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  1. #1
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    Default When did Jimmy Olsen grow up?

    I've listened to the radio show, where he started very young, and grew up. I know from a few golden age comics that he mostly only appeared occasionally back then (including being retconned in for nameless copy-boy characters some too, it seems), and was still a kid. I understand it to be the television show to have really catapulted him in the comics. I know by Superman 86 (Jan, 1954) in the story "Jimmy Olsen, Editor" he looks more like I'm used to him looking and is being editor as part of boy's day, so wouldn't be grown. But when did he grow up, and become an adult character instead of a boy?

  2. #2
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    There's a gap of almost six years between 1948 and the end of 1953, when Jimmy doesn't appear in the comics. I imagine like a lot of other classic supporting characters in the 1940s that he had been let go and they really didn't think about using him. The TV series is more like a continuation of the radio show, so they used Jimmy because he was a character there. It was common to use adult actors to play kids, for obvious practical reasons, so Jack Larson was supposed to be a kid but he got older looking with each season. It's the popularity of Larson's Jimmy that prompted the comics to bring back their own version. And that Jimmy is probably a teen-ager, although some stories (and a few were adapted from the TV show) made Jimmy seem a bit older.

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