Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #147--"A Superman In Supertown!"

THE MORAL IS, NEVER TRY TO FIT IN ANYWHERE.

When Kirby first took over the writing and art chores on “Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen”, he envisioned a sprawling storyline similar to what he’d been doing over at Marvel, one that would tap into the fundamental angst of Superman’s existence and help flesh him out as a character. He even laid the seeds for it in The Forever People #1, the first Fourth World comic to actually be drawn. But DC was the more institutionalized and corporate of the superhero publishers in the early 70s, and it still hadn’t quite sunk in that what Marvel had been doing for the past decade was going to dictate the future of comics. As such, they were heavily resistant to change. They could see that this Kirby kid was a hugely popular artist, and that hiring him would give their sales a bump, but they couldn’t take the additional step of trusting him to really do his thing. Time has proven Kirby right about many, many things, and one of those things was the fact that Superman wasn’t going to be cool anymore in the new fan culture. He needed a new hook, and Kirby wanted to lay the groundwork for that. This was all too radical for a publisher that was only just beginning to see its numbers enter a steep decline after several decades at the top, so they put the kibosh on Kirby’s plans. Naturally, most of what he wanted to do with Superman—particularly exploring the idea that his great powers and near-omnipotence isolate him from the very humanity he’s so devoted to saving—has since been done by other writers, and in fact you can argue that it’s *the* most compelling dramatic angle one can take when writing the Big Blue Boy Scout, but as ever, Kirby was cursed with being ahead of his time.

As you can infer from all this, Kirby eventually grew a bit sick of “Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen”, and—perhaps not coincidentally—the sales entered a tailspin. Which in a way was good, as it meant Kirby didn’t have to draw the book for very much longer. Sensing this, Kirby decided to bang out a truncated version of the Superman story he’d wanted to tell in this, his penultimate issue of SPJO.

So Jimmy’s in Scotland, recovering from being a Caveman. Yes, apparently being genetically regressed to an ancient hominid is something you get over, like the flu. Just take his temperature and give him hot soup every so often, and he’ll be fine in a week or two. Oh, and don’t let any ravenous, psychotic bug-monsters come bursting into the room where he’s staying.



…Dammit, people, what did I just say?!?

Apparently the Scottish police are kind of lax about letting their genetic aberrations run wild in hospitals. But as it turns out, Charlie only eats…chairs. Because he likes the chemicals used to treat the wood. He’s also calmed by Gabby’s voice, thus making him possibly unique in the animal kingdom. Actually, I guess he’s pretty unique anyway. Certainly the dialogue confirms him as “the last o’ the beasties we had under lock n’ key!!” with no mention of exactly what happened to all those other mythical animals. My guess: Unicorns seem like fine eating in the country that deemed Haggis to be edible.

Anyway, Gabby slips Charlie a knockout pill, and Tommy declares that he’s now their responsibility for some reason. The Loch Trevor police force is, obviously, happy to have him out of their hair, so the Newsboys make their plans to ship Charlie back to America.

Meanwhile, we’re picking up where we left Superman—in his much more interesting plotline, which fortunately dominates this issue. If you recall, some Apokoliptish troublemakers posing as a rock band had destroyed a disco…as is pretty much the duty of any half-decent rock band, come to think of it. But Superman happened to be in this disco, and he tracked them to a series of tunnels underneath that led back to “The Project”. The rockers headed home through a Boom Tube, but Superman is now just in time to catch another Tube with a figure emerging from it. Supes, of course, has an only semi-complete knowledge of the New Gods, and thus immediately assumes this guy is from Apokolips. What he doesn’t know is that this guy, who calls himself “Magnar”, is pretty much his equal in strength, and is able to put Superman in a judo hold and toss him down the Boom Tube. Superman emerges in New Genesis, and immediately realizes that this sunny, garden-like world could never be home to the evil beings from Apokolips. Because, as we all know, your taste in decoration is directly linked to how good or evil you are. Sunny, flowery, nature world = good, oppressive stone carvings, fire pits, and darkness = evil. It’s just common sense. In a comic book.

Anyway, Superman’s attempts to reassure his captors fall on deaf ears for the nonce, which of course allows for a time-tested tradition: A Good Guy Fight. Of course, the New Genesisians are coming off kind of jerky, as Superman’s trying to talk sense to them and they just keep piling on with more punches. Eventually, Magnar channels “the combined magnetic repulsion-flow of a hundred galaxies” to send Superman flying.

Back to the Newsboys, who are leaving Scotland behind to cross the Atlantic in the Whiz Wagon, with the unconscious Charlie strapped precariously to the back. Halfway across the ocean, they suddenly find themselves lost in a fog, which is the moment Charlie chooses to wake up and burst free of his shackles. For whatever reason—I guess it’s because Charlie stomps on his face—Gabby doesn’t speak up to calm the rampaging pink bug-man, and he begins to tear apart the whiz wagon—as, all the while, a huge volcano comes into view below, rising out of the sea. As if that weren’t enough, the Wagon’s controls seize up and begin steering them towards a gigantic landing platform that looms out of the volcano’s mouth. Once they’ve hit the deck, a crowd of “Pseudo-men” emerge and hit them with immobilizing eye-beams.

Back to Superman, who’s managed to talk some sense into the New Genesisians mostly by adopting a pleasant tone of voice, something that a dude from Apokolips would never, ever do. Quickly making amends, they invite Superman to come visit Supertown, repeating the phrase from earlier: “This is a world of friends!” Superman then attempts to show off by inviting Magnar’s young pals to grab hold of his cape and fly with him up to the hovering city, but of course Magnar can fly as well, and the kids can follow along in his “magna trail”. Following slowly behind, Superman finds himself blending in with the Supertown crowd, for whom a flying super-strong man is a common sight. “They don’t even notice me!” he thinks. Five minutes among his equals, and Superman’s already starting to develop a neurosis about it.

Jimmy and the Newsboys find themselves waking up at a table, wearing green, cultlike robes. Uh-oh—that’s never a good sign. Sure enough, at the head of the table stands a dapper, sophisticated, eight-foot tall gentleman, dressed in Victorian-style clothing and drinking a cup of liquid that he lights on fire with a blowtorch. Yep, uh-huh, I’d say what we have here is a supervillain. You wouldn’t happen to be a “Doctor” or a “Professor”, would you, sir?



Yep. Definitely a supervillain.

(“That’s the kind of premise sold in “Golden Age” comics!” Unlike these completely sane modern comics, huh, Big Words?)

Back in Supertown, Superman is gawking at the décor and the inhabitants. “Supertown is truly a place for super-beings!!” He thinks, and then proceeds to completely forget what he just saw when he spots a pillar that appears to be falling on a young girl. He snatches it away, only to be met with scorn by the girl, who was of course moving it around on purpose with her telekinetic powers. Duh. And now she’s put out at Superman for attempting to save her life. “I keep forgetting that I’m in a city of super-beings!!” Thinks Supes. Yes, Superman, you do. You might want to write it on your arm or something.

Just then, he’s grabbed by a colossal iron hand that slams him against a wall. Aha! Here’s something Superman can punch without complaint—a gigantic metal ape-man. “With a face like that, you could only have slipped into town from Apokolips!!” declares Superman, judgmentally, and proceeds to wail on the robot. But of course, once again, Superman’s goofed…it’s a “harmless Protonoid”, and his owner shows up, all chuffed at Supes. Because, clearly, in a world where everything that we’ve seen so far indicates that the good guys are beautiful and innocent-looking, and the bad guys are ugly, to be physically assaulted by a giant robot just shows that Superman should have known better.



Yeah, um, actually, he friggin’ attacked Superman, Captain Sanctimony McMustache. “I may be a big deal on Earth!!” thinks Kal-El, “But in this place I’m just another meddling super-being!!” Well, you’re kind of a meddling super-being on Earth, too, but at least there people don’t get ticked off at you for jumping to perfectly reasonable conclusions.

Superman stops to have an emo attack on a nearby park bench, and who should be sitting next to him but All-Father. He’s there to provide the kind of third-act moral direction you typically get in an episode of Full House. Izaya lays out what’s instantly obvious to us: Superman isn’t needed on New Genesis, and he needs to be needed, so he’ll always be happier on Earth. Especially given that his friends were just captured by a fire-drinking crazy person, and they need him to go and rescue them. Superman grabs hold of the Wonder-Staff and instantly finds himself transported back to Earth—specifically the lair of Professor Volcanum, where Jimmy and the Newsboys are being held captive. But no sooner has he entered the room, than he’s trapped by the walls, which close in on him…

And…that’s pretty much it for angsty Superman. I mean, obviously Superman survives—duh, it’s just a couple of rock walls, he could smash them with his pinkies—I mean, that’s the resolution to the emotional drama Kirby wanted to set up. Superman realizes he’s not needed and goes home. A trifle anticlimactic, isn’t it?

Oh well. As with so many other aspects of Kirby’s work, we can now look back and see how he had the right idea, even if it took someone else to really follow through on those ideas. It’s just a shame more people couldn’t have seen that Kirby knew what he was doing when he was actually doing it. Like they say: a pioneer is that guy ahead of you in the trail with an arrow in his back.