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There’s that old cliche, “put your money where your mouth is.” After selling his Flamebird social media presence to the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen is in a position to do just that, and one of the running gags in My Adventures with Superman has been the Net Worth counter above his head dropping each time he does something. Now, he has the chance to show that he really is Superman’s pal, Jimmy Olsen. Spoilers follow for My Adventures with Superman Season 2, Episode 7.
“Olsen’s Eleven”
This episode is fun, but it’s also exemplary of my biggest issue with this season: It feels like the writers didn’t so much press on the brake as they did slam it.
Last week’s episode ended with Kara Zor-El floating before a spacecraft piloted by Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Monsieur Mallah, and the Brain, with those inside and outside the craft looking equally bewildered by the development. Instead of picking up right from there, though, the show asks the obvious, important question of how Jimmy Olsen got himself a spaceship.
The episode follows Jimmy and Lois as they decide to hit up the mercenary villain Livewire with their best and dumbest idea yet: Steal a spaceship from STAR Labs.
There’s good stuff here: Jimmy really does put his money where his mouth is, and by the end of the episode he’s back to where he started in Season 1, with a net worth matching his status as a newspaper employee. When it comes to being Superman’s best pal, Jimmy Olsen ain’t messing around. Not only does he spend his money, he puts himself in danger multiple times, and that’s before he takes an experimental craft out into the inky blackness of outer space.
But the episode is mostly focused on hijinks and warm fuzzies, sometimes to its detriment. There are hints about what’s happening outside of Jimmy and Lois’ hijinks, and they’re pretty dark. Amanda Waller is spreading misinformation about the battle between Superman and Kara, and actively suppressing anyone who dares push back against her campaign. Metropolis is in a state of martial law with a curfew, too.
But the show spends only a couple of minutes on that stuff, which could’ve been fascinating. Instead, it’s a wacky heist that starts with Jimmy easily talking his way into taking over the shift of a real guard and ends with Livewire telling Lois that real love is worth fighting for. The drama of the whole thing is somewhat deflated by the fact that we know they get the ship and find Kara; nevermind the fact that they really gloss over how Mallah and the Brain slap a hyperspace engine for the ship together in the course of what seems like fifteen minutes.
Season 1 did a lot with Superman in very little time. It introduced Clark, Lois, Jimmy, General Lane, Waller, and Lex Luthor, and established all of their relationships. It put Superman through the wringer enough to have his Kryptonian powers level up a bunch of times.
This season, comparatively, has introduced just a few characters and done little to make them feel like people. Silas Stone was little more than a namedrop, John Henry Irons hasn’t shown up again, and Hank Henshaw pops in for a few seconds here and there to be antagonistic. In terms of action, so much of this season has been a will-they-won’t-they about a couple for whom we know the answer is “they will.” It’s still fun, giving us the best serial Superman animated show yet, but I don’t feel like the show is doing the same good job of surprising me that it did for the first season, and I’d like to get some of that back.
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