JIMMY OLSEN, JUDO EXPERT by Dave Goode

JIMMY OLSEN, JUDO EXPERT by Dave Goode

Thanks largely through Jack Larson's performance as Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman television series the powers to be at DC Comics decided the character was popular enough to receive his own comic book title. So Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen No. 1 would premiere in 1954 cover dated September/October. The title was originally a bimonthly. But would become a monthly feature. And would run for 163 issues until March 1974.

One of the best remembered episodes from the Superman television series was from the second series and titled Semi-Private Eye. A spoof of hard boiled detective fiction it featured the immortal Elisha Cook Jr. as private detective Homer Garrity. After Garrity and Lois Lane (Noel Neill) are kidnapped by gangsters Jimmy dons a fedora and trench coat to do a hilarious Bogart ala' Chandler impersonation as he bumbles his way through the episode. The climax has Garrity and Olsen using judo to overcome the two kidnappers while Superman carries Miss Lane to safety.

During the Silver Age of Comics Jimmy Olsen was depicted as being a judo
expert. He used the martial arts from time to time in both his own comic book and World's Finest. One of my favorite examples of Judo Jimmy in action was in a story titled The Dragon Delinquent in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen No. 91 cover dated March 1966. The story written by Leo Dorfman and drawn by Pete Costanza  freely "borrows" from the cult film High School Confidential (1958). The story also, aside from Superman, features DC's resident judo experts Batman & Robin.

Of course by the Bronze Age Jimmy had added karate and other martial arts styles to his bag of tricks. The thing I've wondered about for years was what rank Jimmy held in judo. Was it ever mentioned. The reason that I wonder about it is that in the Silver Age Bat-Girl was introduced as a "brown belt" in judo. And Batman himself says in issue of the Justice League as being able to qualify as a "black belt". Not that he was a black belt. Only that he could qualify as one. At the start of the Bronze Age Robin , the Boy Wonder was described as being a "brown belt in karate ". Wouldn't it have been amusing if Superman's pal was ranked higher than any of them.