SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN 032 (1958)
“The Super Nose for News” by Otto Binder & Curt Swan
“The Jimmy Olsen from Jupiter by Alvin Schwartz & Curt Swan
We’ve already seen professor Potter come up with insane inventions. But I would argue that a nose-spray that turns you into Pinocchio HAS to be the most insane.
It’s so stupid that I’m not going to comment on just how wrong it is to call Pinocchio “a legend”.
Naturally, the spray works.
Lois Lane, not wanting Jimmy’s nose to be the most ridiculous thing in the story, shows up with quite possibly the ugliest hat in the history of everything.
And to add insult to injury… the professor drops the only existing vial of the antidote.
But at least we get to add yet another superpower to the list: super-smell.
Or rather its much sillier name: “telescopic smell”.
But even Pinocchio Jimmy can’t put out the fire. Superman could, of course, put out the fire with his super-breath… or he could use a fake whale.
Note the flawless logic: he needs to calm down the people because the fire caused panic. Naturally, being saved by a flying whale is far more reassuring than being saved by a known superhero.
While Jimmy is getting some publicity for himself, he inadvertently discovers that Superman is Clark Kent.
Jimmy doesn’t believe it, but naturally Lois takes this as an opportunity for a new scheme.
In the only relatively sane bit of the story, Superman avoids being exposed by faking a phone call.
At this point in the story, my guess was that Jimmy couldn’t use his nose to determine Superman’s secret identity: since he doesn’t know it, he can’t know if he’s lying or not.
But Lois discovers that it’s far, FAR more useful!
Holy crap! Not only does this make it a legitimate superpower, it has huge applications!
Jimmy can use it to determine any truth! Just imagine if he said “God exists” or something like that? He could use his nose to fundamentally change our understanding of reality!!!
Or he could use it as a ladder.
Jimmy and Lois are caught immediately, but Lois saves the day with her compact mirror.
And I can’t believe I’m saying it, but Pinocchio Jimmy adds a third superpower… “super-sneeze”.
As for the plot point about Lois having used the spray on Clark Kent… he has a plan.
The spray won’t work on him because he’s invulnerable, but it doesn’t mean he can’t fake it.
How? A fake nose.
Did he come up with this prop specifically for this occasion, or does Superman carry it around all the time, just in case? With the Silver Age, I wouldn’t rule it out.
And by working at superspeed, he’s able to come up with an antidote in far less than a month.
Just a thought: the “Pinocchio spray” doesn’t have any drawbacks, right? And the antidote can be made in a month, even less if Superman helps.
So… what’s stopping a person from taking the spray, use the lie-detecting power until the nose is uncomfortably long, take the antidote, and then start everything from the beginning?
Say Lois wants to find Superman’s identity. She could take the serum and then take ten or twenty guesses of his identity! It would take a long time to exhaust all candidates, sure, but what’s stopping her? Wouldn’t the police be VERY interested in using this method to find every suspect? Or even using it for solving every single crime?
The wasted potential is making my brain hurt. Let’s see if the second story is a little less bonkers.
It starts with Jimmy receiving a message from aliens from his TV. Despite the fact that the aliens are specifically calling him by name, Jimmy thinks this is just a prank from an actor.
The alien is instructing him to build some strange device.
This is going to end with Jimmy Olsen blowing up the planet, isn’t it?
No, it ends up with Jimmy being turned into an alien.
At least he gets telepathy out of it! Just imagine, the power to know what people around it REALLY think of you!
Yeah that’s about right.
He also helps Superman stop crimes before they happen. We don’t see the term “professional dynamiter” often enough.
Jimmy also gets in trouble because he simply can’t keep his mouth shut.
My first guess was that the guy was fantasizing about gunning down Jimmy (we’ve all been there), but it turns out this is a gangster.
Nice comedic touch with the woman cheering Jimmy for suggesting to buy her a necklace!
Superman saves him. Later, Jimmy gets a glimpse of Clark Kent thinking he’s Superman.
Is this a regular occurrence for him? Also: WHO THINKS LIKE THAT!?
Later, another Daily Planet reporter who is jealous of all the attention that Jimmy is receiving discovers that he’s an alien… while Jimmy is taking a shower. At the Daily Planet.
Did newspaper offices in 1958 really have showers?
But just when Jimmy’s secret is about to be exposed… he’s back to being a regular human.
He forgot that “jovian weeks” are shorter than Earth weeks.
I’m not even trying to make sense of it. The writer clearly doesn’t know anything about the real Jupiter.
But what about the whole secret identity thing?
It turns out that Clark Kent was thinking “I am Superman” because of a movie.
Historical significance: 0/10
The usual forgotten stories. Intriguingly, in the same year we will be introduced to a telepath from Saturn.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
A scientific serum that gives your nose the power to determine objective truth? It might as well be a 11/10.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Like I said, there’s potential for Pinocchio Jimmy. Instead we get a panel with Lois stepping on his nose.
Stupid Jimmy Olsen moment
“Pinocchio Jimmy” might just be the worst use for a superpower ever.
Superpower count: 20
How do we classify Pinocchio Jimmy? Let’s add lie detection to the list (even if that’s a little reductive), as well as “telescopic smell” and “super-sneeze”. No additions for the second story, since Jimmy has already been a telepath.