Reading Through 2021 9: Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen; Matt Fraction, Steve Lieber, Nathan Fairbairn

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen; Matt Fraction, Steve Lieber, Nathan Fairbairn

2020

I had to break my "no new DC comics" rule to read this. DC is a dumpster fire of a company, that is slowly destroying their comics business in favor of supporting properties to be leveraged into other media. Just with their changes over the past year, I doubt this book would have got the green light were it proposed today.

And it's really really good! Like, this might be a new classic, along the lines of All Star Superman. Matt Fraction did a similarly great run on Hawkeye a few years ago, Steve Lieber had similarly great art on Superior Foes of Spider-Man a few years ago. This is the first time I've recognized Nathan Fairbairn's name, but he does pretty amazing color work. The colors in this are almost flat, with a slight tone to them, and the pages are matte instead of glossy, so they work with the flatness. It's a great looking book.

I read this faster than expected because I was just enjoying it so much. It's hard to know what to compare it to, because it's not like other books. Maybe this is to silver age DC as Coen Brother movies are to classic noir movies: embracing the genre, making it modern, and embracing the ridiculous without making it stupid. It's this fine line of really dumb things done in a very smart way. Jimmy Olsen is a character a lot in my generation thought was everything wrong with old comics: A bow-tie wearing, happy-go-lucky "pal" to Superman, who got into hijinx. He sucked (and Zack Snyder made a point of putting a bullet in his forehead in the classic shitfest that was Batman V. Superman, because Zack Snyder's brain is firmly lodged in 1995). Fast-forward to 2021, where DC has made death, rape and mental illness pillars of their publishing line, where they made a comic showing Batman's penis because "we're grown up!", and yeah, I wanna read about the happy-go-lucky guy in the bow tie who gets into hijinx.

This book is a murder mystery (Jimmy's own murder!) told in the most complicated way possible, with a dozen independent mini-stories that seemed unrelated at first, but slowly start coming together into one big story. Some of the stories:

-Jimmy gets wrecked on "gorilla champagne" and wakes up married to an intergalactic jewel thief

-Jimmy has a prank war with Batman, including stealing the Batmobile's wheel

-an embarrassed Batman tries to establish that he has a sense of humor

-We meet Jimmy's siblings, Julian and Janie, and learn that one of Jimmy's given names is Jimberly

-Journalist Jimmy Olsen is dead, but blogger Timmy Olsen is on the scene, and has a mustache.

-In the wake of Jimmy's death, four new Jimmy's appear: a robot Jimmy, a steel covered Jimmy, a cool 90's kid Jimmy, and sunglasses-wearing silent Jimmy

Much like classic Coen Brothers movies, the story is simply a plot to hang character, humor and experience on. It's not what they do but the way that they do it. There's no other comic out today that has blue blood-barfing cat in it.

And there is a bad guy named Stealy Thieverman, and it's so dumb, and made me laugh out loud.