Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSuperman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136 is the issue where Jack Kirby formally delivered on the promise of his Fourth World concept inside the DNA Project arc, introducing Dubbilex — a horned, telepathic DNAlien who would go on to become a fixture of Project Cadmus stories for decades — while also providing the origin of the cloned Golden Guardian and fully explicating the three tiers of the Project's genetic output: Normals, Step-Ups, and Aliens. The issue functions as the conceptual cornerstone of what DC would eventually formalize as Project Cadmus, a setting that shaped Superman mythology across Bronze Age comics, the post-Crisis era, and animated adaptations including Young Justice. Kirby simultaneously revived two Golden Age characters he co-created with Joe Simon — the Guardian and the Newsboy Legion — rescuing them from obscurity and cementing them as permanent players in the modern DC universe. Coming at the exact moment Kirby also assumed formal editorial control of the title, the issue marks a pivotal double consolidation: creative and institutional.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Jack Kirby arrived at DC in late 1970 specifically requesting a low-profile title without an assigned creative team, so that no incumbent artist or writer would lose their job; he chose Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen and began his run with issue #133. Issue #136 carries a cover date of March 1971 and is notable for being the first issue where in-house editorial notation (by associate editor E. Nelson Bridwell in the letters column) formally acknowledged Kirby's dual role as both writer-artist and editor on the book. The cover was produced through an unusual collaboration: Kirby pencilled the Newsboy Legion figures from an earlier unused composition, while Neal Adams handled the remaining cover art and Murphy Anderson contributed inks to the Superman and Jimmy Olsen figures inside — a behind-the-scenes arrangement that reflected DC's broader insistence on keeping its Superman-family characters in the publisher's established house style rather than Kirby's bolder interpretations.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Dubbilex, a DNAlien created by Jack Kirby — a horned, telepathic humanoid grown inside the Project from genetically modified human cells — who became a recurring presence in Project Cadmus stories and appeared in the Young Justice animated series (voiced by Phil LaMarr).
- The issue's 22-page story, 'The Saga of the DNAliens,' resolves the giant kryptonite-laced Jimmy Olsen clone battle begun in #135 and formally introduces the three classifications of the Project's cloned output: Normals, Step-Ups, and Aliens (DNAliens).
- Origin of the new Golden Guardian is established: the original Newsboy Legion explains that their dying mentor, Jim Harper, confessed his identity as the Guardian before death, and his DNA was used to grow a clone that now serves the Project — the first explicit cloning origin for the character.
- This is the first issue where E. Nelson Bridwell's letters column formally noted Kirby's assumption of editorial responsibilities, making #136 the official start of his role as writer-artist-editor on the title.
- The cover is a documented collaboration: Kirby pencilled the Newsboy Legion figures (retained from an earlier cover version), Neal Adams completed the remaining cover art, and Murphy Anderson inked the Superman and Jimmy Olsen faces inside — a practice Mark Evanier has confirmed on the record.
- Darkseid's agents Simyan and Mokkari appear communicating directly with Darkseid, and the final panel teases the next threat (the Four-Armed Terror hatching from a cell sample), connecting the Project storyline tightly to the wider Fourth World conflict with Apokolips.
- The story was reprinted in Countdown Special: Jimmy Olsen #1 (January 2008), alongside issues #147 and #148, and has also been collected in the Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby trade paperback volumes and the Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus.
- The Project concept introduced and elaborated across this issue is the direct precursor to Project Cadmus, which became a cornerstone of post-Crisis Superman continuity and the setting for the creation of the modern Superboy (Kon-El) in the 1990s.
Cast · 17 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Supercomic #63 (1972), Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby #1 (2003), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus #1 (2007), Countdown Special: Jimmy Olsen #1 (2008), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus #1 (2011), The Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2018), Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2019)
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