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As popular as Ringo!

jimmy olsen - redheaded beatle

Okay, okay…one more, then I stop. One of my favorites. 1964. You get the feeling even the antiquated old coot who came up with this cover knew that “as popular as Ringo” ranked right up there in the compliment universe with “as comfy as a supperating boil on your bottom.”

This was one of life’s most important early lessons, though, wasn’t it? No, no…not the supperating boil thing. That the scene on the cover of a comic generally had NOTHING WHATEVER to do with whatever went on inside, which was always more boring but made lots more sense.

Okay, maybe not in this comic: a criminal from the future steals a time machine but can’t operate the controls, so he autopilots it to 1964 to pick up Jimmy, who can…and they both go back to ancient Greece, where Jimmy supports himself making Beatle wigs out of wool. And then…I dunno. It got weird.

Speaking of special needs, Wikipedia says that after George Reeves shot himself (“died of a gunshot wound” as they delicately put it), the producers of the Adventures of Superman approached Jack Larson (Jimmy Olsen) with a series of his own. It would concentrate on Jimmy’s rise in the newspaper biz and feature a stunt double and old footage of Reeves. Larson, horrified, said no.

And thus an instant classic died a-borning.

January 16, 2008 — 6:42 pm
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