After the great superhero extinction event of the early-to-mid 1950s, any number of perfectly serviceable character concepts were going begging, and ended up recycled into non-superhero titles.
So it was that Jimmy Olsen ended up with Flash-like speed in September 1956, Hawkman-like wings in February 1958 and finally the flexible form of Plastic Man (Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen 31, Sept. 1958).
Plastic Man had only been out of business four years when exposure to an alien chemical gave Jimmy his stretchy powers. Later, Prof. Phineas Potter’s stretching formula would enable Jimmy to become Elastic Lad for short periods.
Even Lois Lane got in on the act as Elastic Lass (Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane 23, Feb. 1961). The unstoppable Composite Superman used Jimmy’s Elastic Lad powers to defeat both Superman and Batman.
The quirky, oddball nature of the Elastic Lad powers made them perfect for Jimmy’s adventures. They enabled him to maintain an occasional superhero persona while never threatening to steal the spotlight from the real hero, Superman.
The 80-Page Giant Jimmy Olsen 104 (Aug. 1967) also featured Wolfman Jimmies, Giant Turtle Jimmies and a Jimmy tied up by tiny Superman.
The tiny city of Kandor would become the urban bottlescape for Superman and Jimmy’s Batman-and-Robin adventures as Nightwing and Flamebird. And, in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen 48 (Oct.-Nov. 1960), it would give us the Superman Emergency Squad, a silly team I loved.
In this Otto Binder story with art by Curt Swan, we met Superman’s tiny flying army from Kandor. After shoving their way out of the corked bottled, they swarmed to the rescue dressed in Superman costumes (which would in fact make them uniforms, I suppose). Initially someone insisted that they should all look like Superman too, which seems a bit too fetishistic even for Silver Age comic books.
Tom Burkert said: I miss thos simpler days....and 25 cent prices
ReplyDeleteBruce Kanin wrote: Olsen's book was declining by this point, so these reprints were a welcome sight and a reminder of stories that were simpler & more fun. Some of them were bona fide Superman tales with Jimmy just tagging along, like the Nightwing-Flamebird sequel.
ReplyDeleteJoel Canfield said: The giant turtle Jimmy freaked me out when I was a kid. For a few panels there, it looked like he was actually going to kill people and that was a new wrinkle for Superman's Best Bud.
ReplyDeleteMark Engblom wrote: What a fun read! I think Jimmy’s stints with super powers represented the *eternal* childhood wish for larger than life adventure, which the westerns, horror, and romance comics that replaced superheroes (for a time) could never quite replace. I’d never considered Jimmy as a sort of “placeholder” for super-heroic fantasy until you proposed it, Dan. With this in mind, Jimmy seems to have had an almost “heraldic” role in the second great wave of superheroes, formally starting with The Flash (though some would argue the Martian Manhunter). I’ve never been a huge fan of Jimmy, but your piece certainly makes me a bigger fan than I was before!
ReplyDeleteBob Buethe said: "So it was that Jimmy Olsen ended up with Flash-like speed in September 1956..."
ReplyDeleteAnd Showcase #4 was cover-dated Sep-Oct 1956. And Whitney Ellsworth was the credited editor of both titles (though Julie Schwartz was the actual editor of the Flash story).
No, I'm not accusing anyone of stealing ideas. I'm just surprised that Ellsworth scheduled two super-speed-themed stories for the same month instead of holding back the Jimmy story for a couple of issues.