JIMMY OLSEN 55 (1961)
“The Sea-Monster That Loved Aqua-Jimmy” by unknown & Al Plastino
“Jimmy the Red, Thor’s Best Pal!” by Robert Bernstein & Curt Swan
I’m amazed that nobody wants to take credit for writing the story where Jimmy Olsen gets Aquaman’s powers.
And all it takes is a goofy helmet.
I don’t know much about Silver Age Aquaman, but his work must be important if Superman hands it over to someone else, right?
Or it’s some stupid s#it that even Silver Age Superman couldn’t be bothered with.
Well at least there’s a prehistoric sea monster on the loose, that should lead to something interesting!
Or it could lead to something disturbing. Like a yellow dinosaur with eyelashes licking Jimmy.
“Aqua-Jimmy” can control telepathically control fish, but obviously this doesn’t work on a yellow lady dinosaur.
Well at least Aqua-Jimmy saves the pilot, so that’s something I guess.
Aqua-Jimmy is somewhat competent at Aquaman’s job, but I can’t help being underwhelmed by his heroics.
If you’ve ever seen a Godzilla movie, you can probably guess that the giant monster is going to be useful only after other giant monsters show up.
But this is a Jimmy Olsen comic, not a Godzilla comic, so the giant monster is completely useless.
That’s when Aquaman makes his return in a dignified pose.
And after basically nothing happening, we’re at the last page. Turns out Aqua-Jimmy was so inept that Lori Lemaris summoned giant monsters to seal away Jimmy’s new pet monster.
So… uhm… I can only react in meme form to this.
Was this some kind of pilot? Was this an Aquaman story that was re-purposed for Jimmy Olsen? And why, since Jimmy barely does anything!?
Let’s switch to something more familiar: a team-up with Thor!
We begin with an archeologist begging Jimmy to ask Superman to destroy a priceless historical artifact.
No idea of why the archeologist couldn’t destroy it by himself.
The idea probably comes by the fact that “Olsen” is a name with Scandinavian origins, as it’s been pointed out in a couple of letters in the previous issues.
Which means that Jimmy can learn “the Viking language” in A FEW DAYS.
And why do this? Not out of historical curiosity, or either from interest on his own ancestry.
It’s basically for a publicity stunt.
The tablet ends up sending Jimmy into the past.
That’s where Jimmy meets Thor and frees him from his chains.
And that’s how “Jimmy the Red” became Thor’s pal!
He even gets a Viking version of the signal-watch.
Naturally, this makes him a target for Loki.
Thor saves Jimmy by drinking an entire lake. If you think this is ridiculous, there’s a Norse myth where Thor drinks so much that he lowers the level of the ocean.
Jimmy also encounters a Lucy Lane lookalike, because of course he does.
Then Jimmy helps Thor fight some pirates, but the god is trapped by Loki again.
Jimmy’s solution? Trick Loki by offering him a nickel.
AND IT WORKS.
Wait, how is THAT supposed to work!?
Sounds legit.
As a reward, Jimmy asks Thor to send him back to the future. Which Thor accomplishes by THROWING JIMMY AT SUPER-SPEED.
Yeah… Superman is kind of right. That “hunch” was incredibly forced.
Historical significance: 0/10
I have a hunch this is utterly meaningless for Aquaman readers as well.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Random giant monsters! Easily transferrable powers! Norse gods who are actually 5th dimensional imps for no reason!
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
No wonder nobody took credit for the first story. Nothing makes sense, and not in the usual Silver Age fun way… it’s just crap.
The second story is directionless and has one of the most bulls#it endings I’ve ever seen.
Stupid Jimmy Olsen moment
I still have no idea what happened, so I’m going to count “agreeing to appear in it”.
Second story: what’s the worst that could happen if I translate the cursed tablet that I’ve been specifically told should never be translated?
Superpowers count: 26
Thanks to Aquaman we can add “breathing underwater” and “fish telepathy”!
Interesting letters: thank God for the Comics Code, for once!
And in case you ever wondered why we got so many weird transformations, here’s why: readers LOVED them.
