By Eric Fusco, Cub Reporter
O.K. so how many of you out there know that Jimmy Olsen, bow tie wearing cub reporter for the Daily Planet & boy punching bag, is officially known the world over as "Superman's Pal"? No, it's not someone more obvious, who'd have something more in commons with the Man of Steel, like say Batman, Green Lantern or Inspector Henderson, or even Joey Ramone. It's Jimmy Olsen. No how many of you know that Jimmy Olsen had his own comic book that ran some 200 plus issues in the late sixties and early seventies? Not many I'll bet.
It's true though, Jimmy Olsen was the star of his own comic at one time, (this was also the time that Bob Hope & Jerry Lewis had their own comic's, too) and almost nobody remembers his adventures. How could anyone forget such crazy hi-jinks, like the time Jimmy was forced into marrying a giant female gorilla, in a jungle ceremony, whose witch doctor was Superman himself? "The Bride of Jungle Jimmy" (JO #98)? Or the time that Jimmy was turned into "The Giant Turtle Boy Of Metropolis" (JO #104)? How about "Jimmy Olsen, The Superman/Batman of Earth-X? (JO #93)? You see Jimmy is up to his usual antics and is accidentally teleported to a parallel dimension, Earth X. Earth X is a duplicate world to our own, except for subtle differences. There are no superheros, Benedict Arnold was the second President of the United States, Mickey Mantle is a famous Shakespearean actor, Perry White is a retired bull fighter & Clark Kent works at the World's Fair. When Jimmy arrives he gains Superman like powers (of course) and fights crime as Steelman, who wears a costume that's a combination of Superman's and Batman's (He wears the Batman cowl to cover his red hair & freckles). Superman eventually comes to his rescue and...hey! I'm not making this stuff up!
It's taken me awhile to amass this collection of Jimmy Olsen comics. It's not the kind of thing where I collected them as a kid and still have them. Jimmy was pretty much canceled by the time I started buying them, and even then he wouldn't have appealed to my then uncultured tastes. I was into Batman, Spiderman, The Justice League of America, The Avengers & Iron Man (It's funny, I was never really comfortable with Iron Man, y'see Tony Stark had a mustache and I knew only bad guys have facial hair, this was before Green Arrow grew his goatee, which I didn't like very much either...) The zany misadventures of Superman's Pal didn't start to become a mania until recently. There's just something about Jimmy Olsen that I can't get enough of. And they're not the easiest thing in the world to find, either. Most comic book stores don't stock anything that's not a collectors item or a "hot" book. I try not to pay more than $5 for one. The real finds are the 80 Page Giants with 4-5 stories in them. You don't know the humiliation I have to go through, asking some geeky, fanboy if they have any late 60's Jimmy Olsen comics behind the counter. They look at me as if I was some sort of two headed freak (actually, a guy with two heads in a comic book store is probably not that unusual, how about if I say "They look at me like I said I showered regularly").
I do have some problems with Jimmy's lifestyle though. His best friend is Superman, the most powerful man in the world, the hero of Metropolis and yet that fickle Lucy Lane is forever giving poor Jimmy the brush off. C'mon, the guys who hung out with Elvis got laid just for being pals with E. Do they expect me to believe, if you're Superman's Pal you can't get some? Certainly hanging out with The Big Red S had to have some other benefits than your own key to the Fortress of Solitude and a time share in the bottle city of Kandor! Maybe if Jimmy lost that stupid bow tie...