Snapshots of Jimmy Olsen #28: Cavalry Jimmy Olsen

Source: Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #66 (1963)
Type: Time travel/Hallucination

Maybe we're not done with Jimmy's tour of American history. There WAS that time he went back in time and rode with the Cavalry under Col. Custer... Well, sort of.

Let's catch up with Jimmy taking pictures of Superman's completely unnecessary use of super-powers to open Frontier City, an Old West exhibit.

He's been forced to wear a Cavalry uniform, but let's just say Superman's western costume isn't all that authentic. But who's going to tell him and risk getting lasered in half, right? (Sorry, too much grim and gritty Superman in the 2010s have finally altered my expectations about the character.) So our boy Jimmy next decides that, for the good of his article, he'll SMOKE SITTING BULL'S PIPE. Yeah, Jim. Just grab the artifacts right off the walls.

I've worked in a museum. This behavior is what we'd call "non-archival". Anyway, Jimmy gets the spins (no duh), and finds himself down the space-time vortex to the site of Custer's last stand. And since he holds Custer as a personal hero, a man who wrongfully died at the hands of evil Indians, he's gonna try to change history while he's there!

You might remember our previous Snapshot, which made a huge show of telling us history can't be changed, but that story is 7 years in Jimmy's future. 1963 Jimmy doesn't seem to know that yet. He goes right to Custer and tells him he's from the future and that Sitting Bull is going to wipe his forces out, but everyone thinks he's crazy. Still, Custer has his doubts when the Natives do arrive in large numbers, so he takes Jimmy's "future of warfare" advice and digs fox holes for the coming battle. Jimmy is surprised to see a familiar face as the best digger.

Buffalo Bill? And he looks just like Superman? The wary Silver Age viewer should start thinking about possible shenanigans at this point. Adding to the strange coincidences, Sitting Bull looks just like Lex Luthor. Hm. And he's an "evil scientist" like Luthor is, making it rain with "chemicals" (well, some kind of leaves and a fire) to drown the fox holes.

Jimmy's next is to give the Cavalry a tank. Yes, a tank.

This time, Sitting Bull rolls powerful lodestones, which look suspiciously like kryptonite boulders, in the tank's way, which rips the nails right out of Jimmy's contraption, making it fall apart. Buffalo Bill is injured in the skirmish, "proving" the Superman/Green K connection. And so it goes. Night falls and Jimmy's idea for parachute flares is undone by Sitting Bull setting fire to a natural pool of crude oil and smoking out the skies. Jimmy is captured during the battle, depriving Custer of any more "war medicine", but he escapes using an anachronistic coin he had on his person.

Haha, stupid backwards natives. Groan. Well, Jimmy gets back to camp and everyone is DEAD. Take that, Homo Superior. Sitting Bull catches up to Jimmy to get a nice red-headed scalp (as per the splash panel) and that's when... Jimmy wakes up! Yes, it was all a "pipe dream" (did they write this story just to make that pun, or is that where the expression comes from?). Don't smoke the reefer, Jimmy, you're liable to hallucinate an entire episode and have Super-dick mock you. Now for your Twilight Zone "But Did It Happen?" final panel:

Yeah... I think you're pushing it, dude.