Showcase Presents: Superman Family, Volume 1

[Uncle Mxy]

Anyone read it?  With the exception of a couple Lois Lane stories, it's pretty much all Super Duper Jimmy Olsen.

I checked it out from the local library and kinda breezed through it:  

- It's largely Curt Swan Superman, when he was doing the b-sides.  You can always tell that Swan's Superman's eyes are blue, even in black and white.  I know that makes no sense.  Some of Jimmy's faces almost look like the Joker because he's so happy.

- His signal watch is inaccessible with disturbing regularity.  Fortunately, he gets super-powers (though not many external physical transformations) with equally disturbing regularity.  

- If only Superman gave Jimmy a spell-checker amongst all his souvenirs, then Perry White's complaining at the end would almost be eliminated.

[Super Monkey]

The funny thing is these are consider the normal Jimmy Olsen Stories, wait until the Sliver Age really kicks in, then you will need therapy after those volumes.

[DoctorZero]

That's why I loved the old Jimmy Olsen stories.

He got super powers and lost them on a regular basis.  He broke so many big stories yet was always on the verge of being fired.  He went through so many bizarre transformations one would think he was living under an unlucky star.

Jimmy's adventures were simply out of this world and yet extremely entertaining.

[TELLE]

In many ways Jimmy was a sort of humourous Dial H for Hero --a Showcase-style super-power generating machine like the Legion.  In a letters page from an old Jimmy I read recently, the editors ask the readers to send in ideas for Transformations and Strange Powers.  Mort and the gang were running out!

[DoctorZero]

In a way, Kirby's Jimmy Olsen was necessary, exactly because all the good transformations and weird stories were running out.  Kirby ended up taking Jimmy in an entirely new direction, which at least kept the character fresh.
Witness the post Kirby era, where it seemed as if Jimmy completely ran out of ideas.

[Super Monkey]

King Jack kept the wacky craziness, just in a different more action packed way.

It was the last Hurrah for Jimmy Olsen.