Posts tagged superman,
Posts tagged superman,
A while back I wrote up some predictions for what I thought DC might do with the Superman franchise in the DCnU. A great deal of what I hypothesized was, of course, wildly off-base… but Grant Morrison and I seem to see eye-to-eye on the relationship between Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen.
Nrama: Is Jimmy different in this world?
Morrison: Yeah, I mean, I like a capable Jimmy, from the start, rather than a buffoon. So there’s a bit of that. Again, he’s a young guy.
The way I’m playing it is that rather than him being ‘Superman’s friend,’ which never seemed to make a lot of sense, he’s Clark Kent’s friend. And the two of them get on because they’re a couple of really smart geeks. They’re into everything from astronomy to zombies, and they love hanging out and talking.
So Jimmy becomes Superman’s friend eventually because Jimmy started out as Clark’s best friend. He was the first person he knew when he came to the big city. It’s much more about the two friends on that level, which I think is a different, slightly warmer, more believable dynamic between the two characters.
If we’re bringing Clark back to around age 22, his relationship with Jimmy can become a totally different beast. Instead of being the guy that Jimmy hero-worships, they can be great friends. They can be (and wow do I hate to use this term) “bros.” We don’t ever really get to see Clark as having regular people he can think of as peers — his friends almost all wear capes and tights — and I think it would be great for the character to allow that sort of friendship to grow.
Jimmy’s a couple of years older than Clark, and already works as a photographer at the Planet when Clark starts there. A quick and easy friendship forms between them. I can see Jimmy still being star-struck by Superman, and unlike Lois, I can see Jimmy not figuring out Clark’s dual identity — remember, most people will never assume that Superman even has a “secret identity,” so it’s just not something that will occur to him. Why would he ever think that this kinda-nerdy dude with glasses who plays video games and eats Chinese food and watches Metropolis Monarchs games with him be Superman?
