Why must Jimmy Olsen die? This is why.

I can't even begin to describe the wonders of this comic. I just.... it blows my mind. Shakespeare? Proust? Brian K Vaughan? They're all put to ******* shame by this comic.

  • Our story begins as Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen take a ten-day cruise to the West Indies. Together. For vacation.
  • My mistake. It's not a cruise. It's a cargo ship. At one point, it docks to take on scrap metal. You guys, this is the best vacation ever.
  • Jimmy's feeble mind is blown as he watches a giant magnet crane pick up scrap metal. I was under the impression that scrap metal was compacted and stored in crates, but apparently they just throw old girders onto the dock, pick 'em up with the crane and drop them in a huge pile in the cargo hold.
  • A strange device with many random settings washes up on the beach in a sea chest. Naturally, Jimmy starts ****ing around with it and accidentally enlarges a snail to giant size. He decides it's an enlarging ray. Then he shoots a sponge with it to "see what it does". You just figured out what it does. Admit it, Jimmy, you just like making things big.
  • Side note: I once read a short story about a professor who visited an island of giant snails, only to be chased down and slowly devoured by them. I also did a project on them in grade school and absolutely the only thing I can remember is that they're hermaphrodites.
  • Jimmy decides to turn the gun off and take it back to the ship, because it's an important scientific discovery. Oh my god, he just discovered a ****ing enlarging ray that washed out of the ocean, and now he's going to continue with his vacation.
  • Clark accidentally-on-purpose gets left behind so he can go to outer space for a "vital mission", called Operation Ditch My Stupid Coworkers. He's summoned back when the magnet crane sets off Jimmy's signal watch. I can't even imagine how that's supposed to work so I'm not going to try.
  • Anyway, Lois tells Superman about the enlarging ray and he straight up says that Jimmy's too stupid to handle it so he's taking it away. Look at this:
    Better get rid of it! Have you forgotten your perils when you became tiny-sized in the bottle of Kandor? You may get into some giant-sized trouble if you're not careful with that ray!
    Click to expand...
    Translation: Jimmy, you're too much of a ****-up to be trusted with something this dangerous.
  • He just mentioned Kandor in the same breath as the enlargement ray and nowhere in this story does anyone even think of using the growth ray on Kandor.
  • Jimmy says he'll give the ray to Superman after he (Jimmy) does a story on it. That's right, scientists, if you want an enlarging ray you can invent one yourself. Lazy jerks.
  • Lois has brought back a pet turtle (it's really little and cute) from the island they stopped at, but she doesn't have a glass case or anything so I guess she's just been carrying it in her purse the entire time.
  • To the complete surprise of a five-year-old child who was raised by wolves and is being introduced to the concept of "fiction" by this comic, Jimmy accidentally turns on the ray. It passes through Lois's turtle and then hits him, despite the fact that the ray is clearly aimed at the empty space between Jimmy and the turtle.
  • The turtle becomes the size of an elephant and slips overboard, quickly dying because there's no place for it in the food chain and I don't think turtles as small as it originally was live in the ocean. Also, I think this artist has never seen a turtle before, because as soon as it gets big and needs details it turns really, really ugly.
  • Jimmy... oh, my god. Jimmy becomes as tall as a skyscraper and mutates into a half-turtle, half-man. All his clothes and his watch rip off because the ray only works on "living matter" (then what about the snail and turtle shells?), but because there is a merciful Comics Code he retains a lovely pair of dark green briefs. I suppose by living, they mean organic, and he has cotton underwear. I have decided that being half-turtle gave him some muscles, too, because no way is a scrawny "cub reporter" drawn as muscular as Superman. Anyway, he gets huge googly eyes, pointy ears, armor-plated skin everywhere except his hands and face (but no shell), his hair looks more unkempt, and he can only make "CRRRGGGG CRRRGGG" noises. It's... it's more beautiful than I could possibly imagine...
  • Jimmy jumps ship and swims away. He's seen later than night at the Metropolis harbor, stealing a steel bridge by ripping it to shreds. Even if the boat was really slow and spent a lot of time at that island, it's still stupid that he swam that far. Especially since this all could've been avoided by not calling it Metropolis. There is absolutely no reason to call it the Metropolis harbor. It doesn't need to be named at all. It has no effect on the story whatsoever. And there's no way Jimmy should be strong enough to rip apart that bridge. Giants don't work that way.
  • Oh man, it gets even worse. Jimmy is stuffing the steel into a volcano. What does Mr. Caption say about the place and time?
    At dawn, that day, many hundreds of miles away...
    Click to expand...
    What the ****? When Jimmy stole the bridge, the sky was completely dark and the moon was high. Supposedly, with his arms full of loose scraps of metal, he swam hundreds of miles to this island, before the sun came up. What the ****?
  • Later that day, Jimmy goes to steal some naval submarines. Oh my god. He's up to his knees in the water, while these huge submarines are described as having surfaced, presumably moments ago. He picks them up and clutches them to his chest while a crewman delivers a stilted monologue about how everybody was able to escape. There was a similar line of dialogue earlier to explain how drivers escaped the bridge, but that doesn't quite cut it in these modern times after the footage from the Mississippi Bridge collapse. It's like a less horrible version of how horrifying that 'Juggernaut attacks the Twin Towers' comic seems now.
  • And now, Jimmy is once again up to his knees in the ocean. Pulling up the Trans-Atlantic Cable. He is up to his knees. How... but... this is just... gah!
  • Then he uses it to lasso a battleship. Once again, fleets of lifeboats escape with someone thankfully announcing that everyone got out in time.
  • No comment.
  • Superman is back at the Planet, where Lois tells him about Jimmy. He looks in a random direction and immediately sees Jimmy dropping the battleship into the volcano island that nobody knew about, using his telescopic vision. I wonder if Superman ever does any investigative reporting, or if he just looks in random directions until he sees someone burning down an orphanage or Jimmy turning into a carrot. Dear God, Jimmy is DC's Rob Schneider. Kill me now.
  • Jimmy is dropping the metal into the volcano and it overflows and coats the island with metal. Superman calls him a "young fool" and knocks him out with a punch to the chin. I am reminded of that issue of Kirkman's Ant-Man where Eric tried punching someone while shrunken. Bad news: That doesn't happen. Good news: Superman super-wedgies Jimmy by carrying him away by the back of his fetching dark green briefs.
  • In this exact same panel, Superman's telepathic mermaid ex-girlfriend sends him a mental message telling him to come to Atlantis and that Jimmy's antics weren't his fault. I think this panel should be taken out of context and shown to children when they turn thirteen. If they can survive it with their sanity intact, they become an adult in the eyes of the tribe.
  • I bet I know why Lori (the mermaid) is Superman's ex-girlfriend. See, normally Superman can just look straight into your eyes and smile lovingly while looking through your skull and into the strip club seven blocks away. Getting a gift for you is so cheap and easy because he can just give you the crap his fans got him that he doesn't want. "Oh Rao, more jewelry? I'm not sure which girlfriend I want to give it to, so I'll scratch 'LL' on it with my fingernails and wait for one of them to get mad at me." He got away with everything. But now he's got this telepathic girlfriend who can contact him from miles away. He'll be planning his next elaborate humiliation of Jimmy and suddenly she'll be yelling "PAY ATTENTION!" in his brain. Any time he thinks about another woman? She knows. And when they broke up, she divided her time between broadcasting Spice Girls songs and sending subtle "That's hot" messages every time he looked at Perry White.
  • Anyway, the Atlanteans saw the human news reports, read Turtle Jimmy's mind and discovered that he was being mind-controlled by an Atlantean criminal named Goxo. You lazy Atlantean sons of *****es. I don't think there's a single other story where Earth is invaded or a crime is reported and they see fit to check out what's going on and warn Superman. "Oh no! These crooks have been robbing banks with their superpowers and nobody knows how or why! This sure looks dangerous. Some people have already been injured and someone could die! Good thing we can read their minds, find out their intentions, methods and location, and broadcast it to Superman without ever leaving the comfort of our own homes!" "Yeeeees... or we could monitor Earth news broadcasts so we can condemn random human females for flashing their vaginas." "What the hell are those things, anyway? Human anatomy is weird."
  • The art on Atlantis is really, really awful. It doesn't even look remotely underwater, everyone's hair is perfectly styled and still, Lori has perfect makeup, and Lori and Goxo are wearing completely normal human clothes.
  • Okay, here's the story: Goxo was about to be exiled to the surface world. I guess he's some kind of special Atlantean who doesn't have a fish tail or gills. Also, I would be worried if there was a race of sea-dwellers who liked to send their telepathic criminals to live among humans. I digress. For some reason *cough*fishpeoplearemorons*cough* the Atlanteans decided to allow Goxo to stay in his laboratory to perform useful work up until the moment of his exile. I think Superman should try that strategy with Lex Luthor. Anyway, Goxo stuck his growth ray in a magical chest that can float to the surface from the bottom of the ocean floor, so he could mentally control any human who happened to accidentally find it and enlarge themselves. Either Goxo is a tragic cynic who thinks everyone is as dumb as Jimmy Olsen, or he's a master of human nature who understands that every human is secretly like this.
  • Anyway, Goxo "somehow" knew that pirates of the Spanish Main had left treasure on the island. Yes, Lori actually says "somehow" in her infodump. Look, it's the third-to-last panel, what else do you want from them? Anyway, Goxo coated the island in molten steel so some geologists investigating the volcano wouldn't find the treasure. The Atlanteans only found out about this after they read Turtle Olsen's mind. Goxo is still in his laboratory, giving the mental order for Jimmy to drown himself. There's absolutely no resolution to Goxo's story. I guess we're just meant to assume he'll be joining the human race pretty soon. Also, I can't believe Atlanteans can even do mind-control. I guess it only works on the feeble-minded. Anyway, after the Exposition Mermaid shuts up, Superman wedgie-carries Jimmy away, waving goodbye to a mysteriously flying Lori... wait a second... are they still underwater?
  • Holy ****! I just realized that Turtle Olsen has been on the ocean floor this entire time! Lori just spent five minutes infodumping while he was lying there! What the hell?! Turtles don't breathe underwater! Wait, they knew that, Goxo was ordering Jimmy to drown himself. What the hell?!
  • Superman shrinks Jimmy using Brainiac's shrink ray (he specifically says it's the one used on Kandor) at his Fortress of Solitude. He takes him back the steel-carpeted island (boy, that molten metal cooled down quick). Incidentally, both the metal island and the Fortress are colored the same ugly orange color as a mountain on the island that the growth ray washed up on, some sand on the island the growth ray washed up on, the deck of the random cargo boat they went on a cruise on, the lifeboats from the submarines, and in several panels (it changes color) the volcano before it erupted. By the way, this whole time, Jimmy stays in the green underwear.
  • The metal coat of the island is like half a foot thick and very even and smooth. Superman rips away part of it and for some weird reason, a clump of earth clings to it with the two treasure chests stuck to the bottom of that. Also, Jimmy and Superman are out in the middle of nowhere, so I have no idea why Goxo was worried about the geologists digging up the treasure. He could've just waited for them to leave. He probably could've dug it up while they were on the island without even running into them. Wait a second, Superman just said,
    Goxo intended to dig it up after the geologists left!
    Click to expand...
    That... makes no sense. Why would they come to the island when it's coated entirely by metal? Actually, wouldn't that make more people come and stay longer, in order to observe this unprecedented phenomenon? And since the implication is that he'll dig it up after he's exiled (why would a merman want treasure?), why is he coating the island with steel? He'd need to hire help or invent robots to dig it up, which would cost money he doesn't have.
  • Well, with all these dangling plot threads, it's great they resolved at least one issue. For those of you on the edge of your seats, yes, Superman is going to make Jimmy a new signal-watch.
  • Oh. My. God. Superman is going to destroy the enlargement ray.
  • He's going to destroy the enlargement ray.
  • He's going to pulverize it to dust.
  • Without ever using it.
  • For anything.
  • They just mentioned Kandor in the previous panel.
 
To be fair, if Superman used the ray on Kandor, there's nothing stopping Goxo from taking command of his newfound yellow-sun-powered Kryptonian army to take over the planet and do whatever he wants.

Inevitable, really, as he'd get fed up with his desk job real quick.

Still this is hysterical.
 
By some amazing coincidence, I have chosen this time to continue my quest to wrestle some sanity from the jaws of madness.

  • On Valentine's Day, there are four guys other than Jimmy waiting outside Lucy's door with expensive presents. They all have white hair. How old is she supposed to be? What's more, this is all before Jimmy goes to work.
  • A mysterious space babe, Princess Ilona, flies down in a saucer to seduce Jimmy. She uses the phrases "manly courage" and "fascinating good looks" and says "Lucy Lane[...]she's a mere child!" What is it with creepy alien species spying on humans? Don't they have anything better to do?
  • At this point, I was assuming she was secretly a giant spider.
  • Ilona's engagement present to Jimmy is a gold belt with jewels that give him superpowers. One of them is that everything he touches will turn to gold.
  • To clarify: A fabulously beautiful space princess has swooped from the heavens, ranted about how madly in love with Jimmy she is, given him a superpower belt and promised him all the riches of her homeworld. She wants to go get married right away. Now, you'd think he'd either jump at the chance or call Superman in to check for spinnerets, but he does neither. He wants to use her to make Lucy Lane jealous at a masquerade ball, just so he can patronizingly gloat about how he rejected her. What's more, he attends in a stupid spaceman costume with a helmet that prohibits hot alien makeouts. He is an idiot.
  • Suddenly, Jimmy is ambushed by four guys (Vangar, Duran, Rogor, and Berek) in really flamboyant outfits. I would describe them as matching because they're all the same style, but the colors... don't.
  • They use their belts to mutate Jimmy, including growing his tongue to be a foot long. Uh... are you sure that won't make Ilona like him more...?
  • Anyway, turns out these four guys are Ilona's other husbands who are got jealous of Jimmy. Jimmy begs Superman to get him out of the engagement, because he's an idiot. Why wouldn't he want to spend his life luxuriating on an alien planet, enjoying the greatest riches possible? Is he afraid he'd be bored with his superpowers and all the science and culture of this obviously advanced species? And it's not like she's enslaving him. She adores him.
  • However, I think the subtext addressing this issue is intentional. Ilona clearly loses interest in her husbands as soon as she acquires another one. Jimmy is afraid he'll be stuck married to her and never have sex again.
  • Luckily, when Ilona was watching Jimmy's adventures, she somehow missed that he's not married, so Superman is able to pass off a disguised Lois and Lana as his hag wives. Ilona storms off.

The problem with this one is that it doesn't have individual ridiculousness like the other ones do. It's the whole concept, the way the characters act, that's ridiculous, and there aren't that many ways to point out how idiotic it is that anyone would be attracted to Jimmy, ever.
 
One of these days, I'm going to come here and find out TwilightEL is part of the League of Jimmy's Evil Ex-Girlfriends.
 
I don't want to spoil the fun, but here's a serious question, could you get a good story out of killing Jimmy in the comics? Does his character serve any purpose?
 
The Overlord said:
I don't want to spoil the fun, but here's a serious question, could you get a good story out of killing Jimmy in the comics? Does his character serve any purpose?
Click to expand...

Well, I got plenty excited over Countdown when it was first announced.

I think you could. I mean, Jimmy's an idiot, but he's touched a lot of lives.

I suggest the Jimmy issue of All-Star Superman. It was just fun.
 
Grocer Man said:
Well, I got plenty excited over Countdown when it was first announced.

I think you could. I mean, Jimmy's an idiot, but he's touched a lot of lives.

I suggest the Jimmy issue of All-Star Superman. It was just fun.
Click to expand...

I read it, its cute, is there any reason not to kill him off? Lois has to stay around, but Jimmy.........
 
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