I love Superman.

Recently, I came to that realization in a big, bad way. I love him. Unequivocatively. I mean, I alaways liked him and thought he was important, but really, it was only within the past month or so that I’ve just had major love for Superman. He’s been having some great comics since Johns came on the book two years ago. I hadn’t really read Superman before that. I’ve never even read some of his biggest storylines (excepting Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? and Red Son) so this Kryptonaissance is just cake upon cake upon cake for me.

And this was no different.

I’m not going to tell you what happens in the end of this, but if you read it, you know. So I’m not going to go into that. Basically what we have is another Jimmy Olsen story. There was one ten months ago in the midst of New Krypton and that one was greatness. But this… This? This is anything and everything I could ever want out of a Jimmy Olsen story. It’s interesting and there’s some investigative reporting because he has that brain and it’s intriguing and thrilling and scary and had me on the edge of my seat. But seriously? This is a great one shot story that makes me crave James Robinson doing a monthly Jimmy Olsen series. Why?

Because Jimmy Olsen’s a badass.

Seriously. Read this issue. There’s some amazing moments in here that are just about Jimmy walking around doing things and making the hard decision and putting his face in places where it doesn’t belong… And then the story takes a really interesting turn where it goes nigh silent for the last…. Eight pages? And it’s riveting. Just. Riveting.

What I’m trying to say is that James Robinson gets it. It’s no secret that he’s a huge fan of the DC Universe and that he has a love and respect for old school characters. And he gets Jimmy Olsen in ways that I wish we saw more. Jimmy Olsen is Superman’s Pal, and sometimes it’s easy to forget why or to summarily dismiss Jimmy as just some punk kid who wears a Barry Allen bowtie and carries a camera around taking pictures. But he’s so much more than that. So much more. He’s a damn fine journalist and a damn fine friend. And… well… I just can’t wait to see what happens next.

This was seriously the surprise book of the week. Not that I didn’t enjoy the last one, this just kicked my ass and really blew me away. It really makes me appreciate this bringing to the forefront of the great side characters who aren’t Superman and Lois Lane. Superman has an absolutely brilliant side cast that’s fallen to the wayside for the most part for the past while, and it’s really great to see Robinson bring out love for characters like Krypto and Jimmy Olsen and make them super awesome and worth reading about. Bring on the third special!

And my mind’s still racing about that ending.