December 1959: Let’s Give Jimmy a Hand

Jimmy Olsen may not have been the brightest bulb in the Daily Planet building, but he was irrepressible.

For example, most people would be nonplussed by the discovery that they’d suddenly acquired more arms. Even Peter Parker was freaked out by it, and he was no stranger to strange situations. But Jimmy took it all cheerfully.

In Jimmy Olsen 41 (Dec. 1959), the cub reporter absent-mindedly eats a fruit Superman has brought back from space, having confused it with a pear, and grows four extra limbs overnight.

Momentarily panicked, Jimmy quickly becomes impressed by the ease with which he does push-ups and cooks breakfast.

However, his ability to write three news stories simultaneously gets him in trouble with the Newspaper Guild union reps. But I’m not clear how he could do that anyway — he had six arms, not three brains. 

“Curt Swan’s depiction of a union representative at the Daily Planet is interesting — he is wearing a suit and tie and is very smooth and sophisticated-looking,” observed comics historian Michael W. Grost. “Clearly this is intended as a sympathetic portrayal. This is one of the few union leaders I recall seeing anywhere in a Silver Age comic book.”

As Jimmy’s multi-limbed difficulties mount, it turns out Lucy Lane is unenthusiastic about the possibility of someday having six-armed children. By the story’s end, we’re not quite sure whether Jimmy has been hallucinating all this nonsense.

“This is a light-hearted comedy tale,” Grost noted. “Curt Swan does a good job with the art, making the actions of Jimmy's arms seem plausible and natural.”

The cartoonish nature of many of Jimmy’s exploits was nicely balanced by the magazine-illustration realism of Swan’s art. Seeing is believing, and Swan could make you believe almost anything.