80-Page Thursdays: Jimmy Olsen #1!

Hey, it's been a while since we've had this tag out! And it's been a while I've been eyeballing this issue: from 2011, Jimmy Olsen #1, "Jimmy Olsen's Big Week" Written by Nick Spencer, pencils by R.B. Silva, inks by Denis Freitas (or Dym). (The GCD says 84 pages, but play along!)

This story started life as a backup feature in Action Comics #893, but then the issues were downsized and the last three chapters (of seven) were left out in the cold until this collection. As in the then-current continuity, Superman had left Metropolis (Lex Luthor was even headlining Action at the time!) and Jimmy is at loose ends himself. After sitting around playing Lexcorp's Superman: The Video Game, his girlfriend Chloe Sullivan leaves him, and his rivalry with Lexcorp junior exec Sebastien Mallory is getting him nothing but frustration. Jimmy declares his week is going to be bigger than Mallory's, starting with stopping that alien invasion that just showed up; which turns out to be hard-partying, oxygen-drunk "intergalactic Lindsays." Thinking quickly, Jimmy gets Supergirl, Perry White, Martha Kent, and most of Metropolis to play along with making Earth not seem like party central. And that's only three days in!

The rest of Jimmy's week gets more and more hysterical, including a visitor from the Fifth Dimension, a trip into space, and a lot of gags; including a rather pointed take that to the state of Superman's comics at the time. It's way more fun and charming than just about anything I think I've seen from DC the last few years, and if Jimmy got his own book like this, I'd be on board.

These stories were the first appearances of Smallville's Chloe Sullivan (played by Allison Mack for like ten years and two hundred and some episodes) in DC continuity...just in time for the New 52 reboot. Yay...

I've joked before about getting a kickback from Hastings, but I waited until I had a coupon to pick this one up...and then got it for fifty cents! Absolutely recommended.