Replacement revolution: right on to the dark side, our way is clear and fast: Jimmy Olsen # 134

Jack Kirby flippa-dippa’s the world on its head in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen # 134 (cover dated December 1970, publication date 13 October 1970, 50 years ago today). Jimmy’s revolutionary army takes over in a way the real-world youth culture of the time could not. Superman, symbol of the corrupt power of the parent State is ‘out of the way’, not merely run over as in Jimmy Olsen # 133 but crucified and led away by hippy biker legionnaires.

The two covers are two moments in the same scene

There is no listening, no hearing, Jimmy and the surrounding culture are past caring, only judgement remains from all sides, only our voice counts and the rest of you must face ‘The Mountain of Judgement.’ You’re not one of us.

 The corporate re-draw of Superman’s head functions artistically making him other, separate

If this sounds familiar in 2020, it’s because it is. More and more the stark separation of views, the polarisation of opinion, the fear of being replaced that we see in our culture now, mirrors that of 1970. Kirby was reflecting his times, like the youth revolutionaries and freaks, he was blowing up the symbols of the old world.

It was time for the outsiders to run things and the establishment squares to be forced out, they are the dissenters, not us. Jimmy and the contemporaneous youth protest movement “….have high ideals and great fears….they see their elders trapped by materialism and competition, and prisoners of outdated social forms…They feel they must remake America in its own image…”*

It’s always an attractive and seductive thought to think You Are Right. When Jimmy and the Newsboy Legion ride the Zoomway to meet the Mountain of Judgement it’s exciting. So much time waiting for your chance, waiting for others to get out of your way and now it’s your time. Go for it!

Jimmy’s travels in the Whiz Wagon are turbulent. They are drawn into a black and white Kirbyesque kaleidoscope of confusion in the artist’s first use of collage in the Fourth World. Part black and white psychedelic Fillmore West light show and part death skull, it feels like an image of the times. So many perspectives, things breaking apart and reforming in unexpected ways. Dazzling and deadly.

Enter the Mountain of Judgement. No Moses on a hill with chaos-controlling commandments. Rather a modern mountain, a missile-carrying machine, like the Military-Industrial Complex on wheels but with an idol’s face. Baal breathing destruction on Jimmy and the boys, intent on crushing their youth insurgency under its monstrous tank tracks. 

At this point Kirby turns the tables again and simultaneously reveals the giant machine is full of Hairy hippy friends who along with a revived Superman foil a bomb plot using the Whiz Wagon, and shows the face of who has betrayed them: Morgan Edge. Jimmy and the Legion reconcile with Superman and the issue ends with a savage one panel portent, the first appearance of one of DC’s greatest villains, Darkseid.

The effect of this lesson in humility is that it causes Jimmy and the Newsboys to see the good in Superman and Superman sees Jimmy as an equal. The reader’s expectation is also subverted, we’re so ready for the fight, so energised to be justified and then it turns out that our assumptions about the Other aren’t right, that the future is together, despite our differences. Judgement is the idol. ‘Judge not, lest you be judged’ (Matthew 7:1). A comics parable for the modern age.

Kirby’s Fourth World is now gathering pace. Towards the end of the issue there is an ad for Forever People # 1, New Gods # 1, Mister Miracle # 1. On the ground floor, for a comics revolution😊.

*from the Presidential Commission on the causes of campus disruption, as quoted in Time magazine, October 5, 1970, pg. 14.

Research this article: 

-Time Magazine, October 5, 1970, Ón Campus: Blame Enough For All, pg 14-15

-The indispensable Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said! (Jack Kirby Collector # 75: TwoMorrows)

-There’s A Riot Going On (Peter Doggett, Canongate, 2007)

-Mike’s Amazing World of Comics website.   

 

Michael Mead is a 54 year old New Zealand comic book collector, who likes to think he can do "contextual" commentary reviews of old comics, asking: "where does this story come from?", looking at the social, political, cultural times it came from, the state of the comics industry, the personal and creative journey of the writer or artist, the personal journey of the reader as a child and as an adult. 

As part of this, he is vain enough to think he can bring new insights into Kirby's Fourth World comics and so, on the 50th anniversary of publication of each issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle, he will publish a contextual commentary. Check out his earlier entries on this blog and tell him to stop talking so pretentiously in the third person for God's sake!