Sunday, May 26, 2013

Little Brother

I'll bet that you didn't know that, back in the day, Robin and Jimmy Olsen had their own crib:


Again--Robin and Jimmy Olsen had their own secret headquarters, in an "abandoned mountaintop observatory."

Not only that, but even Superman and Batman don't know about it--and they've got secret cameras placed inside the Batcave and the Fortress Of Solitude?!?

Now, that's OK for Robin--he already knows Clark and Bruce's secret ID. But what about Jimmy? Isn't there a fair chance that Supes or Bats might drop a clue to their secret identities when they're safe at "home"? Or Alfred wanders on camera? Or heaven forbid, actually unmask right on camera??

We know the lengths that Silver Age Jimmy would go to to get a crack at Superman's secret identity and make himself a star...so it's really rather stupid of Robin to go along with this.

Then again, this very same story later reveals that Superman actually did know about their hideout. We can presume that Batman knows, too. And therefore they are just humoring the lads, and probably they also know about the hidden cameras, and just avoid them when anything too revealing is going on? (The monitors do really work--the Dickweed Duo discover a shocking truth about an alien bounty hunter thanks to the cameras--so the Dynamic Duo haven't fed false images or reruns through the system...)

Still, Robin doesn't know that the grown-ups know, and he's cool with taking a ridiculous risk on blowing everything just so he can hang with Jimmy and feel cool. Sheesh...

Still, I bet that "abandoned mountaintop observatory saw some pretty wild parties...it was the 60s...

From World's Finest #176 (1968)

2 comments:

SallyP said...

Silver age heroes spent an inordinate amount of time playing weird mind games with each other it seems.

paul said...

Batman and Robin Revealed their Secret Identities to Jimmy Olsen about 30 issues earlier. That was quietly forgotten but i think it still stood when this story was published.