to mow the lawn.

-Bradley Mason Hamlin

brad@retrocrush.com