Born On The Fourth World: Part VII

Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136, March 1971

Jimmy, the Deoxyribonucleic Alien

The Newsboy Legion stand aghast on the opening splash-page, their shocked faces staring directly at the reader, from beneath the title; The Saga of the DNAliens. Turning the page, we see what the Newsboys can see; a double-page splash depicting a titanic punch-up between the giant, green Jimmy Olsen clone and the resurrected Golden Guardian. Scrapper, a connoisseur of violence, comments that the fight is “A Scrapper’s scrap!”

Guardian and the giant trade blows, whilst Jimmy attempts to revive the unconscious Superman, still suffering the debilitating effects of the green monster’s Kryptonite emissions. Interestingly, a caption box during this sequence, reverses the billing of the duo, referring to, ‘Jimmy Olsen and his pal, Superman.’ This is another example of one of the key motifs of The Fourth World narrative; that a new generation is superseding the old guard.

Jimmy just manages to wake Superman, only for his monstrous double to snatch him away from his groggy friend. The green giant is disturbed by the fact that his face is the same as Jimmy’s, giving Superman enough time collapse the concrete floor beneath them, merely by exerting pressure with his feet. As the giant falls, Superman swoops in to free Jimmy from the creature’s grasp and fly him to safety.

Guardian moves in to resume his attack on the monster. But he need not have bothered as the Jimmy-clone’s hair unexpectedly explodes, knocking the monster out cold. A contemporary version of the Newsboys* may have taken this opportunity to make a joke about the monster’s hairline. Instead, as the others look on, Superman examines the comatose creature’s head and finds a tiny paratrooper, holding a hand grenade.

Suddenly, a whole squad of tiny paratroopers are skydiving in from above, carrying ‘cryonic equipment’ to freeze the sleeping giant with ‘an icy coat as strong as steel.’ The soldiers are all miniature clones of Scrapper, who himself has no moral objections to The Project using his cells in such a way, without his permission.

Indeed, neither Superman, Jimmy or the Newsboys have any compunction, when it comes to The Project’s flagrant disregard of anything resembling an ethical code. Superman shows Jimmy a nursery of ‘Young Normals,’ and a group of adult clones called ‘Step-Ups,’ with ‘Hair-trigger minds’ from whom the Hairies originated. He introduces Jimmy to Dubbilex, a DNAlien, mutated from human cells into a benevolent, purpled-skinned creature with horns and unknown powers. They even walk past a group of switchboard operators, who are all clones of the Newsboy’s resident gobshite, Gabby.

Eventually, Jimmy points out to Superman, “Do you realised what weird, and perhaps dangerous channels are being probed here?” Superman’s only response is to remind Jimmy of their ‘Hidden Enemy’ who has stolen genetic material from The Project.

And, to be fair to Superman, this chapter does end with Mokkari and Simyan, in their own laboratory, watching with pride as their mutant, ‘Four-armed Terror’ hatches from their beta-gas infused, human egg-sacs. The Man of Steel is clearly right to be concerned about Darkseid’s minions’ amoral genetic experiments. The Project’s similarly dubious experiments, meanwhile, continue to get a free pass.

*The new anime-style, My Adventures With Superman cartoon, from Adult Swim, has introduced a contemporary version of the Newsboys. The Newskid Legion is lead by a gender-flipped (ahem) Flippa-Dippa; Flip Johnson - Woman of Business. The rest of her team includes Big Words, Gabby and Patty (who seems to be a female version of Scrapper). The series is a delight. Well worth checking out.