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Title: Jimmy Olsen, "The Boy Of Steel" Post by: nightwing on September 25, 2006, 03:10:23 PM Last nite I was reading the Superman Family Showcase volume and got a kick out of this story.
In it, Jimmy temporarily gains invulnerability and the usual hilarity ensues (there's a great scene where Superman tries to have a conversation with Jimmy about the situation, while Jimmy delightedly drops bricks on his own head and tries to saw his leg off! :lol: ). There's some confusion about how Jimmy gets his new power, but it turns out it's because Superman got him too close to an Atomic Bomb test (thanks a lot, pal!). As the shockwave hit them, Superman recalls, Jimmy mentioned feeling as if a "cloak" had been thrown over him. This of course must have been the atomic blast casting a field of invulnerability around the youngster. Clark Kent checks the Daily Planet's articles on atomic fallout and finds that, yes, this is something that happens now and then but it tends to wear off after 24 hours. Holy Bad Science! :shock: Crazy enough that kids in the 50s were told they could escape nuclear death by hiding under their school desks, now Superman comics are telling them that a brush with the A-bomb might actually be a COOL thing. And how many times had this come up already, that there'd be articles about it in the Planet files? Perhaps the reports were filed by US troops who encountered those thousands of super-powered Japanese civilians who appeared after the bombing of Hiroshima? These stories are tons of fun, but honestly sometimes you have to wonder what planet Otto Binder was visiting from. Title: Re: Jimmy Olsen, "The Boy Of Steel" Post by: Johnny Nevada on September 25, 2006, 08:18:28 PM Quote from: "nightwing" Last nite I was reading the Superman Family Showcase volume and got a kick out of this story. In it, Jimmy temporarily gains invulnerability and the usual hilarity ensues (there's a great scene where Superman tries to have a conversation with Jimmy about the situation, while Jimmy delightedly drops bricks on his own head and tries to saw his leg off! :lol: ). There's some confusion about how Jimmy gets his new power, but it turns out it's because Superman got him too close to an Atomic Bomb test (thanks a lot, pal!). As the shockwave hit them, Superman recalls, Jimmy mentioned feeling as if a "cloak" had been thrown over him. This of course must have been the atomic blast casting a field of invulnerability around the youngster. Clark Kent checks the Daily Planet's articles on atomic fallout and finds that, yes, this is something that happens now and then but it tends to wear off after 24 hours. Holy Bad Science! :shock: Crazy enough that kids in the 50s were told they could escape nuclear death by hiding under their school desks, now Superman comics are telling them that a brush with the A-bomb might actually be a COOL thing. And how many times had this come up already, that there'd be articles about it in the Planet files? Perhaps the reports were filed by US troops who encountered those thousands of super-powered Japanese civilians who appeared after the bombing of Hiroshima? These stories are tons of fun, but honestly sometimes you have to wonder what planet Otto Binder was visiting from. It was the 50's, when the notion of atomic energy (bombs, power, etc.) was still new---and thus, everything sci-fi related seemed to assume that "radiation = good" (aside from the original "Godzilla" film). Thus, the heavy Silver Age emphasis on radiation as a superpower source (the Hulk, Spider-Man, etc.).... so Binder wasn't the only one who apparently ignored Hiroshima... Title: Re: Jimmy Olsen, "The Boy Of Steel" Post by: Great Rao on September 26, 2006, 03:24:06 PM Quote from: "nightwing" There's some confusion about how Jimmy gets his new power, but it turns out it's because Superman got him too close to an Atomic Bomb test (thanks a lot, pal!). As the shockwave hit them, Superman recalls, Jimmy mentioned feeling as if a "cloak" had been thrown over him. This of course must have been the atomic blast casting a field of invulnerability around the youngster. Clark Kent checks the Daily Planet's articles on atomic fallout and finds that, yes, this is something that happens now and then but it tends to wear off after 24 hours. Boy, I can't wait to see the Supermanica entry for atomic fallout. Who knows what other incredible effects it's had. :s: |