THE MANY STRANGE IDENTITIES OF JIMMY OLSEN

On Mondays episode of Supergirl, James Jimmy Olsen takes on the identity

of the Guardian to help fight crime in National City.

Taking on a superhero identity is a departure for James Olsen on the television

series, but its completely in keeping with the history of Jimmy Olsen, the comic

book character. Olsen has been taking on strange new identities for over fifty
years! Read on to discover some of his strangest ones!
The comic book series, Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen, launched in 1954, as a
tie-in to the popular Jimmy Olsen character on the Adventures of Superman
television series that had launched in 1952. Olsen was one of the main
characters on the TV series, so suddenly Olsen in the comics, who was very
much a minor character, was now a big deal. The problem with giving an
ongoing series to such a minor character was that DC really didnt have a
hook for Olsen. The one that they came up with for the first issue is that
Jimmy is a master of disguise and he uses that for his adventures as a
reporter/photographer for the Daily Planet. However, as time went by, that sort
of evolved into Jimmy being transformed (by magic, science, radiation, etc.)
into different identities.
In 1957s Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #22, Otto Binder, Curt Swan and Ray
Burnley gave us The Super-Brain of Jimmy Olsen, where a scientist uses a
special machine to accelerate the evolution process on Jimmy Olsen and made
him what a typical person would be in the year 1,000,000 A.D.!

The end result was that Jimmy now had a cosmic brain and was superintelligent and had super powers. Before the effects of the machine wore off,

the Cosmic Brain forced Superman into a dangerous mission that helped save
the Earth.
In 1958s Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #28, the same creative team gave us
The Human Skyscraper, where Jimmy Olsen has a toothache and goes to see
a dentist. However, instead of taking some pain relief pills, Jimmy accidentally
takes some pills that were treated with radiation so that they would work sort
of like Jacks mythical beans from Jack and the Beanstalk. So Jimmy becomes
a giant. Whats interesting is that the comic followed the general approach of a
lot of comics of the time that becoming a giant would also decrease ones
intelligence, so Jimmy is basically a giant toddler.

However, hes also a giant toddler with a bad toothache, so Superman has to
end up doing dental surgery and then knocks Jimmy out and gives him the
antidote.
Three issues later, in 1958s Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #31 (by the same
creative team), we met Jimmy Olsens most famous alter-ego, Elastic Lad!
Superman found a chest floating near another world and brought it back to
Earth and let Jimmy take a look at it. Jimmy found a vial with green liquid in it.
He worried that it might be Kryptonite-related, so he tried to quickly get rid of
it. Instead, it broke and splashed all over Jimmy! The end result was that he
gained the ability to stretch his body. Despondent over his new lot in life, Jimmy
decided to join a carnival as part of their freak show.

A criminal took advantage of Jimmys desperate need for a cure by tricking him
into believing he was a Professor trying to get back into his locked office to find
a cure for Jimmy, but really finding a piece of Kryptonite! Jimmy quickly
stopped their plan, but the Kryptonite ended up curing his elasticity!
Elastic Lad proved to be popular enough that they brought the concept back in
Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #37 (now through a generic stretching serum)
and Elastic Lad got a new costume

Jimmy even traveled to the future and joined the Legion of Super-Heroes as
Elastic Lad!
An issue after he made his debut as Elastic Lad, Jimmy Olsen was transformed
into a creature from Jupiter in The Jimmy Olsen from Jupiter, in a story by
Alvin Schwartz, Curt Swan and Ray Burnley. Some aliens from Jupiter decided to
experiment on Jimmy Olsen by temporarily transforming him into a Jovian for a
week. This gave him the ability to read minds.

This being the 1950s, of course, Jimmys new powers were being used in a
criminal plot against Superman to use his telepathy to reveal Supermans
secret identity! However, luckily it turned out that a Jovian week was just five
days, so Jimmy returned to normal before he could reveal Supermans identity!
1958, a busy year for Olsen transformations, ended with Supermans Pal,
Jimmy Olsen #33, where Jimmy became The Human Flame-Thrower! as a
result of an experiment where a scientist was trying to harness the fire
produced by fireflies (its as absurd as that sounds) and the end result is that
Jimmy now has the ability to breathe fire!

Some criminals, though, doused themselves in asbestos (presumably this did

not work out so well for them in the long run) and forced Jimmy to work for
them. Luckily, Jimmy managed to get a message to Superman who came up
with a cure to Jimmys firebreath simply dousing him with water!
In 1959s Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #41 (by Robert Bernstein, Curt Swan
and John Forte), Jimmy Olsen accidentally eats a piece of space fruit from a
planet where everyone has six arms. As you might have guessed, this then
transforms Jimmy into The Human Octopus!

Jimmy actually sort of gets a kick out of this as he feels he is now special like
Superman, but when he sees that Lucy Lane is less interested in him now that
hes even more handsy than usual, hes despondent. Things got worse when a
bunch of criminals forced Jimmy to work as a pickpocket for them! The ending
of the story is bizarre, as Superman cures Jimmy but then explains that perhaps
the arms were hallucinations the whole time. Huh? Everyone else saw Jimmy
with the arms and he picks things up, so they were clearly there. Its a really
weird twist by Bernstein.
The next issue, Bernstein wrote a story about Jimmy Olsen and Superman
discovering an ancient tomb. Among the artifacts was an old lamp. Jimmy,
naturally enough, once again had a toothace. He was in so much pain that
when the lamp offered to take the pain away, he agreed. The lamp opened up a
genie. However, as it turns out, if you have a genie and you give it a command
involving the word kill, YOU become the genie (dont question it, just accept
it!). So Jimmy is now forced to help the evil former genie by doing its every
command.

Luckily, the genie rules are absolutely moronic, so Jimmy gets the bad guy to
say Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and the kill sound in Jeckyll is somehow
enough for Jimmy to return to normal.
A few issues later, in Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #44 (by Otto Binder, Curt
Swan and Stan Kaye), Jimmy accidentally swallows a mysterious wolfman
potion and gets turned into a wolfman!

The only cure to his new curse is if a pretty girl kisses him. Thats going to be a
problem now that he is, you know, a wolfman! Luckily, being the pal of
Superman comes in handy often, and Superman has Supergirl (who was then a
secret from the rest of the world, so she disguised herself as Miss X and hid in
the dark) kiss Jimmy to save the day!
In 1961s Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #53, Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan and John
Forte gave us one of Jimmys greatest transformations, as Jimmy accidentally
uses a growth ray and blasts through a turtle and then hit himself!! The end
result, of course, is for him to turn into a Giant Turtle Man (because of course)!

Even worse (as if things could get any worse), an evil Atlantean villain is
telepathically controlling Jimmy! Superman manages to use the shrink ray that
Brainiac used to shrink the city of Kandor to shrink Jimmy back down to size
and cure him.
In 1962s Supermans Pal, Jimmy Olsen #65 (by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan and
George Klein), the female version of Mister Mxyzptlk, Miss Gzptlsnz, decides to
turn Jimmy into a Human Porcupine when he rebuffs her wedding proposal
(well, not so much turning her down but when she then overhears him telling
Superman that hed sooner marry an animal than her).

Jimmy keeps trying to get her to say her name backwards and eventually gets
her to do so, reverting him to his human form.
Finally, in 1963s Superman #158, Edmond Hamilton, Curt Swan and George
Klein gave us one of Jimmy Olsens coolest alternate identities. Some villains
had been escaping from Kandor and causing trouble on Earth. So Superman
and Jimmy shrunk down and entered the Bottled City of Kandor. Supermans
powers dont work in Kandor. Once there, it turned out that the bad guys had
turned the populace against Superman. He and Jimmy then had to come up
with new identities. They became the Batman and Robin of Kandor, calling
themselves Nightwing and Flamebird!

The scheme was stopped and now Kandor had two new heroes (other
Kandorians took over the Nightwing and Flamebird roles once Superman and
Jimmy returned to Earth). Years later, Dick Grayson was inspired by that story
to take the name Nightwing for himself on Earth.
So when Jimmy becomes the Guardian tomorrow, know that it is only the latest
in a long line of awesome alternate identities for Jimmy!