By Otto Binder, Alvin Schwartz, Robert Bernstein, Jerry Siegel, Leo Dorfman, E. Nelson Bridwell, Cary Bates, Curt Swan, John Forte, Kurt Schaffenberger, Pete Costanza, Ray Burnley, Creig Flessel, Stan Kaye, George Klein & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1369-5 (TPB)
This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.
Over nearly nine decades, Superman has provided excitement, imagination and fun in more or less equal amounts; albeit admittedly not so much of that last one in recent times! This lost and longed for compilation relies heavily on the last two categories and offers the kind of reading experience we just don’t get enough of these days…
Although unnamed, a red-headed, be-freckled plucky kid worked alongside Clark Kent and Lois Lane from Action Comics #6 (cover-dated November 1938 and on sale from September 26th). He was called by his first name from Superman #13 (November-December 1941) onwards, but only after unlikely input from an even more ubiquitous mass entertainment. That lad was James Bartholemew AKA “Jimmy” Olsen who was a major player in The Adventures of Superman radio show from its debut on April 15th 1940; somebody for the hero to explain stuff to for the listener’s benefit, and the closest thing to a sidekick the Man of Tomorrow ever needed.
When the similarly titled TV show launched in the Fall of 1952 it became a monolithic hit and National Periodicals began cautiously expanding their valuable and precious franchise with new characters and titles. First up were gloriously charming, light-hearted escapades of a rash, capable but naïve photographer and “cub reporter” from the Daily Planet and titular star of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which launched in 1954 with a September/October cover date. The title was popular for over two decades, blending action, adventure, broad, wacky comedy, fantasy and science fiction in the gentle manner initial scripter Otto Binder had perfected a decade previously at Fawcett Comics on the magnificent Captain Marvel. As the feature progressed, one of the most popular plot-themes (and most fondly remembered and referenced today by most Baby-Boomer fans) was the unlucky lad’s appalling talent for being warped, mutated and physically manipulated by fate, aliens and even his friends.
The Amazing Transformations of Jimmy Olsen gathers some of the very best and most iconic tales from the series; as they originally appeared in issues #22, 28, 31-33, 41-42, 44, 49, 53, 59, 65, 72, 77, 80, 85 & 105 of the weirdly popular comic book, plus the lead story from giant-size anthology Superman Family #173, into which SPJO evolved when times got tough for Superhero publishers in the 1970s.
The spellbinding wonderment opens with a selection of beautifully reconfigured covers (from #22, 44, 59 & 105) acting as contents/credit pages, after which the stories commence with Binder, Curt Swan & Ray Burnley’s ‘The Super-Brain of Jimmy Olsen’ wherein resident crackpot inventor Professor Phineas Potter evolves the boy of today into a man from 1,000,000AD. This apparently benevolent being seems to have a hidden agenda, however, and is even capable of bending the Man of Steel to his towering will…
The same creative team crafted ‘The Human Skyscraper’, with another Potter production enlarging Jimmy to monumental size, whilst in ‘The E-L-A-S-T-I-C Lad’ Superman is inadvertently responsible for the boy reporter gaining stretching powers after leaving a chest of alien artefacts with the nosy, accident-prone kid…
Alvin Schwartz, Swan & Burnley’s ‘The Jimmy Olsen from Jupiter’ then sees aliens mutate him into one of their scaly selves, complete with mind reading powers, before Binder’s ‘The Human Flame-Thrower!’ depicts how Potter’s latest experiment causes the worst case of high-octane halitosis in history, after which Robert Bernstein, Swan & John Forte highlight the lad’s negligent idiocy as Jimmy eats alien fruit and becomes ‘The Human Octopus!’
Creig Flessel inked the hilariously ingenious ‘Jimmy the Genie!’ in which boy and magical sprite exchange roles, prior to Binder, Swan & Stan Kaye delivering a gleeful masterpiece. ‘The Wolf-Man of Metropolis!’ is a beloved, oft-reprinted classic blending horror, mystery, romance and heart-warming charm into a cautionary tale impossible to ignore or forget.
Next, Professor Potter is blamed for – but entirely innocent of – turning Jimmy into ‘The Fat Boy of Metropolis!’ – a nonsensical but clever crime caper from Swan & Forte – whilst sheer mischance results in scripter Jerry Siegel’s now-legendary if not culturally significant saga of ‘The Giant Turtle Man!’ and his oddly casualty-free rampage…
Leo Dorfman, Swan & George Klein then contribute a sparkling tale of alien love gone amiss, which results in our boy temporarily becoming ‘Jimmy Olsen, Freak!’, a frequent consequence of Jimmy’s remarkable love life. Thanks to Siegel, Swan & Klein, when Jimmy spurns amorous attentions of surrealistic Fifth Dimensional hottie Miss Gzptlsnz, she quite understandably turns him into ‘The Human Porcupine’ in a wild and possibly thematically influential precursor to vengeance sagas like Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct or What’s Opera, Doc? The self-same creators also crafted intriguing enigma ‘The World of Doomed Olsens!’ wherein the Olsen boy is aggressively confronted by manifestations of his most memorable metamorphoses… a dilemma that was nothing like what it seemed…
‘The Colossus of Metropolis!’ finds Jimmy deliberately and daringly grown to giant size to tackle rampaging Super-Ape Titano before Siegel, Forte & Klein’s ‘Jimmy Olsen, the Bizarro Boy!’ poses a parlous comedy of errors with Potter’s cure for those backwards-living un-beings going painfully awry, resulting in the poor warped lad being ‘Exiled on the Bizarro World!’ The immensely popular Legion of Super-Heroes guest-star in many of these tales and play a pivotal part in ‘The Adventures of Chameleon-Head Olsen!’, a madcap mirth spree as only Siegel, Forte & Klein could make ’em, whilst the far more menacing account of ‘The World of 1,000 Olsens! (Binder, E. Nelson Bridwell & Pete Costanza) was a product of changing times and darker tastes; with an actual archenemy trapping Jimmy on a murderous alien world where everybody looks like yet hates the cub reporter…
This fabulously strange and cruelly out of print brew concludes with a smart thriller set in the Bottled City of Kandor where Jimmy resumes occasional costumed-hero identity Flamebird beside Superman (AKA the original Nightwing), hoping to save the last of Kryptonian civilisation from the ‘Menace of the Micro-Monster!’ This sharp terrorism-tinged action-shocker by Cary Bates & Kurt Schaffenberger satisfyingly closes a magically engaging tome by proving that even the silliest ass can sometimes be the hero and not the goat…
As well as reliving some of the most delightful episodes of DC’s pre-angst-drenched, cosmically catastrophic days, these stories also perfectly frame the changing mores and tastes which reshaped comics from the safe 1950s to the seditious, rebellious 1970s, all the while keeping to the prime directive of the industry: keep them entertained and keep them wanting more.
I know I certainly do…
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