Throwback Tuesday: Featuring Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #14

Hey comic fans, it's Tuesday so you know what that means, it's time for a Throwback review! I planned on reviewing this issue last week before I took an impromptu vacation, if you wanna call it that, so here I am this week with my Throwback post. Today I'm reviewing another issue of one of the most goofy comic series to ever exist, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. If the cover below doesn't dissuade you from even reading this, let's see what happened!

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #14

Summary: This issue starts with Clark arriving on the roof of the Daily Planet in the helicopter they have, because that paper has MONEY. He notices Lois waiting for him and he takes his Superman suit off and hides it on the helicopter due to his Clark Kent attire sleeve being burned from a fire he put out as Superman, and he didn't want Lois to see his suit under it. Next we...wait... how did he burn his sleeve of his Kent clothes if he put out the fire as Superman?! Anyway, Jimmy manages to take the helicopter and fly it around, because the paper has so much money they'll let Jimmy pilot a helicopter even though he barely looks old enough to drive. Of course Jimmy manages to crash the helicopter, because he's Jimmy Olsen. He calls Superman for help with his watch but quickly finds Superman's suit on the helicopter and puts it on for warmth for some...odd reason. While walking around in Superman's suit, God realizes he has the chance to kill Olsen and Jimmy's struck with lightning, but sadly for us all, Superman's suit is impervious to lightning. Jimmy stumbles onto a land that time forgot, and is surrounded by hillbillies in Hogfoot Hollow. They think Jimmy's Superman, but he says he's not, so they say he's being modest and give him tests to prove he IS in fact Superman... because yeah. They ask him to move a tree stump from the ground, and in odd Olsen fashion, a boulder happens to fall down and move it while Jimmy pushes it, and no one else sees the boulder. Jimmy soon finds out that the strongest person in Hogfoot is to marry the Mayor's daughter, I guess... age doesn't matter. Jimmy's next exploit is being fed a ton of food he can't possibly eat, but luckily a giant bear reaches through the window and eats all of the food, which impresses the local hicks when they come back to see "Superman" has eaten everything! From there we see Jimmy seemingly scare a bear away, but the bear was actually afraid of a skunk... who wrote this?! When Jimmy finds out he has to marry Petunia, the Mayor's daughter, since he's the strongest guy in the town, but Moose Morton, super hick, is jealous since he wants to marry Petunia. Meanwhile, Clark flies out looking for Jimmy in his work attire. Why... not just take your glasses off... then people will just wonder why Superman is wearing a suit instead of them seeing and wondering why Clark Kent is flying. Moose challenges Jimmy to a fight but is shocked when he sees Clark flying and he faints, causing Jimmy to win Petunia's honor. With the wedding approaching, Jimmy is dressed in his suit by Petunia's brothers... weird. Moose decides to run up behind Jimmy and hit him with a boulder... um...okay, but Jimmy slips on a banana peel.  Moose figures the rock is "kricktynite" and Jimmy takes advantage of that to act powerless and run away. Moose, the potential murderer, then wins the love of the daughter of the Mayor... Anyway, Clark takes advantage of Jimmy being out of the suit and gets it back, then flies Jimmy back to the helicopter and fixes it, but basically threatens Jimmy not to ask why his suit was in the Helicopter. The issue ends with Jimmy telling Clark that being mistaken as Superman isn't fun and to never get caught wearing his suit, while Clark smiles knowingly.

Thoughts: This was sooooooo bad! I mean, I know these people apparently had never seen Superman, but if this is such a hick town that no one has a newspaper with his picture or anything, how did they even KNOW he was Superman? Who says, he's wearing spandex with an "S" on it but omits that he's a super powered flying ginger?! Also, how did Jimmy survive a helicopter crash, being struck by LIGHTNING (Who did HE piss off?! It wasn't even raining!), being narrowly missed by a boulder, surviving coming in close contact with a bear, TWICE, AND fighting a guy who was going to club him to death and then later throw a BOULDER at his head. The worst part is, Superman was around when the guy was gonna hit Jimmy with the boulder and didn't even intervene! He must've been thinking "I'll teach you to wear my suit, Olsen!" And the cherry on top was Superman threatening Jimmy while flying with him. "You ask how my suit got in that helicopter and they'll be asking how you fell out of it!" The trend continues, absurdity at it's finest.

Pages in this story: 8 (Seemed like MUCH more.)
# of Times people call Jimmy "Superman": 18
# of Times Jimmy should have died: 7

Throwback Tuesday: Featuring Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #7

Hey X-Maniacs, Todd Squad or whatever you guys prefer to be called, JT here with the second edition of Throwback Tuesday! After the warm reception X got with the inaugural post last week, I've been pretty excited to get my shot at this feature. Just like last week when X let me choose his book, I decided to let him choose what I would review, and I immediately regretted that decision when I saw the cover of this issue. So, let's take a trip back to 1955 and see what the Man of Steel and the Boy of annoyance, Superman and Jimmy Olsen, are up to.

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #7

Summary: This issue starts with Perry White announcing how the Daily Planet is covering the Marble shooting contest that Superman will judge for some reason. He says they'll market it like Major League Baseball, which is sad considering how little people seem to care about baseball now. Anyway, Perry means serious business, because this is the biggest headline ever, as it takes up the ENTIRE FIRST PAGE of the newspaper, and there's not even room for a picture. Perry then announces one of the competitors got sick and they need a replacement, and instead of having someone earn that spot, they give it to Jimmy, because why the hell not? Jimmy is told by Perry to put on a shirt that says "MIB Masters" and he'll enter him officially, because they apparently gave Perry a shirt to give to whoever he deemed worthy of flicking Marbles. Perry gives Jimmy multiple afternoons off to practice, because if you have employees that are there to learn, just pay them to play marbles. Great business skills Perry, you must still be smoking those whacky cigars. Superman sees Jimmy practicing and helps because Jimmy is outmatched by competing against people who have practiced for weeks. So... because they worked hard to win a contest they care about, Superman is going to help Jimmy who literally JUST FOUND OUT THIS EXISTED! Jimmy wins the first round and he and Superman scout out the competitors because Superman has nothing better to do with his time or powers, and Perry doesn't give a fuck what his employees do when they should be working. They come across the kid that will inevitably face Jimmy in the finals...since it's on the cover of the comic, and his manager, Cyrus Colby, who makes Target brand marbles. Not that Target. Anyway, Jimmy and Target kid, who must have given up his name and image for this, since that's all he's called for this issue and he even wears a shirt that says "Target Kid", meet up to face for the Marble championship. Jimmy's favorite Aggie, which Google says is a glass Marble, is stolen and replaced by the dastardly Colby! Aw hell naw! Before the finals, Superman shows he's a dick and steals their thunder by shooting marbles with super speed and shooting one through a heavy plate of steel. He then flies to space and brings back meteors and plays marbles with those... thanks Superman... I'm sure the finals will be super interesting after watching that. After further showing off, Superman breaks one marble with another, and the marble he got from Colby has a small bead of metal inside it, so instead of calling him a cheater, Superman takes some time to ponder what this could mean! In the finals, it comes down to 56 points for Jimmy Olsen and 56 points for Target Kid. (It actually SAYS that!) Jimmy misses two shots and Superman notices something fishy and uses his X-Ray vision to find a magnet underground which is messing up Jimmy's shots... cause... Colby went through all this trouble to do this. Superman melts the magnet with his heat vision, but not the grass or ground or anything because THAT would make sense, and Jimmy wins. Superman calls Colby out for cheating, then takes him to jail, because apparently rigging Marble games with a magnet is a crime punishable with Jail time in Metropolis. ("What are you in for? Cheating at Marbles?! You're the third guy this week!") Afterwards, Jimmy sees the former Target Kid crying like a chump because he knows he only won those other rounds because Colby cheated, so Superman flies over and picks him up (?!) and informs him that in Colby's confession he said he only needed the magnet in a few key matches, so the kid has skills. But if you had to win them all, aren't they ALL key matches?! The issue ends when Perry White slips on some Marbles and yells at Jimmy, as we find out their actually sour balls that the marble people sent Jimmy as a thanks for some really stupid reason.

Thoughts: Really Superman? You flew to SPACE....to get METEORS... to play marbles. THIS is what you did with your time? Do you know how many people Parasite is killing while you play these games?! This is why Batman resents you. Also... How the hell do you go to jail for rigging a MARBLE contest?! This is a contest Jimmy got into by putting on a shirt, yet if you're clever enough to make marbles with metal in them, slip them onto your opponent, and use a fucking magnet that you can turn on via remote in 1955, you're going directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect your 200 dollars! Also, who is stupid enough to cheat in anything when you know for a fact Superman will be there to judge the event?! Anyway, if we learned anything from this comic, it's this, Don't waste your life practicing for things or having goals or trying to be good, because Jimmy Olsen will come along and beat you with minimal practice, and even if you decide to cheat, he'll STILL beat you, because he has the most powerful being in the planet in his back pocket, then after he beats you and destroys your dreams, he's going to go fuck up Perry White's coffee order, because while he may be a Demi-God when it comes to winning stupid games, he still can't remember four sugars and two creams.

Pages in this story: 8 (All that review from eight pages?!)
# of Times "Marble" appears: 34
# of Times "Aggie" appears: 9

Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen Special #2

Superman's Pal: Jimmy Olsen Special #2: Writer- James Robinson Art- Bernard Chang

What Happened: This issue gets underway a few weeks before the events of the Codename: Patriot storyline. Jimmy Olsen explains to Mon-El that he fears that Codename: Assassin is hunting him down, but Mon tells Jimmy not to worry, since Jimmy was that watch that will alert Mon anytime Jimmy is in jeopardy. Buyeed by that knowledge, Jimmy continues to dig for information on Project 7734. Jimmy gets in touch with a guy online who claims to have knowledge on the Project and Jimmy rushes off to meet with the guy. By this point, Gen. Lane(the leader of Project 7734)has had enough of Jimmy's snooping and he sends Assassin to finish Jimmy off. Jimmy arrives at the home of the man from the computer and finds it ablaze. Jimmy rushes in and pulls a man out of the inferno. The man has been shot and burnt, but still clings to life and is able to give Jimmy his story. Apparently the guy, whose name was Fury, was a part of Lex Luthor's Everyman Project and wound up learning a whole mess of stuff about Project 7734 that he shouldn't have, which is why Assassin was sent to kill him. With his dying breath, Fury gives Jimmy a phone # to call to hear more of the story. Jimmy makes the call and sets up a meeting with a woman. The woman turns out to be Natasha Irons, the niece(?)of Steel. Natasha tells Jimmy that the Project is run by Gen. Lane, and that the Project had managed to find a mindwiped Capt. Atom, who it seems is their secret weapon to use against the Kryptonians. After providing Jimmy with the information and some files, Natasha disappears. Jimmy walks outside and spots Codename: Assassin floating in the sky a few blocks from him. Jimmy immediately hits his watch to contact Mon-El, but unbeknownst to Jimmy, Mon is presumed dead in the aftermath of Codename: Patriot. With no help coming, Jimmy makes a break for it, but he rapidly discovers that you can't hide from an assassin with telepathy and telekinesis. Assassin catches up to Jimmy near a body of water and fires two bullets into the photographer's chest, knocking him and his files into the murky sea, apparently killing him, thus ending this issue.

What I thought: I enjoyed this comic a lot. I'm not normally a big fan of Jimmy Olsen(I've always found him incredibly annoying), but James did an excellent job giving Jimmy a personality and actually making me care about him. Now I guess the question is, where does this lead? If Jimmy is really dead(let's face it, that's not likely)Supes is going to be enraged, Mon-El is going to feel responsible and Lois will undoubtedly find out it was her father who put the hit out on Jimmy, leading to some big time drama. In other words, Jimmy's death should have some major ramifications in the Superman family of comic books.

Score: 8 out of 10.Personally, if I were to shoot Jimmy Olsen I'd say, "Good-Bye", but I guess that's why I'm not an assassin for a secret government program.