I can’t even begin to unpack the sexual crosscurrents of this cover – Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #75

So Linda Danvers has taken Jimmy Olsen’s job, and he visualizes this usurpation by imagining Superman carrying her and not him in Supes’ manly arms? And Supergirl’s going to make it up to him by carrying him around in her arms? I think it’s time for a round of psychotherapy. For everyone.

All three stories in this issue are higher in the silly quotient than most Jimmy Olsen efforts, and only the last one has a nonoffensive degree of inanity. Just a couple of words about the first two… In story one, Jimmy encounters another in the long series of characters who may or may not be his father, in this case a bald, Clint Howard-y looking convict (Script-Leo Dorfman, Art-John Forte):

In number two, Jimmy solves the mystery of the Mary Celeste in a way that manages to ruin that great real-life puzzle for me for all time. The less said, the better.

The cover story is brought to our eager eyes by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan and George Klein. Why don’t we let the Jimmy Olsen Fan Club set the table for us:

Apparently the major qualifications for membership in this group are a V-neck sweater, a bowtie and intact virginity.

Supergirl is travelling back to the present from the future for some bewildering reason, and coincidentally witnesses a tragic scene:

To thwart this sad destiny, she decides to get Jimmy fired from the Planet so that he can’t die on the job. Makes sense, right?

First Linda gets herself brought onboard as a low-level flunky, and once inside she starts making Jimmy’s life a living hell. She begins by sabotaging his love life with the help of a clockwork mouse:

Then she breaks out the ol’ exploding cigars:

You can’t tell me that the second panel wouldn’t have worked better if Perry White’s face was singed and blackened like Wile E. Coyote’s after some backfired ACME-supplied scheme.

The final blow comes when Linda uses her superpowers to trick Jimmy into believing that he’s uncovered a real live flying carpet. When the unimaginably credulous Jimmy excitedly attempts to take Perry and Linda out for a spin, well… :

One can only hope that Perry got a good amount of phlegm going when canning young Olsen, much like the true master of the firing art, Vince McMahon:

Mission accompished. Then there’s one of those bizarre, out of left field twists that so often make these stories insufferable — the helicopter still crashes and kills some random Jimmy Olsen imposter. Huh?

The Jimmy Olsen books can be a hit or miss affair, and on the whole this one was a miss. As I said, the slap-happy foolishness was a bit overwhelming, but the last of the trio salvaged it from awfulness. Any plot with exploding cigars can’t be all bad.

And still no word on whether or not any members of the Jimmy Olsen Fan Club have ever known the touch of a woman.