Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Random Acts of Senselessness


If you like to celebrate the weirdness in comics past, you must give homage to Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen. I think the title ran for 137 years, give or take, which was impressive considering our hero was a freckle-faced underling who really wasn't good for much other than saying "Watch out, Lois!" or "Clark probably hid under a homeless person when the excitement began!" or just good old-fashioned "Superman! Help us!"

But what I love about low expectations, aside from the fact that they've kept my wife from walking out on me the past 16 years, is that you can try anything. You may fall flat on your face, but it's not like you didn't live up to your potential. So, Jimmy's book went everywhere.

Even "rushing towards the greatest climax ever seen in comics." Now, "climax" like many other words, has a perfectly respectable definition you can say in mixed company, but you still have to be pretty certain you are clearly keeping it clean and not using the profane slang derivatives. That being said, it's entirely possible "the greatest climax ever seen in comics" could have gone either way in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen.

I never found out. Why? Because, just on the off-chance that we were talking about the non-CCA-approved version, I wasn't going to be there if Don Rickles was going to be involved. Nope. Sorry. Yes, I'm quite curious, but the risk is simply too great.



Another thing to love about the Golden Age is the way they blew off details. How did Aquaman happen to land on a movie set? No one knows, and it's assumed that you don't care. But if you simply must know, they would simply show Aquaman reading a telegram brought to him by a helpful jellyfish requesting his presence at said movie set. Don't ask too many questions, kids! Watergate is still 20 years away!

And, just because you can't see enough variations on the theme, here is Sue Richards getting smacked again:

That's a great one. You know Reed had been saving that one up.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

nice one! hehe

De said...

"Don't ask too many questions, kids! Watergate is still 20 years away!"

I swear 7Up came out of my nose in three different colors when I read this.

SallyP said...

I swear, I don't know why poor old Hank Pym gets classified as an abuser, when Reed hauls off and smacks Sue, and nobody thinks anything of it. And he WASN'T being mind-controlled.

Otherwise, I'm just happy that Aquaman is so pleased with the set. I hope the producer didn't hurt any of his finny friends when he was piping in the water. Will no one speak for the Krill?

Gildas said...

I would think location shooting would actually be cheaper than piping in all that seawater.

Mister Sinister said...

Well, yes, but he was smacking his wife who was trying to kill him because she was mind-controlled by the Psycho-Man...And I do recall things like Peter Parker smacking his wife too...and Yellowjacket hit his wife ONCE...while he was under the influence of crazy chemical fumes. And not to mention that this WAS after he "kidnapped" her & then finally married her, while she KNEW IT WAS HIM ALL ALONG & was MORE than willing to play along with her husband's descent into madness as long as it was in HER best interest...