Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #4 // Review
The first three issues of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen were brilliant but confusing, zipping back and forth through time and introducing new characters and concepts with minimal context. The fourth issue changes all that. Not only is it a relatively linear issue, but in the story, Jimmy draws all the connections for Lois Lane (and the reader), making sense of the elements of the first three issues. It’s a shame Lois doesn’t believe him.
Jimmy Olsen is masquerading as his alter-ego, “Timmy” Olsen, a viral video prank celebrity who does awful things like put bees in Dr. Fate’s helmet or deliver revolving doors to Arkham Asylum. Jimmy reaches out to Lois for help in solving his predicament, with digressions into the adventures of Jimmy’s landlord and an ill-advised confrontation with Lex Luthor. Also, Jimmy may have stolen a wheel off of the Batmobile.
Matt Fraction’s writing is at its most fantastically zany here. His depiction of “Timmy” Olsen as just insufferable is beautifully executed, with more than a gag per panel and layers upon layers of detail. Fraction is weaving a demented web with this title, and it’s beautiful to behold.
The art by Steve Lieber is equally demented. One fantastic sequence has a miniature Jimmy Olsen navigating Jimmy’s crazy-board as he tries to explain to Lois the long-standing enmity between his family and the Luthors, and their place in Metropolis. Lieber also definitively answers one of the significant questions of the series--yes, Metropolis’ mayor is indeed an actual dinosaur. Colorist Nathan Fairbairn does a great job managing all the different locales of the book. Fairbairn’s Metropolis is much different from his Gotham City, as it should be. Letterer Clayton Cowles has the unenviable job of managing all of Fraction’s wordy narration boxes, but he handles it masterfully.
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen remains the funniest book that DC is currently publishing, by a mile. As it hits its first third (the book is a 12-issue limited series), its larger design becomes slightly more visible, which makes it all the more exciting.