Superman Family 164 – Comics Archeology

SUPERMAN FAMILY 164 (1974)
by Leo Dorfman & Kurt Schaffenberger
cover by Nick Cardy

“Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen” is renamed “Superman Family” and becomes an anthology book: for a long time only the cover story will be a new one, with the rest being reprints.
Jimmy, Lois, Supergirl and sometimes even Krypto will take turns.

We begin with a blast. Literally, as the mansion of Jimmy’s millionaire father is bombed!

Jimmy can’t understand why someone would use their money to help the community. No wonder he’s friends with The Worst.

Good news: Jimmy’s father is close to bankruptcy.

Bad news: Jimmy is put in charge of his fortune.

Worse news: we have Leo Dorfman writing social commentary.
I honestly miss Kanigher… he had the subtlety of a sledgehammer, sure, but his heart was in the right place.

Last but not least, we have a telepathic mutant.

At least THIS time Superman is not randomly skeptical about other people having powers. He does miss a gigantic red flag, though.

Jimmy is the one in charge of being skeptical of superpowers for no reason.

Jimmy is so suspicious that he follows the telepath during the night, and the trail brings him to SUDDEN SKELETON!

The bad guy of the story turns out out to be *dice roll* the psychiatrist that showed up in a couple of panels.

Jimmy is still convinced that the telepath is working with the psychiatrist, which of course means he couldn’t possibly be more wrong.

A telepathic signal fails to lead Superman to their position (WHY!!?!?), so the solution is to just assume the kid has telekinesis too.

AND IT WORKS.

And so we end with Jimmy using the treasure recovered from the corpses of the Conquistadors to fund the youth center in his father’s name.

I fully expect Jimmy to lose all of the family money in a few issues.

The issue ends with a “How the artists draw the Superman family” feature. Since the story is so incredibly dull, it’s going to help me to explain the scores.

Historical significance: 0/10