Classic Gone-and-Forgotten: The Adventures of Jimmy Olsen Vol.2

So, a few weeks back I picked up my copy of Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen Vol 2 - a fantastic book, hands down, for fans of the King of Comics. Jimmy Olsen is possibly my favorite of Kirby's Fourth World books, if just because the imagination behind it was absolutely unbridled, plus it's got that irascible Newsboy Legion tied up in the mix, an they're my fav'rits.

Anywez, with all that said, there's really nothing in here that matches the peak of the Volume One saga, which had to be where Don Rickle's goody two-shoes identical twin popped up in the middle of the debut of Darkseid and the war between New Genesis and Apokolips. The start-off story of this volume, tho, beats all your asses with a stick. To wit:

Jimmy and Clark Kent find themselfs embroiled in the machinations of Count Dragorin, a pasty-faced wampyr who's on a quest for the renegade genius of genetic thinktank Project Cadmus, the mad scientist Dabney Donovan. In tow of the chalk-white Count is a movie-molded wolfman and a passel of like-likenessed famous monsters of filmland.

Their story? Well, dig this: Dabney Donovan is obsessed with creating artificial life. In a fit of questionable pique, Donovan creates Dragorin and all the other residents of their homeworld, Transilvane. Their homeworld, you may ask? Donovan has his own planet on which to make life?

Why yes, yes he does. It's in his basement.

Take THAT, Grant Morrison and your johnny-come-lately The Filth! Kirby has Donovan creating a miniature planet, populated by microscopic lifeforms consisting of an "atomic liquid" structure which casts itself into finalized forms - in this case, movie monsters - sheerly by the persistent use of visual stimuli and suggestion. Donovan ensures that his bacteria-sized beings turn into Universal theme park characters by showing non-stop monster movies against the atmosphere of Transilvane, via those floating movie projectors you're seeing in the picture up there.

To summarize: Amorphic subatomic artificial beings were turned into B-Movie monster clones by a mad scientist who showed late night horror flicks into the upper atmosphere of their schoolbus-sized home planet, accessible by the door at the back of the kitchen. Oh, and I forgot, they transport themselves to the exterior world by special space-travelling size-changing coffins.

Superman gets involved by saving the Transilvane-ites from Donovan's "Demon Dog," a pesticide-spewing robot gargoyle scheduled to spit death on the tiny creatures of Transilvane at the hour of midnight. I know, how could I NOT get a scan of that? I guess I'M the REAL monster here ...

Superman, natch, saves them, but both he and Jimmy muse upon the injustice of the Transvilane-ites tiny, ghastly, cinema verite (ho ho). Superman, of cuss, has a plan, and that plan is to show a new movie into the atmosphere of the planet, resulting in ...

...CREATING A TINY PLANET FULL OF HIGH-STEPPING, ALL-SINGIN', ALL-DANCIN', ROOTIN'-TOOTIN' COWPOKE MONSTERS!!!! Holy shit, AND THIS IS WHERE THE STORY ENDS!!!

Man, so, Transilvahoma. How you can read comics and not love the hell out of Jack Kirby, I'll never understand.