Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #147, March 1972
Every so often in Jack Kirby’s offbeat Jimmy Olsen run, you run across something extra special.
In this case, it’s a genuine Kirby Superman.
Not the version where Murphy Anderson (or earlier, Al Plastino) redrew the face to bring it closer to DC’s house style, but Kirby’s own take on the character, marvelously inked by Mike Royer.
I get both sides of the Superman/Kirby argument. DC wanted Superman to look like… Superman. Readers expected a certain face, a certain look, and DC was determined to give it to them. Fair enough, I suppose.
But if you’re hiring Jack Kirby, wouldn’t part of the appeal be seeing what his version looked like?
Thankfully, nobody seems to have gotten out the red pencil on this one.
Royer only worked on one issue of Jimmy Olsen, making pages like this tougher to find than you might think.
And what a book Jimmy Olsen was.
Kirby used a struggling Superman spinoff to launch the Fourth World.
Darkseid. New Genesis. Apokolips…
Then there’s the Newsboy Legion. The Guardian…
And somehow, Don Rickles.
Offbeat doesn’t begin to cover it.
