Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133

Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133  (On Sale: August 25, 1970) has a Jimmy Olsen cover by Jack Kirby, Vinnie Colletta and Al Plastino. BOOM!!!!!

The word from high is...the great one is coming!

Screw that, as the cover proclaims, "Kirby is Here!" DC has been playing with us for months with those "great one is coming" ads. I remember the first time I saw one, showing it to my best friend, Baron Mrkva, and asking, "Any idea what this is all about?" He didn't have one and we never would have guessed that Kirby was moving to DC. 

And had we somehow figured out the identity of "the great one" we never would have guessed that his first move at DC would be to drop an atomic bomb on the staid and boring Jimmy Olsen book. As the modified logo spells it out, "Superman's Ex-Pal, the New Jimmy Olsen."

So now we knew why all of the DC reprint books lately had Jack Kirby stories in them; it was a reminder of what Jack had done for the company in the past and a signpost pointing toward the future. Well, the future had arrived.

Is Kirby going to change things up at DC, or play it safe? Let's see, in 22 pages of "The Newsboy Legion" Jack Kirby, as writer and penciler introduces us to Intergang, Morgan Edge, The Newsboy Legion, the Wild Area, the Outsiders and the Whiz Wagon. At the same time he begins laying the groundwork for the "Fourth World" with the New Gods and Darkseid. The inks were handled by Vinnie Colletta and Superman and sometimes Jimmy's face was drawn (or redrawn) by Al Plastino for the sake of continuity with the rest of the DC line. 

Jimmy Olsen is paired with the new Newsboy Legion, the sons of the original boy heroes plus Flippa-Dippa, a newcomer, to investigate the Wild Area, a strange community outside of Metropolis. The boys are given a super-vehicle called the Whiz Wagon for transport. When Clark Kent shows concern for Jimmy, Morgan Edge, owner of Galaxy Broadcasting and the new owner of the Daily Planet, secretly orders a criminal organization called Inter-Gang to kill him. 

However, Kent survives the attempt and later hooks up with Jimmy and the Newsboy Legion in the Wild Area. The youths have met the Outsiders, a tribe of young people who live in a super-scientific commune called Habitat, and have won leadership of the Outsiders’ gang of motorcyclists. Jimmy and company go off in search of a mysterious goal called the Mountain of Judgment, and warn Superman not to stop them. 

Boom! Take that DC! Kirby is here indeed.

This story has been reprinted in Superman in the Seventies TPB, Jimmy Olsen:Adventures by Jack Kirby Vol. 1 TPB, Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 1 HC and Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 1 TPB.

For a few issues DC would keep up the facade that Murray Boltinoff was doing something as editor of this book.