Friday, April 9, 2010

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #129 (On Sale: April 9, 1970) has a cover by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. 

We begin with "Superman Versus Ultra-Olsen" by E. Nelson Bridwell and Murphy Anderson.  This is Anderson's first work on Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and begins a string of Olsen stories both penciled and inked by Anderson that would lead up to the return of Jack Kirby to DC. Jimmy's father brings him half a medallion which legend has it once granted powers to a Mayan king. For some strange reason, Jimmy has the other half, which was given to him by Professor Lang. Superman agrees to fuse the two halves together and hands the restored medallion to Jimmy. As is wont to happen in these stories, Jimmy receives super-powers from the medallion. He experiments with his new powers by performing super-deeds in public and some crooks come up with a plan to utilize his power for themselves. They kidnap Jimmy's father, using him as a hostage and forcing Jimmy to steal for them. Jimmy is able to stop the crooks by planting his signal watch in the stolen loot, which leads Superman to the kidnappers. Superman rescues Mark Olsen and Jimmy's new powers eventually wear off.

Next is the cover story, "The Pen of Prophecy" by Leo Dorfman and Murphy Anderson. While taking photographs of a museum fire Jimmy Olsen discovers an antique box containing a quill pen and a jar of ink. He takes the box home, intending to return it to the museum after the museum is repaired, but later, when Jimmy's typewriter breaks, he decides to finish his story using the quill pen. Suddenly, his hand becomes controlled by the pen. He writes an odd story about a man trapped in a submarine. He turns the story in to the Daily Planet, where Clark Kent sees it. The story tips Superman off to the location of a criminal and turns out to be true.

The next time Jimmy uses the pen, he writes another apparently fictional story which turns out to be true. When he tells Clark about the pen, Clark tries it and is also overcome by the compulsion to write, but his story reveals his secret identity. He covers up this revelation and in the confusion, the ink is spilled. He finds a note revealing that the ink once belonged to Edgar Allan Poe and was given to him by a descendant of Nostradamus. With the ink spilled and gone, Jimmy is unable to write any more magic prophecies.

We end with "The Superman Hall of Trophies" from Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #24 and is by Otto Binder, Curt Swan and Ray Burnley. While giving a tour of the new Superman Hall of Trophies. Jimmy demonstrates Superman’s powers with the help of several statues and robots. The real Superman replaces one of the statues to surprise Jimmy, but he becomes paralyzed by Kryptonite. When crooks show up to rob the museum, Superman tips off Jimmy to his predicament and Jimmy is able to free Superman so he can capture the crooks.

Edited by Mort Weisinger.

No comments: