SUPERMAN FAMILY 215 (1982)
by Paul Kupperberg & Jose Delbo
This will be, for the time being, the last entry in the Jimmy Olsen retrospective.
After going through his stories in “Superman Family”, there isn’t much to track… no crazy transformations, no new superpowers, no weird powers, no absurd characters returning from obscurity… most of them are not even bad stories, but I don’t have anything interesting to say about them. There is only one left that I really had to cover, though.
And it’s the resolution of the relationship between Jimmy and Lucy Lane.
Lucy just showed up again in his life, and Jimmy’s not interested because lately he’s been dating another girl. He might have evolved into a slightly decent character, but he’s still Jimmy enough to just do his best to ghost Lucy.
Jimmy has been investigating an organization called “United Charities”, and his suspicion of being followed by one of their goons proves to be correct.
Overhearing that United Charities is going to use a soccer match to launder some money, so he infiltrates the stadium by stealing a guard’s uniform…
…and immediately gets discovered when Lucy calls him by name.
Jimmy acts like this ruins his plan, but he still manages to evade the real guards anyway.
He also disguises himself like one of the players in a scene that makes little sense.
So he’s worried that this guy is going to notice that he’s not actually one of the players… but the rest of the freaking team doesn’t say anything!?
Also, I know this is an American comic and few readers noticed, but a soccer team doesn’t get on the field bringing two soccer balls with themselves! They shouldn’t even HAVE soccer balls until they’re on the field.
Not that Jimmy knows anything about soccer anyway.
This guy is one of the dumbest criminals I’ve ever seen in one of my reviews, AND THAT’S SAYING SOMETHING.
So… yeah, that’s about the level of Jimmy Olsen stories in “Superman Family”. See why I’m skipping the entire thing? It’s not bad, it’s just a story you’ll probably forget in five minutes.
So why did I specifically include this one?
Because after over a hundred issues of Jimmy Olsen, this is his last scene with Lucy Lane.
Yep. After all the double crossing, double dates, secret identities, jealous alien princesses, raising from the dead and once even getting married… this is how their story ends.
With sheer and utter disinterest.
I would feel bad for her… but she’s free from the Jimmy Olsen curse, so it can’t be THAT bad.
This is ALMOST the last Lucy Lane story in pre-Crisis times: she still shows up in a two issue Lois Lane miniseries. We’ll look at that eventually.
And that’s it! Honestly it’s amazing Jimmy Olsen lasted THIS long… the late seventies were a bit of a stretch, but he feels really out of place in the 80s.
So… this is the end, for now. I might add some stories if I find Jimmy being the protagonist somewhere: I will cover World’s Finest once I’m done with Lois and Supergirl, and Jimmy might have a solo story out there.
But I mostly say “for now” because there ARE two things I’m going to cover that have to do with Jimmy Olsen, but they’ll have to wait for the end of the Supergirl retrospective because they also belong to the same: “Crisis on Infinite Earths” and “Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”.
And if you know anything about that story, you know why it absolutely must come at the end.
Historical significance: 7/10
The resolution of the relationship between Jimmy and his canonical greatest love doesn’t even get to be the main plot. Think about it.
Silver Age-ness: 0/10
As long as you don’t think about the ridiculous reason Lucy’s hair is still white.
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
It’s fine, but I don’t think such a thowaway story deseves a 10/10.
Stupid Jimmy Olsen moment
“Lucy blew my cover! I know, I’ll surround myself with people who must know I’m not part of their team and then I’ll move to the one place in the entire stadium where everyone is looking at me, they’ll never notice me!”