Jimmy Olsen #160. Harpies Bizarre.

To be honest, I don't know that much about Jimmy Olsen. I was never a regular reader of his mag, and the only two issues I ever had were given to me by my dad's then-girlfriend but, on the strength of this issue, Jimmy Olsen seems to be someone you'd happily punch in the mouth.

How much is anyone ever going to warm to a man who keeps telling everyone to call him Mr Action? "Hi, I'm Steve from Steve Does Comics but you can call me Mr Action." It's never going to get you more than funny looks and your head shoved down the nearest toilet.

This issue's first tale starts off like an episode of Scooby Doo, when Olsen shows up at a castle that, like all castles in American comics, has been imported stone-by-stone from England -- only to find it's haunted by harpies. Unlike Scooby Doo, the harpies are real and soon causing all kinds of trouble for Mr Action.

Happily, he soon sorts them out but then decides he's not worthy of being called Mr Action unless he helps them, and so has Superman fly their castle, intact, back to England where they can haunt it forever in peace. Clearly it's the rule in Jimmy Olsen tales that Superman has to show up at some point in order to justify the comic's title of Superman's Pal.

In our second tale, Mr Action - who we're told every hot chick on the planet digs - is being stalked by an old woman called Lena Lawrence who turns out to Lucy Lane after a particularly bothersome bout of native medicine. Lucy's delighted to be reunited with the man she adores but can Jimmy possibly love her now she's not fit any more? Highlight of the tale has to be a bizarre rally in which competitors die with alarming regularity, including one poor biker who somewhat hilariously rides his bike straight off the side of a cliff.

Both tales are appealingly drawn by the mighty Kurt Schaffenberger but you can't ignore the fact they're a bit bubblegum, the first in particular feeling like it could've been published a good ten years earlier. The second tale's stronger, having a mystery and a bit of internal emotional conflict at the heart of it but neither story can get round the unsympathetic nature of its star. In the second tale, Olsen even tries to rough up an old woman who's just saved his life. He might be Mr Action but no way would you ever label him Mr Social Skills.