Jon reads Superboy 80 and an excerpt from Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen 44 (1960) and talks about them!
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15 Supergirl — Superboy Meets Supergirl
Jon reads Superboy 80 and an excerpt from Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen 44 (1960) and talks about them!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
2 replies on “15 Supergirl — Superboy Meets Supergirl”
The idea of Superboy having super friends, is revisted again a couple of times with the appearance of Mon-El (NOT his real name) in 1961 and Ultra Boy in 1962. I wonder if some young readers who, for whatever reason, felt “different” in some way from their peers, found hope that they, too, might meet friends who were “different” in a similar way. I’d like to think so.
I loved the moment when you talked about the Jimmy Olsen wolfman potion, you said, “Jimmy, of course, drinks this.” That “of course” is *chef’s kiss*, because Jimmy Olsen never met a potion or unknown liquid he wouldn’t drink. On your comment about Jimmy’s age, even if Jimmy was, say, 20, he’d still legally be a minor, so even with the age gap between him and Supergirl, that might not have been so much of an issue in a comic book in 1960.
At first I thought that we were finally going to get to a story that I had actually read. I did read a Silver Age Superboy meets Supergirl story in a reprint comic at some point. However, it was not this one! So there was at least one other meeting of the two of them in this era. The circumstances of their meeting in the story I remember are quite different, and I won’t say anything more about it so I don’t spoil anything.
It’s probably just “different times,” but I found it very odd for kids of Superboy and Supergirl’s ages to talk about “playmates.” That’s a term I associate with younger children, around kindergarten age. But maybe it was more expansive in the 50s.
It’s interesting that, even though they’re not really playing it up very much, Kara does seem to have some ongoing trauma about being exiled to another planet. I’m glad that you called out Superboy’s relative lack of reaction to learning about that. I was expecting him to be thinking, “Man, it sounds like I’m going to grow up to be a real dick!”
My gosh, but Jimmy Olsen had some bonkers stories back then. How many different things did he transform into? Surely someone has kept track!