Snapshots of Jimmy Olsen #12: Jimmy Olsen, D.N.Alien

Source: Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135-136 (1971)
Type: Clone

The words "Holy smoke! Someone's bred a giant renegade Jimmy Olsen!" herald the arrival of Project Cadmus' version of Jimmy, where Jack Kirby paid tribute of a sort to Turtle Boy. Giant, green, yeah, it's got Turtle Boy all over it. But as I've claimed elsewhere (in The Belated Testament of Jack Kirby and Keeping the Kirby Faith), his Fourth World books were "coded" with lessons for comics creators, a king of blueprint or perhaps gospel of the medium itself. And in transforming the silly Turtle Boy trope into what is very definitely a - green, yes - hybrid of Jimmy and KIRBY HIMSELF (look at those eyebrows!), doesn't the dynamic monster of the month to be fought (and who manages to take down Superman!) become a SYMBOL for a writer-artist putting his stamp on a series, on a character, on the very world Jimmy lives in?

Can I hear an Amen?

Comments

Delta said…

I've contended that Kirby tended to made everyone look like himself almost all the time -- especially in the hands and fingers. My girlfriend who's a fine artist says this is a common trait in all artists, to be recreating your own features by default.

March 21, 2015 at 1:03 PM