By August, 1970, I’d been buying and reading comic books for a full five years. Somehow, however, in all that time, I hadn’t yet sampled an issue of Jimmy Olsen.
I’m not really sure why that was. My very first comic book had been an issue of Superman, after all, and I’d picked up a couple of Lois Lanes pretty early on, as well. And I don’t recall having anything particularly against the red-headed cub reporter (in comics, anyway — I think I always considered the version played by Jack Larson on the live-action TV show to be kind of a doofus). Indeed, as best as I can remember, I actually kind of enjoyed Jimbo’s appearances in World’s Finest, where he basically functioned as the Robin to Superman’s Batman, as well as having his own team-up thing going with the genuine Boy Wonder on the side (the Olsen-Robin team even had their own secret HQ, the Eyrie).
And then there was this DC Comics house ad for Jimmy Olsen #104 (designed, as were all such ads during this era, by the great Ira Schnapp), which I remember poring over with fascination in the summer of 1967…
…though I wasn’t so fascinated by the ad that I actually bought the book. I dunno — maybe Jimmy was just too weird for me, as a young comics reader.
But whatever the reasons why I’d avoided the solo adventures of Superman’s Pal™ up to this point, there was no way I was going to pass on Jack Kirby’s first work for DC since his recent departure from Marvel. Even if it made absolutely no sense to me that the guy I knew as the artist of Fantastic Four, Thor, and so much more besides — the “King” of Marvel comics — was going to be writing, as well as drawing, the ongoing exploits of the former Giant Turtle Olsen — or as the copy on the bold, bright-orange cover of Kirby’s premiere issue brashly styled him, “Superman’s Ex-Pal, The New Jimmy Olsen”.
How did this happen, anyway? By all accounts, Jack Kirby came to DC in 1970 with a deal that allowed him to create and edit three brand-new interconnected series, based on concepts that had been creatively percolating during his last few discontented years at Marvel. But the deal also called for him to take over one existing DC series. According to one oft-told tale, Kirby asked DC Editorial Director Carmine Infantino to give him the company’s worst-selling title, which he’d proceed to make a hit; the truth, however, is that though Jimmy Olsen was indeed the poorest performer among DC’s four Superman-starring titles, it wasn’t actually the publisher’s lowest-selling book overall. A somewhat more credible account states that Kirby, not wanting to take work away from other creators, asked to be assigned to a series that didn’t currently have a writer/artist team attached to it — and Jimmy Olsen, which was just about to come under the editorship of Murray Boltinoff with the departure of longtime Superman “family” editor Mort Weisinger, filled that bill.
It’s also been claimed that Kirby asked Infantino for the opportunity to show what he could do with DC’s flagship character, Superman; as well as, conversely, that it was Infantino who asked Kirby to revamp the Man of Steel. According to longtime Kirby friend, onetime Kirby assistant, and posthumous Kirby biographer Mark Evanier, “It was probably a little of each.” As noted by that writer in his introduction to the 2003 trade collection Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby, Kirby would have been “eager to prove his value to his new employer”; meanwhile, Infantino may well have considered Superman due for a major facelift as the post-Weisinger era got underway.
However it ultimately came about, Jack Kirby, formerly Marvel Comics’ single most important artist, did indeed get his shot at DC Comics’ single most important character. And on August 25, following several months of breathless promotional build-up (which had begun with a full page ad that teased “The Great One Is Coming”, and continued with a series of “Kirby Is Coming” blurbs scattered across DC’s line), Jack Kirby’s Superman was at last revealed to the world…
…though, weirdly enough — it turned out not to be entirely Jack Kirby’s Superman.
We’ll have quite a bit more to say about that a bit further on, but for now, let’s jump right in to the first three pages of Jimmy Olsen #133, as the titular hero — and his readers– simultaneously embark on a brand new adventure, one that will prove to be like nothing those readers had ever seen in this book’s pages before:
It seems entirely appropriate to the beginning of this new phase of his career that Kirby leads off, not only by introducing a number of new characters and concepts to us at the same time that his protagonist, Jimmy Olsen, is first encountering them, but also by hitting us with a double-page splash at the earliest possible opportunity — as though standard panels just aren’t large enough to contain the outpouring of his imagination, finally liberated from the constraints (some admittedly self-imposed) under which he’d produced his later work for Marvel.
The Whiz Wagon, a perfect example of Kirbytech at its most gosh-wow spectacular, is a clear descendant of the the Fantasti-Car, the vehicle Kirby had created for Marvel’s Fantastic Four years before. As we’ll soon see, however, this new ride was destined to function as road transport considerably more frequently than that earlier conveyance, which tended to be used primarily for aerial travel, ever did.
Wait a minute, you might be thinking right now (just as my thirteen-year-old self was at this point, back in 1970) — what’s all this about “my new boss, Mister Edge“? Wasn’t Jimmy talking about the Daily Planet on that double-page spread just now? What the heck happened to Perry White? Never fear, faithful reader; all will soon be revealed, I promise.
I was talking about Kirby’s introducing new characters right out of the gate a few paragraphs ago — but, of course, the Newsboy Legion (with the notable exception of Flipper Dipper — or is that Flippa Dippa?) 
weren’t really new; though they might as well have been, as far as I and most other young readers were concerned, since they hadn’t been seen on newsstands since 1947. The original Newsboy Legion — the fathers of the crew we meet here — were a kid gang who had been created in 1942 by Kirby and his then-partner, Joe Simon, and then gone on to appear in their own feature for fifty-seven issues of DC’s Star-Spangled Comics. They may have been relatively unknown in 1970, outside of the most avid (or oldest) fans of comics’ Golden Age — but their co-creator still remembered them, of course, as did other old hands still working for DC, at least one of whom (artist/editor Joe Kubert) had worked on a Newsboy Legion story or two himself back in the day.
Oh, the guy in the yellow-and-blue costume with a shield on his arm, who might strike one as a somewhat less patriotic take on another Simon & Kirby character? Sorry, but we’ll have to postpone our discussion about him for a later post — one coming up in November or thereabouts.
Of all the characters and concepts Kirby introduced in his first issue of Jimmy Olsen, none had as immediate an impact on the whole Superman family of titles as did Morgan Edge, president of the Galaxy Broadcasting System. Because, obviously, if Clark, Jimmy, and the rest of the staff of the Daily Planet are going to be answering to a new boss in one of the books, it stands to reason that they’ll be doing the same in all the others. And that’s exactly what would happen in Superman, Action, and the rest, though it wouldn’t become evident for another couple of months.
According to Mark Evanier (as reported in The Jack Kirby Collector #17), Kirby wanted to use the character “to explore the theme of organized crime gaining a foothold in corporate America – particularly a giant media conglomerate. Given the shady background of the company that acquired Warner Brothers and DC, it was something of an inside joke…” (If you’re wondering, the “shady” company referred to by Evanier would presumably be Kinney National Services, Inc., headed by Steve Ross.) Evanier has also asserted that Edge was physically based on the actor Kevin McCarthy, best known to genre fans for his starring role in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie; in addition, Kirby refers to Edge in a later issue of Jimmy Olsen (#138) as a “smiling cobra”, which was a well-known nickname for James T. Aubrey, president of the CBS television network from 1959 to 1965.
Considering all of that, I guess you could say that it takes a village to make a villain — or to make this particular malevolent mogul, at least.
Actually, if that car had hit Clark “head on“, it should have been pretty much demolished, don’t you think? So maybe that guy in the last panel on page 6 was exaggerating, and the speeding vehicle merely clipped our Metropolis Marvel. Or… maybe this mysterious “Inter-Gang” has access to some extremely powerful and resilient automobiles. As readers will discover over the next few issues, that latter option is a distinct possibility.
The family relationship between the Fantasti-Car and the Whiz Wagon seems especially obvious in the preceding sequence, as the latter vehicle takes to the sky.
Though it’s not specifically spelled out, our young protagonists’ flight from Metropolis’ “slum district” to the edge of the enigmatic Wild Area appears to take hardly any time, suggesting that the latter region is right on the outskirts of a major metropolitan area. As we’ll soon discover, it’s also evidently quite large, which makes it seem improbable that it’s remained so hidden and unknown. But, hey, let’s just make like the Whiz Wagon, and roll (or fly, or motorboat) with it…
I probably hardly need to point out the visual resemblance (from the neck up, at least) between Iron Mask and a certain malevolent monarch of Latveria. His subordinate Vudu doesn’t have quite as obvious an antecedent among the trove of Marvel characters designed by Kirby in the ’60s, although he reminds me at least a little bit of the Demon. (No, not that one. Not that one, either. This one.)
The motorcycle gang introduced by Kirby on these pages, the Outsiders, has been deemed to have drawn inspiration from real-life biker organizations such as the Hell’s Angels, as well as such pop-cultural touchstones of the times as the 1969 film Easy Rider. According to an interview with Jack Kirby’s wife Roz published in The Jack Kirby Collector #10 (Apr., 1996), however, the most direct stimulus for the group’s creation may have been a group of noisy kids who rode motocross bikes in the vicinity of the Kirbys’ first home in California. It’s doubtful that this “gang” could have been anywhere near as intimidating-looking (or acting) as the Outsiders, but they were probably still damned annoying.
Rather than try to extricate the Whiz Wagon from this magnetic trap,Jimmy and the Newsboys ultimately decide to abandon their vehicle, at least for the moment, and mix it up with their assailants directly:
No sooner have our young stalwarts subdued both Iron Mask and Vudu than still more heavy metal thunder comes rolling in:
And now that the Last Son of Krypton has made his first on-panel appearance in this story in his full regalia, it’s probably time to confront the fact that he’s not drawn by Jack Kirby. Not entirely, at least, and not in every panel of the story. And never his face. Because, as many if not most of this blog’s readers likely already know, DC routinely had Kirby’s heads, and often his figures, of Superman, Clark Kent, and Jimmy Olsen redrawn by other artists, allegedly to make them appear more “on model”. In the case of this and the next two issues of Jimmy Olsen (as well as in the first issue of Kirby’s new series Forever People, forthcoming in December), that uncredited task fell to Al Plastino, a DC veteran whose earliest work on the Superman titles had appeared in 1948.
Before digging down into this topic, I have a somewhat chagrined confession to make; back in the summer of 1970, my thirteen-year-old self didn’t even realize that Supes and Jimmy had been extensively redrawn. As familiar as I was with Jack Kirby’s work by this point, I still wasn’t exactly what you’d call a sophisticated connoisseur of individual artists’ styles. Al Plastino’s straightforward, relatively simple style didn’t call a lot of attention to itself; and since I didn’t know what Kirby’s Superman should look like, I accepted that all the images I was looking at had been drawn by Jack Kirby (and inked by Vince Colletta), just like it said in the credits.
Kirby’s original pencils for a panel in Jimmy Olsen #143 (Nov., 1971).
Published version of the same panel, with revised art by Murphy Anderson.
Things would change once Murphy Anderson took over the redrawing chores (which included inking the faces he re-pencilled) with Jimmy Olsen #136; Anderson’s artwork had a polished, distinctive look with which I was quite familiar from his mid-Sixties work on Spectre and Hawkman, (and which, in every other context, I very much enjoyed); when work that was clearly his started to show up within Kirby and Colletta’s panels, it was immediately jarring. But while I instantly recognized (and disliked) the awkward interpolation of Anderson’s portraiture in these later Kirby Olsens, I wouldn’t realize for years that the art in the preceding issues (and in Forever People #1) had been altered as well.
Fifty years down the pike, I still don’t find Plastino’s redrawings to be quite as aesthetically dissonant with Kirby’s style as I do Anderson’s. Nevertheless, I wish that they — as well as Anderson’s — didn’t exist. And I also wonder, along with many other fans: why did DC choose to handle things this way?
The reason most commonly given is that the powers-that-were at DC at that time believed that Kirby’s rendering of Superman veered too far “off-model” from how he was regularly presented in the publisher’s comics, something they were concerned could have an adverse effect on their profitable licensing of the character. As Carmine Infantino put it in an interview with Jim Amash for the book Carmine Infantino: Penciler, Publisher, Provocateur (TwoMorrows, 2010):
…we had to maintain the look of the Superman characters. We had licensing agreements all over the world, and they wanted — expected — a consistent look to the characters. It’s the same thing with Mickey Mouse. You don’t change the look no matter who the artist is. Mickey Mouse has to look like Mickey Mouse. Same thing with Superman… Jack just didn’t draw a very good Superman, or at least keep him on model. And we had to keep him on model. I discussed this with Jack, and he agreed.
The problem with this assertion, as I see it, is that — especially in comparison with Disney’s approach to Mickey Mouse, who did indeed look exactly the same wherever you saw him, regardless of the medium or context — DC’s “model” for Superman wasn’t really all that precise. Below are three portraits of the Man of Steel, all published by DC during the years that Jack Kirby was drawing Jimmy Olsen:
The first portrait shown is by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson, and is from Superman #236 (Apr., 1971). The second, by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella, originally appeared in Justice League of America #86 (Dec., 1970). And the third, by Neal Adams, is a detail from the cover of DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #6 (1971). Are these three renditions of DC’s flagship character similar? Unquestionably. Are they identical? 
I don’t think so. And I also think that Kirby’s rendition, as seen both in the pencilled panel for Jimmy Olsen #143 shown earlier, as well as in the never-used “button” art Kirby drew for the series’ trade dress shown at right, is as much “on model” as any of them.*
It must be acknowledged, however, that Kirby was not the only recipient of this treatment; nor was the practice of retouching art limited to DC’s Superman titles. As Jim Beard, Keith Dallas, and Jason Sacks write in American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s (TwoMorrows, 2014): “Several Curt Swan and Wayne Boris Superman stories of the 1960s included Kurt Schaffenberger faces on their rendition of Lois Lane while Stan Lee sometimes prevailed on John Romita to fix the face of a particular Marvel Comics character.” (The latter situation, incidentally, is known to have occurred in regards to Kirby’s art.) Even more relevant to the present discussion, at the same time that he was redrawing Kirby’s Superman and Jimmy in Jimmy Olsen, Murphy Anderson was also stepping in to help out on Lois Lane, where he inked Werner Roth’s Superman heads in a number of issues; according to an editorial note by E. Nelson Bridwell in the letters column of Lois Lane #121 (Apr., 1972), this was done at the request of the series’ regular inker, Vince Colletta. Since Colletta was also inking Jimmy Olsen, it’s possible that there was some connection between the two Anderson assignments; on the other hand, Anderson also appears to have retouched the Clark Kent heads in at least one Supergirl story, published in Adventure Comics #406 (May, 1971) — a story that was otherwise inked by Jack Abel, as well as being written, pencilled, and even edited by Mike Sekowsky. (This move was evidently found necessary by DC, Mark Evanier notes, “even though Sekowsky’s interpretation of The Man of Steel had appeared, usually unexpurgated, for years in the Justice League of America comic.”) As best as I can tell, the one person who might have been involved in the editorial process on all three titles — Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, and Adventure — was E. Nelson Bridwell himself, as he’d been the assistant editor for the Superman line since the Weisinger days, as well serving as the full editor of Lois Lane since Weisinger’s departure. Could DC’s early ’70s fussiness about Superman being “on model” have stemmed from Bridwell? It seems possible, at least, although Carmine Infantino surely must have given his blessing to the retouching program, if only indirectly.
And though Kirby may have “agreed” to this practice, as Infantino put it, he was hardly happy about it. He was very clear on this point when interviewed by Gary Groth for The Comics Journal, some nineteen years later:
They cut the heads off my Superman, and then they replaced them with a standard Superman head… it bothered me, of course, because a man is entitled to draw things in his own style. I didn’t hurt Superman. I made him powerful. I admire Superman, but I’ve got to do my own style. That’s how I would see it, and I had a right to do that, and nobody had the right to tamper with your work and shape it differently.
For my money, what makes DC’s tampering with Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen so especially egregious, above and beyond any other example of “art correction” one might cite, comes down to a couple of things:
First, it just looks so bad. In the interview with Jim Amash quoted above, Infantino responded to Amash’s expressed dislike of the Kirby-Colletta-Anderson mishmash on aesthetic grounds with the following:
But you weren’t the typical reader. You were serious about the art, much more so than most fans. I think the fans want to see a consistent look to the characters. I don’t think it bothered most of the readers. They were more interested in the characters than they were the art. You were too sensitive to it.
Kirby’s original pencils for a panel in Jimmy Olsen #145 (Jan., 1972).
Published version by Kirby, Colletta, and Anderson.
Hmm, I dunno about that. In 1970-71, I was already a more-than-casual fan of comic books, but, as I’ve already noted, I was still hardly a comic art connoisseur; and I disliked the Anderson interpolations as much as Amash did. Honestly, it’s hard for me to imagine that any reader who was paying attention wouldn’t have found the discrepancy in art styles jarring, even if they couldn’t articulate exactly how or why what they were seeing was “wrong”. And even if you concede Infantino’s point, surely DC’s Editorial Director himself — a highly talented artist, with one of the best design senses ever seen in comics — must have recognized how bad it looked. Why didn’t he care?
The second issue relates to the incongruity of DC going to some lengths to lure Kirby from Marvel, then promoting the hell out of his arrival with the “Kirby Is Coming” campaign — and then, once he’d actually arrived, subverting his artwork with alterations. What was the big deal about getting Jack Kirby, if you’re not prepared to deliver Jack Kirby?
I’m inclined to believe that, however much Infantino and others at DC respected Kirby’s commerciality — and probably his imagination (“He was a great idea man,” Infantino told Amash, “maybe the best ever in comics.”) — on some level, they didn’t really believe his artwork was up to DC’s standards. To again quote Mark Evanier:
…DC was then very into cultivating a “DC look,” with some there taking a certain pride in the fact that the art in their books didn’t resemble the inferior (to them) artwork in the Marvel titles. So along comes Jack Kirby and what he does, almost by definition, is a “Marvel version” of the jewel in the DC crown, Superman…and to some in the office, that just didn’t look right.
In the latter decades of his life, Infantino took umbrage with the idea that he might have purposefully sabotaged Kirby’s artwork, noting that making the changes to Kirby’s Superman and Jimmy Olsen renderings “was costly, time consuming and embarrassing”, but was necessary “to protect the integrity of valuable comic book properties”. Such may well have been his conscious motivation. Nevertheless, I still can’t help wondering if the real reason the great artist and designer couldn’t see what a mess the practice was making of Jimmy Olsen was that when he looked at the bits of Murphy Anderson’s work in the middle of Jack Kirby’s pages, he thought — at least on a subconscious level: Well, at least that much of the art looks good.
Anyway, them’s my two cents’ worth on this long-fraught, never-to-be-fully-settled topic. Thanks for indulging your humble blogger. We now return you to our originally scheduled story…
Notice the inversion of black and white in the page number “13” just above? That’s the handiwork of John Costanza, who conceived this means of “signing” his work in the years before DC began including letterers’ names in their books’ published credits.
Superman’s use of his heat vision to detect the “afterimage” of the Whiz Wagon is an application of this particular super-power that I don’t recall anyone having thought of prior to Kirby — although I may well have missed an earlier instance of it being so employed. (If any Super-scholars out there are aware of one, please feel free to weigh in in the comments section.)
The first Wild Area denizen that Superman meets seems made from a different mold than the hog-riding Outsiders; still, like them, he represents a recognizable type of the late-Sixties/early-Seventies American counterculture — in his case, a meditating, peace-and-love-promoting guru.
Superman’s comment about finding himself in a “dropout society” would seem to put him (and Kirby) firmly on the side of the squares. Nevertheless, the hero’s subsequent adoption of a “youthful” mode of speech (or Kirby’s sense of such, at any rate) to admonish the attacking gunman comes across as sincere, and works better than it probably should (at least for me).
This issue’s cover had proclaimed that Jimmy Olsen was about to become “Superman’s Ex-Pal”, and had buttressed that notion both with its visual of Jimmy and Yango’s cycle slamming into Supes at speed, and 
with Jimmy’s 
accompanying shout of “Gun him down!” This kind of cover scenario, in which the series’ star was shown inexplicably turning on his Super friend, had been used extensively in the Weisinger era as a “hook” to compel readers to buy the comic to learn the explanation for Jimmy’s uncharacteristic behavior.** (Indeed, it had even been employed in the title’s last pre-Kirby issue.) Almost invariably, however, the apparent animosity between the two pals would be explained away by the story inside — it was all due to a trick, a mistake, mind control, a hoax, a dream, etc., etc.. But in Kirby’s hands, this familiar trope becomes something different from the norm; because, while the cover may have exaggerated the situation somewhat, there is a real conflict between Jimmy and Superman in this story. Jimmy does stand by while his new subordinate Yango doses his best friend with Kryptonite gas, and afterwards ominously intones, “Superman has a lot to learn about his place — and about me!”
The “Mountain of Judgment”, eh? Things just keep getting curiouser and curiouser…
Like the meditating dude we met on pages 14 and 15, the treehouse city of Habitat indicates that the Outsiders represent a broader analogue to the real-life counterculture of 1970 than their “outlaw bikers” aspect might initially suggest. Habitat appears to be Kirby’s nod to the “back to the land” movement, especially as expressed in the renewed vogue for communes and other kinds of intentional communities. (Although it may have put my younger self more in mind of Lincoln Logs, or maybe even Tinkertoys.)
And so concludes Jack Kirby’s first new story for DC Comics in 11 years.
As the King’s opening statement at the beginning of his renewed association with the publisher, Jimmy Olsen #133 served notice of an exciting new approach, not just to a single series, but to the whole Superman family of titles — and, by extension, to DC’s entire line, as well.
Though it wasn’t immediately evident to the readers of August, 1970, the comic would also soon be recognized as representing the first chapter of what would prove to be the most personal and ambitious work of Jack Kirby’s whole, long career — the “Epic for Our Times” we would eventually come to call the Fourth World.
How can that be, one might ask, considering that there’s not a Parademon, Mother Box, or even a Boom Tube to be found in the whole blamed thing? Ah, but that’s a question for another post. For the answer, please check back in this space come October, when we’ll be taking our 50-years-later look back at Jimmy Olsen #134.
To wrap up this post, I’d like to share two last “bonus” items from Jimmy Olsen #133, though only the first of them was actually published in the comic book itself.
That would be the text page that Jack Kirby wrote to introduce himself to DC’s readers in the summer of 1970. It’s a fascinating look at how the creator saw himself, as well as his work, at this stage of his career, and indicates the cautious sense of hope he seemed to feel regarding his new relationship with DC Comics (“National Periodicals”) in general, and with Carmine Infantino in particular — a hope which would, alas, never be fully realized, though a lot of great comics would come out of the alliance over the next several years:
The second, and originally unpublished item is Kirby’s first, rejected pencil sketch for the cover of Jimmy Olsen #133. Many photocopies of Kirby’s uninked pencils, for both published and unpublished work, have come to light over the decades, and they provide an opportunity to enjoy the artist’s creativity in its rawest, least mediated form.
And as far as Jimmy Olsen is concerned, it also provides the opportunity for us to see Jack Kirby’s Superman the way he saw him, without any “help” from other artists:
*It must be admitted that Kirby did have problems keeping one aspect of Superman’s visual on model — namely, his “S” shield emblem. I doubt any fan would have objected, or even noticed, if the DC-mandated retouching had begun and ended with fixing those.
**The converse scenario — in which Superman appeared to turn on Jimmy — was also used on occasion.
Attack of the 50 Year Old Comic Books 
It never fails to tickle the hell outta me that The Fourth World and all of the Kirby concepts birthed there that are still being stripmined for stories some fifty years later by DC had their beginning in JIMMY OLSEN.
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Well, I have to say that as a DC guy from way back and as someone who once dreamed of drawing comics for a living, I’m embarrassed to say I had NO idea that DC or Marvel or anybody re-drew bits and pieces of the King’s work.Not then, and not now, until you just told me. Now, that I know, it’s ALL I can see. Unbelievable. While Jack certainly has problems with the “S” shield and perhaps the exact look of Supe’s boots and other small details, there was nothing wrong with his faces! What does it say about an industry who won’t let the most famous creator in the world do what it is he does best? Granted, Jack’s work did suffer abit (IMHO) as he got older; always dynamic, but sometimes more extreme than years before, but he’s Jack Kirby, and his work for DC is the King at the peak of his powers.
I do have to say, however, that I’m very familiar with the idea of the “DC Look,” as well as the “Marvel Way” or whatever they chose to call it in “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way,” having run up against it more than once in my own efforts as a young cartoonist who very definitely had his “own” style. Unlike now, the publishing rule in the seventies and for most of the eighties was a homoginized “house look” that differentiated one publisher from another. Of course, as talent jumped from one House of Ideas to the other, it really came to mean that Marvel and DC books looked one way and everyone else’s…sort of did, too. Which is what contributed in part to the underground and independent comics movement (where I finally saw my own work published). Still, I had no idea Kirby got painted with that same brush after all he’d done for comics and for all the artists he inspired. That’s truly shocking.
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Don, that’s a good point about the “look” of Marvel’s and DC’s lines becoming more and more similar as more and more artists moved back and forth between the two companies — and I’d argue that the same was true for their respective approaches to storytelling, as writers (and even editors) did the same. Which is one reason I could never understand fans who only read DC, or only read Marvel, especially as the decades wore on. I mean, Simonson is Simonson no matter who he’s working for, Perez is Perez, Miller is Miller, and so forth. Having a preference for one company’s characters or universe over the other’s is understandable, but publisher exclusivity has always seemed arbitrary to me.
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I had always thought that the Lois and Jimmy books were situation comedies set in the Superman universe. This was the first issue that I had picked up in years.
Great article
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The absolute best depictions of Superman were in the newspaper strip WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERHEROES which was first illustrated by George Tuska and Vince Colletta, then Jose Delbo and Vince Colletta. I should mention the ultra-sexy Wonder Woman that appeared in those stories.
But, regarding Jimmy Olsen, Vince just couldn’t iron out Kirby’s Superman faces to look even reasonably like the man of steel. DC should have just let Jack scribble away on New Gods. His art became very ugly compared to the days of FF and Thor, resembling the Atlas monster books he drew in the sixties. Inker Mike Royer basically tracing Kirby’s muddy pencils didn’t help the overall picture. Once Colletta wasn’t around to soften Jack’s grotesqueness, the art became third-rate in a hurry.
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We’ll have to agree to disagree, Ed — though I appreciate you taking the time both to read the post, and to comment.
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So very much to touch on here! You could write a book (or multiple books) about Jack Kirby’s career, with a significant portion devoted solely to his early 1970s stint at DC Comics.
As I have observed in the past, it is REALLY unfortunate that in 1970 the only two choices Kirby had were Marvel and DC. Yes, there were other comic book publishers, but Marvel and DC were apparently the only ones that paid rates that would enable Kirby to support his family. I can only imagine what might have been if something like Image Comics had existed two decades earlier, and Kirby had been able to bring his Fourth World magnum opus there, retaining complete creative control & ownership.
In regards to Carmine Infantino, I feel he was a much better artist that he was an editor. I understand the 1970s were a rough period for the comic book industry, but Infantino seems to have been especially unsuited to be working in a management position during this time. A lot of comic book fans look upon his decision to prematurely cancel Kirby’s Forth World titles as the single biggest mistake ever made by DC Comics.
What’s especially galling is that when Jenette Kahn replaced Infantino in 1976, one of her first decisions was to revive the New Gods, as she apparently immediately recognized the strength of the characters & concepts. Unfortunately by this point Kirby had returned to Marvel, and so DC had to get Gerry Conway to write the revival. The timing is just incredibly depressing. I really think Kirby could have had a much better working relationship with Kahn.
So many “what if” and “if only” scenarios to contemplate!
In any case, I regard the Fourth World as some of Kirby’s greatest material. Even in its unfinished form it is still head & shoulders above so much else in the medium.
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I agree with almost everything you’re saying, Ben. I do think that Infantino deserves more than a little credit for a number of innovations at DC in the late ’60s and early ’70s, including the shift towards “artist-editors” like Dick Giordano (who in turn imported new-to-DC talent such as O’Neil, Aparo, etc.) and Joe Orlando (who spearheaded the successful overhaul of DC’s mystery anthologies), as well as green-lighting off-the-wall projects like Bat Lash, Anthro, and (of course) Kirby’s Fourth World. He also approved radical new approaches to existing properties like Green Lantern and Wonder Woman. Some of those innovations didn’t work out so well either creatively or commercially, but I feel like you have to give him props for at least trying something new.
That said, it’s undeniable that he pulled the plug on many of those new titles/approaches almost as soon as they’d gotten started, apparently cancelling series at the first hint of declining or even just below-expected sales, rather than allowing them a bit more time to find an audience. The abrupt termination of the Fourth World titles is just the best (or worst) example. Infantino’s impatience was his great flaw as a comics industry executive, IMHO.
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That is certainly a fair assessment.
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Excellent article. As a 13 yr old DC Comics buyer way back in 1970, I remember the excitement felt about the “Fantastic Four” artist coming over to DC. Back then I had no idea about comic sales or that Marvel were generally thought of as having a “better product” (I didn’t know ANY other American Comics collectors at School). I bought all issues of “Kirby’s Fourth World”, and I must have liked his take on “Jimmy Olsen” as this was a magazine I usually left on the spinner rack pre Kirby. I eagerly purchased any Kirby work for DC, even “Our Fighting Forces” (I think it was called). I remember feeling very disappointed when he went back to Marvel in 1975.
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David, you were a more faithful DC Kirbyite than I was. I was so disheartened by the abrupt termination of the Fourth World that I had a hard time working up much enthusiasm for his later DC work, and pretty much completely skipped Kamandi, OMAC, and The Losers (in Our Fighting Forces) — which seems awfully short-sighted now. On the other hand, I was happy to see Kirby back at Marvel and bought every issue of Captain America, Eternals, Black Panther, and 2001 — though I ended up being disappointed to one extent or another by all of them, and ultimately passed on both Machine Man and Devil Dinosaur.
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I often wonder what would have Kirby gone onto do for DC had they not canceled his “Fourth World” as you put it so abruptly. Now it seems all very short sighted of DC (Infantino)…. Maybe, given time his work would have elevated DC back to supremacy in the comics world, sadly we will never know. A Golden opportunity missed I say !.
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“According to one oft-told tale, Kirby asked DC Editorial Director Carmine Infantino to give him the company’s worst-selling title, which he’d proceed to make a hit; the truth, however, is that though Jimmy Olsen was indeed the poorest performer among DC’s four Superman-starring titles, it wasn’t actually the publisher’s lowest-selling book overall.”
Far from it. It would appear to be selling better than the overwelming majority of DC titles and most of anybody else’s too.
The occasion called on me to check my collection of Jimmy Olsen comic books from the period. Jimmy Olsen #133 might have been the very first DC Comic I ever bought, but I’m not sure. However, checking through my collection I discovered some actual sales figures for Jimmy Olsen during that period.
In Jimmy Olsen #136, at the bottom third of the letters page appears
THE STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION, date of filing: October 1, 1970…
C. total paid circulation:
333,539 (Average No. Copies each issue during preceding 12 months)
342,884 (Single Issue nearest to Filing Date)
In Jimmy Olsen #147, at the bottom third of the letters page appears
THE STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION, date of filing: October 1, 1971…
C. total paid circulation:
299,882 (Average No. Copies each issue during preceding 12 months)
256,354 (Single Issue nearest to Filing Date)
Sales would appear to have dropped after Kirby took over the book. However, there were changing circumstances. For one, the number of issues in a year went up from 9 in a year in 1970 to 11 in a year in 1971. The cover price also increased from 15 cents to 25 cents, a substantial increase at a time when comic book sales were extremely sensitive to price changes. What did you get for your extra ten cents? An old reprint from the 1940’s after the regular comic book story.
Comichron has some sales figures from that period but their numbers are only for the years 1960 to 1969. They have been promising to post more figures but it has been a few years now. I have been waiting. They do have some figures for 1969:
https://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales/postaldata/1969.html
Jimmy Olsen sales figures for 1970 do not match up poorly with other comic book sales for the year 1969. The sales for Jimmy Olsen given in 1970 would be #13 on the 1969 list right after Fantastic Four. Jimmy Olsen is not listed on the 1969 list but is listed on the 1968 list at #7 with a sales figure of 460,560 copies sold an issue, far above the sales figures for Spiderman and Fantastic Four, Marvel’s two best selling comic books.
https://www.comichron.com/yearlycomicssales/postaldata/1968.html
So Jimmy Olsen was definitely slumping and probably the worst selling of the Superman group of comic books. However, in 1970 Jimmy Olsen was still outselling all the Marvel titles except for Spiderman and Fantastic Four. Jack Kirby did have his work cut out for him.
“What was the big deal about getting Jack Kirby, if you’re not prepared to deliver Jack Kirby?”
Maybe the primary reason in getting Kirby was to cut Marvel off at the kneecaps. Could Marvel survive without Kirby? Many times, a talent will be enticed away from a competitor for the sole purpose of crippling that competitor. Kirby’s departure from Marvel did cause trepidation on Stan Lee’s part.
The most surprising revelation about Jimmy Olsen #133 as presented here was Vince Colletta’s inking. I thought his inking looked great. I went back and checked my copy of Jimmy Olsen #133 just to make sure it wasn’t some digitally enhanced reworking. The much maligned Vince Colletta could do outstanding work. Was it because DC paid better than Marvel? My prejudice against Colletta was based on his work on Mighty Thor during the latter part of Kirby’s run and much of his other work at Marvel. My prejudice carried over into the Fourth World. At the time, I was glad when he was replaced by Mike Royer. Now, upon review fifty years later, I’m not so sure. Colletta could do exceptional work.
Another thing, King Kirby was back after being gone for two or three years. The Whiz Wagon exceeded any Kirbytech at Marvel.
Can’t wait for your entry on Mister Miracle #6; “Funky Flashman” and “Houseroy”.
You are going to do it, right???? Maybe it was a good thing when Kirby replaced Colletta with Royer. Colletta definitely would have given Stan Lee early warning about the upcoming story and Lee in turn would have tried to get DC to stop it. Lee was reportedly extremely upset and unhappy about it.
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Thanks for the detailed sales analysis, Joshua! I’ll admit I was pretty much just taking the word of Mark Evanier and others on Jimmy Olsen‘s sales, so I appreciate you doing the research to verify my assumption.
And yeah, I’m definitely planning to cover Mister Miracle #6. Currently have it pencilled in for November 17, 2021. 🙂
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I was very interested in your comments about redrawing faces. The first time I became aware of the practise was from ‘Marvel’s Greatest Comics #31’ from June 1971 which reprinted ‘Fantastic Four #39’. In it Daredevil has been redrawn by Wally Wood and I remember being glad he did. Along with Spidey, Daredevil was a character I knew Kirby couldn’t draw very well and definitely preferred Wood’s well drawn interpolation to what ever Kirby had done on the original pencils. Having said that I would add that I think Wood’s Daredevil fits a bit more seamlessly into the artwork than Anderson’s Superman does in Jimmy Olsen.
While i’m sure Kirby probably didn’t like this practise I think it’s a price he had to pay for having such a distinct, action orientated, blocky style.
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Joseph, that’s an excellent example of the redrawing Kirby was sometimes subjected to at Marvel. (I mentioned this practice in my post, but my generic reference to John Romita doing occasional facial touch-ups was admittedly weaker). As it happens, I first read the FF story you reference in the same issue of “Marvel’s Greatest Comics” that you did; unlike yourself, however, I didn’t realize at the time (1971) that Wally Wood had redrawn the Daredevil figures, any more than I had caught on to Al Plastino’s redrawings of Kirby’s Superman and Jimmy Olsen over at DC. Perhaps that’s because I wasn’t aware at the time that Wood had ever worked on DD, and so wasn’t prepared to recognize his art in that context; or maybe it’s just that you were a lot more observant than I was! 🙂 In any case, I do feel that it’s as you said, that Wood’s work meshes better with Kirby’s than does Anderson’s.
But setting aside the question of aesthetics for a moment, I’d still argue that the redrawing program at DC was tacky (for lack of a better word) in a way that the occasional Stan Lee-directed alterations at Marvel weren’t, in that the redrawings 1) appeared in every issue, and 2) were consistently implemented in regards to the series’ lead characters, Jimmy Olsen and Superman. To put the question I raised in the original post in somewhat more specific terms: why assign Jack Kirby to draw a Superman book, if you don’t want Jack Kirby’s vision of Superman?
That’s how I see it, anyway; you, of course, are under no obligation whatsoever to agree with me!
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Wow! Thanks for this in-depth and enlightening look into what has become one of my favorite single issues of a comic book ever! I say “has become” because I of course missed this one when it first came out, having not quite been born into this strange new world just yet. However, ever since I did first encounter the New Gods, rendered by George Perez in the JLA, I was determined to learn more of them! However, it was only a handful of years ago that I finally got to read this particular issue, in the form of the 4 softcover “Jack Kirby’s Fourth World” Omnibus collections that my in-laws very graciously got me for a birthday present that year. (I was a very good boy, I’m sure) Hence, I was very struck by the “fixes” to Kirby’s Superman and Jimmy drawings, even though by that point I knew that they were going to be there! Poor Jack: already saddled with his least favorite inker, he also had to deal with people re-drawing his work! And Vinnie was busy erasing the rest! Well, I’m rambling on here, but I love the Fourth World! Looking forward to your further coverage, natch!
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Glad you enjoyed the post, Max! As you can imagine, I’m really looking forward to taking us all through the whole Fourth World saga over the next couple of years.
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Don’t mean to intrude, but you mentioned Coletta changing Jack’s pencils, and I hate it when they match an inker with a penciller they don’t have any respect for. I don’t remember the issue number, but there’s an old issue of either Batman or Detective, pencilled by Walt Freaking Simonson and inked by Jim Aparo, of all people and I swear, Walt could’ve just stayed home b/c the art was all Aparo. What a shame. If you can’t do an inking job justice, then don’t do it at all.
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Yeah, I think there are precious few inkers who’ve ever “worked” on Simonson’s pencils. He had any number of “bad” inkers in the ’70s — Alfredo Alcala, Al Milgrom, Tony DeZuniga, etc. — all talented artists, but just wrong for the job.
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Re: Coletta, I’m one of those fans who kinda liked him on Kirby’s mythologically-oriented stuff (Thor, New Gods). Of course, as a young reader I had no idea about the erasing. IIRC, that was the main thing that made Kirby finally put his foot down and insist on replacing Vinnie with Mike Royer.
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No worries, here: I love talking about this kind of stuff! And I love Aparo, too, but yeah: bad form for overbearing the early Simonson grandeur, there, Jim! There are even inkers I love, like Joe Sinnott (a legend, whom I was lucky enough to meet, and who is greatly missed), who developed such a heavy handed style that might as well just draw the whole book themselves. Jerry Ordway is another, I think. Great artists all, but learn how to take the supporting role, folks! 🙂
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(This should have been a reply to the above. Sorry! Gremlins!)
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Why the heck would a frogman wear flippers when he’s working in a garage?
A few typos:
“eager to rove his value to his new employer”
s/b
“eager to prove his value to his new employer”.
Now, if that mistake was in the book, you might want to add [sic].
“introducting” s/b “introducing”
“For the answer, lease check back”
s/b
“For the answer, please check back”
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Thanks, Pat.
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When I first read this blog post I was so excited to re-read “Jimmy Olsen” # 133 for the first time in 50 years—and remembering it vividly—that I wanted to explode and write pages on it. As a result, I procrastinated and am now way behind in reading your DC Kirby items. So I’ll try to be more disciplined now.
First, for years I thought that while Jack Kirby was a Hall of Fame artist, his writing left a lot to be desired. I thought that Stan Lee gave verbal and characterization life to Kirby’s drawings, and that without Stan, Kirby was rather pedestrian at best. This opinion was formed from reading Kirby’s mid to late 1970s Marvel work, especially his “Captain America” work which I loathed. However, re-reading “Jimmy Olsen” #133, I remembered how great Kirby’s plotting and writing for D.C. was.
In 1970, I too found it puzzling that D.C. had put Kirby on “Jimmy Olsen”. One of the blog commenters called the title a situation comedy offshoot of the Superman books, which is an apt description. I thought the idea of having this title was spurious. It’s like Flash Thompson or Wong or Alicia Masters having a solo book. Anyway, Kirby took what was pretty much a throw-away (or never-pick-up) title and turned it into a beauty queen in his very first issue.
I had forgotten about the Newsboy Legion, who Kirby characterized perfectly. I loved the splash page with the Whiz Wagon, then and now, although I also thought that it looked like the Fantasti-Car. Morgan Edge and Intergang I touched on in another comment. I forgot about Edge’s attempted hit on Clark Kent. Didn’t think of associating the Dr. Doom look-alike then, although it is obvious now. I too found Kirby’s dialogue between Superman and the Outsiders when he first meets them to be very believable and funny—way better than D.C.’s usually embarrassing forays into youth dialogue of the period.
I had completely forgotten about how intrigued I had been about the Mountain of Judgment mentioned in this issue. The Habitat reminded me of Lincoln Logs as well and what a splash page on page 20! I had forgotten about the Zoomway as well. In short, practically every page of this issue brought back memories from 50 years ago and I practically squealed with delight in the nostalgia and the pleasure of the book, which is why I did not know where to begin in commenting.
I don’t think that the story of Kirby wanting to be assigned to the lowest selling book is true. Not only, as has been pointed out elsewhere, was “Jimmy Olsen” not D.C.’s lowest selling book, but whoever suggested this is getting mixed up with the Neal Adams story at Marvel when he wanted to work on the lowest selling book and wound up doing his X-cellent work on X-Men
.
I never realized that Kirby had his Superman figures redrawn and redone, probably because I’m not an artist, but it’s an absolute disgrace. It shows the complete arrogance of D.C. during the 1960s and early 1970s regarding their belief in their superiority to Marvel in every facet. Ironically, Kirby left Marvel partly because he felt that he had been treated poorly there. However, all through the 1960s Stan Lee had held up Kirby’s work as the standard for Marvel artists and wanted them to draw like Kirby. Then Kirby moves to D.C. and they tell him that he can’t draw Superman correctly. I agree with the commenter who said that D.C. poached Kirby just to score points against Marvel, not because they respected Kirby’s work. Kirby finally came to the sad realization that, as much as he despised Stan Lee and Marvel, they treated him better overall than D.C. did (and Kirby did get a better deal and autonomy when he returned to Marvel).
I’m sure that I had a lot more to say, but I’m not going back to see what I missed. Maybe if I remember I’ll stick them in my inevitable comments on “Jimmy Olsen” #134, which I am finally going to read tomorrow (and then #135, “The Forever People”, I’ll catch up eventually.
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Great to see your JO #133 comments at last, Stu! I’d say they were worth waiting for. 🙂 Looking forward to reading what you have to say about #134, and so on from there.
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Of course, preceding the Adams/X-Men story from 1969, there is the 1966 story of when Stan Lee offered Jim Steranko employment and Jim requested Marvel’s worst-selling title and got Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD.
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Hi Alan– I did leave an appreciatory response here last night, but it seems to have got lost in the ether–
Anyway, just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading this article, as always, your encyclopaedic knowledge of all things Bronze Age is second to none, and for someone like me totally invaluable–
I have just embarked on my own journey with Kirby’s Fourth World and am really not sure what to make of some of it, so I hope you don’t mind if I see you as a kind of spirit guide mentor figure, helping me through some of its more bumpy aspects–
I also wanted to say that Kirby’s art is probable, of all the artists I’ve encountered from this period, the most dissimilar to the artists I myself grew up with in British comics of the 70s and 80s. I think that’s why I find it quite hard still to really ‘get’ Kirby. That said, with your invaluable background information I hope soon to start feeling something of what his legions of fans feel.
As I write this I’ve just read the 4th Jimmy Olsen story, so am making progress–
Andrew
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“Spirit guide mentor figure”, eh? Gulp. I’ll do my best, Andrew! In any event, I’m very much looking forward to reading your takes on the Fourth World books.
On the topic of “getting” Jack Kirby, you might enjoy this post from 2018, where I wrote about my own initial difficulties in this area — when I was ten! https://50yearoldcomics.com/2018/06/03/captain-america-105-september-1968/
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Thanks Alan, I shall check it out!
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So I’m late to the party, but I wanted to chime in something I’ve not seen mentioned with respect to the re-drawn Superman faces, and I think that Carmine Infantino was being petty and acting out of pique.
It has been said in MANY places that Infantino originally offered Kirby a chance to essentially reboot Superman. And Kirby took him up on the job offer, but refused to do that particular job. I think the not wanting to put other people out of work had a lot to do with it, and I do think that the choice of Jimmy Olsen was based on that as well.
I think when he put Superman into Jimmy Olsen (which he pretty much had to, didn’t he?) Infantino was like, “Oh, so you don’t want to do Superman, but you’ll do Superman here?” and had the faces redrawn. Either Kirby got to completely be in control of Superman, or he had NO control of Superman. Carmine wasn’t going to let him have anything in between.
That’s always been my take on it, anyway … well, I say “always” – like you I wasn’t even aware of it at the time. I was only 10
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That’s a very interesting theory, Stephen! And don’t worry — you’re never too late to join this party! 🙂
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Grr. VERY bad at math, and too tired …
Fourteen. I was 14 when this came out, not 10. Don’t know what I was thinking.
I think I did notice that Superman looked different than the other Kirby figures, but I just assumed he was “toeing the line” with respect to drawing him the way DC wanted him drawn. Superman had lost my interest by then, although I’d been a big fan when I was 7-8. I was mainly interested in the OTHER stuff Kirby had going on …
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Just discovered your webpage here, really fantastic research and history, I had never been aware of this comic title – amazing work by Kirby, thanks for sharing this!
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You’re welcome, Jesse — great to have you on board!
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I was rather tickled to see Kirby mention Captain 3-D in his short biography. I’m not sure what it is about that odd little one issue book, but I fell in love with it when I discovered it a few months ago. Maybe it’s the concept of cat-people hiding amongst us that I found intriguing; I seem to remember being fascinated as a child by a fan comic with a similar premise, though I can’t remember the name off hand. Anyway, Captain 3-D is in the public domain now, so I am definitely doing a revival some day.
Phew. Wait, weren’t we supposed to be talking about Jimmy Olsen here? 😛
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