Jimmy Olsen
Jimmy Olsen may have made his debut in Action Comics No. 6, dated November 1938, as a nameless office boy in a bow tie. The story was called "Superman's Phony Manager." Later readers counted that boy as Jimmy, though some argue he is a different character with no link to Olsen at all.
The figure who grew out of that doubtful beginning is a young photojournalist at the Daily Planet. He is close friends with Lois Lane and Clark Kent, and he gets along well with his boss, Perry White. He looks up to his coworkers as role models and even as parent figures.
How did a background kid in a bow tie end up with a comic book carrying his own name? Why does a cub reporter keep turning into turtles, werewolves and giants? And what does a character do when his entire past is erased and he must start again as a plain, ordinary friend of Superman?
On the 15th of April 1940, producer Bob Maxwell introduced the name Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman radio show. The comics were slower to catch up. After eight early unnamed appearances, Olsen finally got his name in print in "Superman versus The Archer," a story by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in Superman No. 13, dated November-December 1941.
From the 20th of July to the 28th of October 1944, the daily Superman newspaper strips ran "King Jimmy Olsen." It was the first long story to feature him. In the 1946 radio serial Clan of the Fiery Cross, he even managed a community baseball team. Still, he turned up only now and then as an office boy in Action Comics, Superman and World's Finest Comics. For most of the 1940s and early 1950s he stayed a background character.
Jack Larson changed that. His portrayal of Jimmy on the 1952 Adventures of Superman television series made the character beloved by the public. Beginning with the comic Superman No. 86 in 1953, Olsen was promoted from office boy to "cub reporter." In 1954, DC Comics gave him his own series, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.
The first issue introduced the Signal Watch, a high-frequency supersonic device that let Jimmy call Superman in an emergency. In issue 36, Lucy Lane arrived as his off-again, on-again love interest. Jimmy and Lucy sometimes married in "imaginary stories," such as "The Wedding of Jimmy Olsen" in issue 38.
The book became a best seller throughout the 1960s. At its peak it ranked as the fourth best-selling comic book, with an estimated 520,000 copies sold each month. Reprints from the magazine also filled 80-Page Giant No. 2 and No. 13 in 1964-65.
From issue 22 onward, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen swapped mundane adventures for slapstick and strange transformations. In issue 53, Jimmy became the giant "Turtle Boy," and the form would become one of his most frequently cited. Issue 36 had already hurled him back in time to Krypton before its destruction. Gorillas of all sorts kept turning up in his stories.
Jimmy lived a glamorous life as "Superman's Pal," and the stories gave him an in-story fan club. Beginning in 1958, a serum let him temporarily become the superhero Elastic Lad. That earned him honorary membership in the Legion of Super-Heroes.
On a visit to the Bottle City of Kandor, Superman and Jimmy took the secret identities of Nightwing and Flamebird. The names came from two native Kryptonian birds. The pairing was a deliberate echo of Batman, whose name evokes a night-winged creature, and Robin, a flame-colored bird.
The list of changes grew long. In a 1956 story, a potion made by Professor Claude gave Jimmy super-speed. Other tales left him radioactive, or turned him into a super-brained "man of the future." A group called the Beard Band made him grow an immense beard. In one story he swapped minds with a gorilla and went about his reporting in a gorilla's body wearing Jimmy's clothes.
Other episodes were stranger still. An experiment gave him fire-breath. A genie's lamp trapped him in a trick. A werewolf story took its cue from the 1957 film I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Aliens once made him a telepathic Jovian for what turned out to be a Jovian week, about 70 hours. He went undercover dressed as a woman in issues 44, 67, 84 and 159, a habit Grant Morrison later honored in JLA: Earth 2 and All-Star Superman.
The era had a countercultural streak too. Investigating a colony of hippies at "Guru Kama's Dream Pad," Jimmy grew a beard and joined a mock "hate-in." On that issue's cover he waves a sign reading "Superman is a freak-out!" Another story put him in Viking armor, convinced he had been carried 1,000 years into the past.
A stranger adventure followed the explosion of Mount Tipton. It flung Jimmy into an alternate universe, where he gained Kryptonian-style powers and became Steel-Man. He wore a fusion Superman and Batman outfit and faced an evil Clark Kent, the Joker-masked leader of LUTHAR, the League Using Terror, Havoc And Robbery.
In another tale, two halves of the Magic Medallion of the Mayans fused and granted him the powers of the Mayan Gods. He became Ultra Olsen, strong and invulnerable, with lightning vision. He destroyed the amulet with that same lightning vision after using it twice.
Through all this, Perry White promoted Jimmy to "full-fledged reporter" in issue 124, dated October 1969. A new kind of writer was about to arrive.
In 1970, with issue 134, Jack Kirby began his Fourth World storyline inside the Jimmy Olsen comics. He opened with a secret "D.N.A. Project" designed to create Mutated Humans for Good. Then he piled in "the Hairies," a group of technology-equipped hippies, along with superbeings from other planets who were early forms of the New Gods.
Kirby also brought in Intergang, the villain Darkseid and the WGBS media executive Morgan Edge. He used the series to bring back Golden Age characters he had created earlier at DC Comics, such as the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion.
His run grew odder as it went. He wrote stories involving vampires, the Loch Ness Monster, Victor Volcanum and a fire-eating archcriminal. One two-part story featured the comedian Don Rickles. Kirby left the series after issue 148.
With issue 164, dated April-May 1974, the book was renamed The Superman Family. This anthology folded in the recently cancelled series Supergirl and Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane. At first each issue carried one new story about Jimmy, Lois or Supergirl, and the featured character narrated reprints of the other characters' stories.
In the second series, Jimmy became an investigative reporter for WGBS-TV, nicknamed "Mr. Action." His stories turned to urban crime and less often involved Superman. New Olsen stories ran in issues 164, 167, 170, 173, 176 and 179, and then in every issue from 182 to 222. Superman writers including Leo Dorfman and Cary Bates contributed scripts, and Kurt Schaffenberger most often drew them.
The series ended with issue 222 in September 1982. Jimmy kept appearing in Superman, Action Comics, World's Finest Comics and DC Comics Presents. In that last title, a 29th-century descendant of Olsen became Superwoman.
Crisis on Infinite Earths erased Jimmy's prior history as a character. Even so, he did not change much in the Modern Age. He remained a cub reporter at the Daily Planet and a friend of Superman. His look was made over, though: he stopped wearing bow ties and dressed casually, a trend that had started in the 1970s comics.
One change touched the Signal Watch. Now Jimmy designed it himself, and that led to his first meeting with Superman. Superman briefly considered confiscating the watch, then decided to trust Jimmy to use it responsibly. A 2010 story added a twist. Jimmy claimed the watch had stopped working long ago and never worked well anyway, and that he now reached Superman through Morse code. He wore it just for show.
The old transformations became rarer. In one story the Eradicator made Jimmy a kind of Elastic Lad, but the change was extremely painful and has not reappeared. When he was temporarily laid off from the Planet, he took the identity of Turtle Boy in a series of pizza commercials.
In the 1990s stories, Jimmy quit the Planet after a dispute over a story. He joined the Metropolis broadcaster Galaxy Broadcasting as an on-air investigative reporter. The job matured him somewhat, but it also made him more ambitious, brash and arrogant. He stayed on good terms with Clark and Lois, and he was best man at their wedding.
The period ended when Jimmy wrongly believed he had discovered Superman's secret identity and said he would announce it live on air. He reconsidered, but he lost his job for wasting the time slot. The Planet hired him again.
Later, Jimmy fell foul of the Alpha Centurion, an alternate universe dictator with a deep hatred for Superman and designs on Lois Lane. Jimmy uncovered the Alpha Centurion's plot to control the world's finances through his company, Aelius Industries, Inc.
Beginning in June 2003, Olsen was central to the 12-part miniseries Superman: Metropolis. Chuck Austen wrote it and Danijel Zezelj illustrated it. It followed the futuristic technology Brainiac had unleashed on Metropolis in an earlier storyline and its effect on the everyday lives of the city's citizens. Jimmy became a regular star reporter for the Daily Planet, replacing the recently demoted Clark Kent, and that caused strain at the paper.
The 2007-08 weekly series Countdown to Final Crisis opened with Jimmy investigating the death of Duela Dent. Tying into the Death of the New Gods storyline, he began to develop many superpowers. He first discovered them when Killer Croc attacked him as he gathered information.
As Jimmy tried to trace the origin of his powers, he found them seemingly limitless, in stories that mimicked the Silver Age adventures. He briefly operated as the superhero Mr. Action. The established heroes of the Justice League and Teen Titans would not respect him, so he gave up on that path. One power let him recognize the identities of some superheroes. Superman, among them, asked him to take care of Krypto.
The New God Forager tracked Jimmy down, and the two began a romantic relationship. She told him he had become a soulcatcher for the spirits of dying New Gods. The Monitor known as Solomon later explained the cause. Darkseid was using Jimmy as a host for powers he wished to use to remake the universe in his own image. He knew that "Superman's pal" is one of the world's most well-protected citizens.
Jimmy grew more confident as the story neared its close, and he rejoined the series' other cast members on a mission. They tried to stop Karate Kid's disease from becoming an apocalyptic pandemic. They failed, and the Morticoccus virus devastated an alternate Earth.
Back home, Mary Marvel, whom Darkseid had manipulated toward evil, captured Jimmy. When Superman came to rescue him, Darkseid took control of the powers inside Jimmy and made him radiate Kryptonite radiation. Ray Palmer rewired Darkseid's control from within. Jimmy turned into a giant turtle-like creature and prepared to face Darkseid himself, but Darkseid overcame him. Ray Palmer then emerged with the New God soul battery and destroyed it, returning Jimmy to normal.
The Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen Special sent him on a darker errand. During Superman's fight with Atlas, Jimmy saw a mysterious figure hovering over the battle. After encouraging words from Clark Kent, he took two weeks off to investigate. The trail led to Jonathan Drew, who had become Codename: Assassin. Jimmy's informant was quickly executed, and the assassin then tried to kill Jimmy. Jimmy was apparently shielded from the assassin's telepathy by his many physical transformations over the years.
At Project Cadmus, Dubbilex told Jimmy how Codename: Assassin had killed the original Guardian. Cloning, Dubbilex explained, is such an imperfect science that the only viable clone alive had hidden in the desert. Dubbilex then died of injuries from an earlier fight with the assassin. Jimmy headed to Warpath, Arizona, where the sheriff, Greg Saunders, evaded his questions. After dark, Jimmy followed him and saw him working with the last Guardian clone.
When his two weeks ended, Jimmy returned to Metropolis horrified. A faction within the U.S. military was actively plotting to kill Superman. To uncover the conspiracy behind Project 7734, he used an anonymous chat server to contact Erik, also known as Amazing Woman, of Infinity, Inc. Jimmy kept the appointment even as Codename: Assassin pursued him and bugged his house. He found Erik's house burned to the ground.
Jimmy pulled Erik out, and with a dying breath Erik shifted to the more powerful Erika form and passed on Natasha Irons' number. Natasha then told Jimmy about General Sam Lane's plans, his outworldly fortress, and his capture of Captain Atom, now codenamed Project Breach. She said Captain Atom was being used as a Planet Breaker weapon.
Codename: Assassin finally confronted Jimmy openly, after merely tailing him until that point. Jimmy used his signal watch to call Mon-El and was shot twice in the chest, then sank into the ocean. He survived. He chose to fake his death by planting his documents on a heavily disfigured corpse. Unknown to anyone else, he moved into the old Pemberton Camera Factory, where he shared his investigations with Perry White and Mon-El.
A faked death returned in a lighter key. Beginning with a cover date of September 2019, DC Comics published a 12-part comedic miniseries, Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, that restored elements of the 1954 series to the main timeline. Jimmy was again Turtle Boy and Elastic Lad. His antics and glamorous life as Superman's pal were framed as a source of streaming-media ad revenue keeping the Daily Planet afloat.
The series explored Jimmy's siblings, Janie and Julian, and his family's historic ties to Lex Luthor's family. It followed a plot involving an attempted murder and a faked death of Olsen. It also included a marriage in Gorilla City that Jimmy forgot to annul. The series poked fun at DC's own history, including a sequence where Jimmy angered Batman by suggesting a phone-in campaign to decide whether Robin lived or died. By the end, Jimmy received a new Signal Watch and became publisher of the Daily Planet.
Matt Fraction wrote it, Steve Lieber drew it, Nathan Fairbairn colored it, and Clayton Cowles lettered it. The collected edition, Who Killed Jimmy Olsen?, appeared in September 2020 and received an "honorable mention" in Publishers Weekly's year-end critics poll.
In JLA: The Nail, a nail punctures a tire on the Kents' car, so they never find the spaceship carrying baby Kal-El. Jimmy Olsen, an aide to Metropolis mayor Lex Luthor, turns out to be the primary villain. Luthor grafts Kryptonian DNA onto subjects, which kills them. Olsen survives the graft but is driven insane and mentally becomes a Kryptonian.
That Olsen stokes the public's fear of superheroes with propaganda, hoping to see them imprisoned so he can use their DNA to build a stable template for new Kryptonians. When his identity is revealed, he fights the Justice League. An Amish farmer tries to stop him and is blasted by heat vision, which reveals the farmer to be an adult Kal-El raised as a pacifist. Olsen claims they are virtually brothers and urges Kal-El to join him. When Kal-El refuses, Olsen kills Kal-El's foster parents. In the fight that follows, Olsen's body rejects the Kryptonian DNA and he disintegrates.
Frank Miller's Batman titles use alternate versions of Jimmy in The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Another version, a reporter for the Gotham Gazette, appears in All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder No. 6.
In Superman: Red Son, the Earth-30 Jimmy is a CIA agent who later becomes Vice President of the United States under Lex Luthor. The animated adaptation changes his path: he is Luthor's aide and vice president before Luthor resigns and appoints him president. In Superman: Kal, the Earth-395 version is Jamie Ollson, an alchemist and teacher to Merlin.
The Emperor Joker storyline has a Jimmy who serves the Joker. In Flashpoint, the alternate timeline's Jimmy is a secret agent working for Cyborg until he is killed in action and replaced by Lois Lane. On Earth 2, he is a hacktivist who fuses with a Mother Box and becomes a New God with intangibility and technopathy.
In the film Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an alternate Jimmy goes by Mr. Action and is the companion of Ultraman, with similar powers. The newest example comes from the Absolute Universe, where Jimmy belongs to an anti-corporate terrorist group called the Omega Men. He discovers that their leader, Omega Prime, is Talia al Ghul. He then joins Superman and former Lazarus agent Lois Lane in defending Smallville from Lazarus's forces.
Tommy Bond played Jimmy in two film serials, Superman in 1948 and Atom Man vs. Superman in 1950. Marc McClure carried the role through the Salkind and Cannon Superman films and Supergirl in 1984. On television, Jack Larson returned decades after his original run to play an aged Olsen in the Lois & Clark episode "Brutal Youth."
Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman used two actors. Michael Landes played Jimmy in the first season as a cocksure, sarcastic Generation X character who seemed very sure of himself despite the opposite being true. Justin Whalin took over for the rest of the run, because Landes heavily resembled Dean Cain, the series' Superman, and because the producers wanted to emphasize Jimmy's youth. Whalin played a lovably naive rookie and computer whiz. Jimmy's father, Jack Olsen, a secret agent for the fictional National Intelligence Agency, appears in "The Dad who Came in from the Cold."
In Smallville, Aaron Ashmore played James "Jimmy" Olsen, who is in a relationship with the original character Chloe Sullivan until Doomsday kills him. A younger brother also appears, played by Ryan Harder as a teenager and Ashmore as an adult. In Superman Returns, Sam Huntington played an older, more confident but incompetent photographer. Shawn Ashmore had been offered the role first but declined because of his commitments to X-Men: The Last Stand.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice cast Michael Cassidy as a CIA operative who poses as a photographer during Lois Lane's journey to Africa. Terrorists expose and kill him. In Superman in 2025, Skyler Gisondo plays Jimmy as the ex-boyfriend of Eve Teschmacher.
Mehcad Brooks brought a very different Jimmy to the Arrowverse series Supergirl. This version is African-American and a former Daily Planet photographer who joins CatCo in National City as an art director. He knows the secret identities of Superman and Supergirl. After criminals killed his father when he was a child, he became the vigilante Guardian. Later he heads CatCo after Cat Grant moves to Metropolis. He quits when Andrea Rojas buys the company and demands stories based on profitability instead of truth. He then edits his hometown paper, The Calvintown Gazette.
In the Superman & Lois episode "A Regular Guy," Douglas Smith plays a Jimmy who is the brother of Janet Olsen.
Animation has been just as busy. In Superman: The Animated Series, David Kaufman voiced a copy boy and reporter who idolizes Clark Kent and Lois Lane. In the episode "Superman's Pal," Jimmy is endangered after his friendship with Superman is exposed. After helping defeat Metallo, he receives a signal watch for protection from Superman. In Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, an unnamed mutant turtle inspired by his Giant Turtle Boy form appears in the episode "Chaos at the Earth's Core."
In Justice League Action, Max Mittelman voices a Jimmy who runs his own website, "Jimmy Live," and sometimes endangers himself in search of views. In My Adventures with Superman, Ishmael Sahid voices an African-American Daily Planet intern and Clark Kent's roommate who knows his secret identity as Superman. He runs a social media page called "Flamebird" that he later sells to the Daily Planet. In Scooby-Doo! and Krypto, Too!, James Arnold Taylor voices a childhood friend of Daphne Blake.
The character has reached video games too, including Superman 64, Superman: The Man of Steel, Superman: Shadow of Apokolips and DC Universe Online. In the prequel comic DC Universe Online: Legends, Brainiac's Exobytes turn him into a reptilian metahuman. In the one-shot Superman Beyond, the animated-series version buys the Daily Planet after Perry White's death. In the Injustice: Gods Among Us prequel comic, the Joker kills him on a stakeout with Lois Lane.
In music, the Spin Doctors' 1991 song "Jimmy Olsen's Blues" took his name. In 2010, he made a cameo in the Chew graphic novel Just Desserts.
Updated
Common questions
When did Jimmy Olsen first appear?
A nameless bow-tied office boy in Action Comics No. 6, dated November 1938, is retroactively counted as his first appearance, though some argue it is a different character. He was first named as Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman radio show on the 15th of April 1940.
What made Jimmy Olsen popular enough for his own comic?
Jack Larson's portrayal on the 1952 Adventures of Superman television series made him beloved. DC Comics launched Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen in 1954.
What is the Signal Watch?
It is a high-frequency supersonic device, first introduced in the debut issue of his own series, that lets Jimmy contact Superman in an emergency.
What is Jimmy Olsen's most famous transformation?
The giant Turtle Boy form, which first appeared in issue 53 of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, is one of his most frequently cited transformations.
Which creator brought the Fourth World to the Jimmy Olsen comics?
Jack Kirby began his Fourth World storyline in the series in 1970, with issue 134, and left after issue 148.
Who has played Jimmy Olsen in live action?
Actors include Tommy Bond, Jack Larson, Marc McClure, Michael Landes, Justin Whalin, Sam Huntington, Aaron Ashmore, Michael Cassidy, Mehcad Brooks, Douglas Smith and Skyler Gisondo.
All sources
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