Spinner Rack: Agent Double-5 and the Man from S.C.A.R., Part Two

Last month, we saw our intrepid secret agent Jimmy Olsen (Agent Double-Five) take on the criminals who belonged to S.C.A.R. The comic book is Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #92 (April 1966), and the story is “The Man from S.C.A.R.” The story so far: Jimmy's bowtie alarm alerts him to a break-in in his apartment. The burglar is a dead ringer for the cub reporter. They get into a fight and, to keep this recap short, Jimmy knocks out his double, sees Robin blown up, enters a strange costume shop and is whisked through a secret door to S.C.A.R. headquarters. Okay, you're caught up.

As Jimmy walks down the corridor in the maze behind the costume shop, he spots Batman in one of the rooms. Thinking he needs to tell him about Robin, he almost blows his cover until his sees “Batman” getting instructions on the Batcave and the Batmobile. Acknowledging that S.C.A.R. is training a Batman double, Jimmy wonders how they got a photograph of the Batcave. I'm with you, Olsen: How did they get a photo of the Batcave? Although I was hoping for an answer to this intriguing question, it never comes. I guess they figured having Jimmy ask meant they didn't need to answer. Perhaps we were all supposed to forget that we wondered about it. Or maybe they bought the photo from the guy who makes bowtie alarms and key-duplicator lasers.

Next, Jimmy sees Supergirl talking to stuffed replicas of Comet, the super horse, and Streaky, the super cat. Although he had no trouble recognizing it was a fake Batman, Jimmy was apparently fooled by Supergirl and her stuffed friends. It wasn't until a scientist tells Supergirl that her voice needed to go up half an octave to match the real Supergirl's voice vibrations exactly. Half an octave? Really? She was off by half an octave and Jimmy didn't notice that this version of Supergirl's voice was really low? Jimmy isn't the most discerning of detectives, is he? I wonder if the fake Batman is any better.

Mr. Nero, the head of S.C.A.R. and a look-alike for Drew Carey, finds Jimmy and sticks him in a mod-looking red chair. Comfy! But then these weird wiggly metal straps come out of the seat, entrapping Jimmy. Not so comfy. In walks a ghoulishly grinning Dr. Rembrandt, ready to operate. Mr. Nero tells Olsen, “we call it operation loyalty.” Jimmy thinks, “my chair… Tilting back! It's flattening out into some kind of table…” Really, Double-5? Some kind of table? You have a doctor in full surgery gear and a quasi-Drew Carey saying “operation loyalty” and then laughing after it as though he had just made a pun. Do you think maybe the chair is turning into, oh, I don't know, an operating table?

Jimmy is also surprised to see S.C.A.R. doubles of not just Supergirl and Batman, but Superman, Lois Lane, Perry White and Clark Kent. Kind of a who's-who, isn't it Jimmy? Since, in S.C.A.R. headquarters, operations are spectator sports, Jimmy very publicly goes under the knife. When he comes to (still in his little red chair) he finds out the operation was to install a destructive device in his body. Nero demonstrates one and it's immediately evident that this is what happened to Robin. It was a fake Robin, destroyed by Mr. Nero. Things are not looking good for Jimmy, or in his words, “… if I make a wrong move! Blooey! They'll have to pick me up with a vacuum cleaner.

Part two, titled, “The Fireman from Chiron!” begins with an initiation ceremony. Mr. Nero tells the fake superheroes and Daily Planet staffers that zero hour is approaching for S.C.A.R. I'm glad he added the "for S.C.A.R." or I would've thought we were back in the 90s in the middle of the ret-con zero hour. I don't know if I could handle that. (After double-checking my copy to look for Go-Go checks, I now breathe a sigh of relief. I'm definitely mining some silver here.)

Mr. Nero starts off by making the invisible visible. Jimmy thinks, “This creep is loaded down with far-out gimmicks.” Mr. Nero throws darts at the globe he had just materialized and it bursts into flames. To add real flair to the show, Nero jumps in the middle of the flames, which should be a bad thing but isn't. Instead, Nero's clothes burn off to reveal he is a scaly-skinned alien from "…the fire planet Pyron, where life is based on silicon, just as Earth life forms are based on carbon!" Neato! A science lesson! Kids, can you name anything made from silicon? No, Greggy, your mommy's breast implants are made from silicone, not silicon. Perhaps we should move on.

Time for some backstory! We get several panels of life on Nero's home planet. They appear to have some problems with octopuses… er, octopi? (I personally wouldn't have thought cephalopods would be the main enemy on a fire planet, but I'm no expert on Pyron wildlife.) After the backstory, Nero reveals a thermitron bomb that's ready to burn up the earth. Jimmy wisely notes that burning up the earth means destroying everyone in the room. (Ooh, now you're thinking, Jimmy! Perhaps you have earned that Double-Five moniker.) Nero says, no, they'll get to lie around among flowers being served by robot slaves. Jimmy doesn't believe it, but the fake Clark and Supergirl both feel that Nero's the bee's knees.

Unwilling to debate further, Nero gives the fakes assignments. The quasi Superman and Supergirl are to wipe out their look-alikes using kryptonite head garlands. Nero is super scientific and yet his clever idea to kill them is to make them wear headgear that went out with Caesar? Really? When Nero leaves, Jimmy tries to get everyone to face facts and see that this guy's gonna kill them all. But they're too afraid to go against Nero, so Agent Double-Five takes the tips off his shoelaces, licks them, and then throws them at the vault holding the kryptonite garlands. The shoelace nibs explode and Jimmy runs off with his prize. Here's my question: a bowtie alarm and exploding shoelace nibs – how did he know these were the exact two things he would need that day?

The fake Batman and Superman try to stop Jimmy, who defeats them handily (and in the process recreates the cover of the comic). Escaping through the mirror into the street, he sets off his signal watch. Before he can tell Superman everything, Jimmy's implant explodes with a "POWWFF!" and he's gone. I'd ask for a moment of silence, but you all know Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen didn't end with issue 92, so it's quite possible Jimmy may survive his POWWFF.

Superman, broken up over the apparent death of his pal, races to Nero's headquarters. Nero sets off the thermitron bomb and that keeps Superman busy for a few minutes as he inhales the flames that are "…as hot as a hydrogen bomb." With that accomplished, Superman heads out to nab Nero. Unfortunately, the alien fiend destroys all of the fakes. Superman calmly goes to the machine that “destroyed” the gang, reverses the buttons and everyone comes back to normal. Even Jimmy (toldja!) and the fake Robin return unscathed.

It turns out the implants just made people invisible. Superman figured out what was going on when he found the fake Jimmy lying in Jimmy's apartment. And like our Agent Double-Five, Superman followed the beeping indication signal back to the costume shop. After all the exposition a curious kid could handle, Nero commits suicide. The last panel has Jimmy in the hospital (after having his implant removed), surrounded by his real friends: Perry White, Batman, Lois Lane and, of course, his pal, Superman.

It would have been difficult to resist a steady diet of Agent Double-Five for a kid back in the Silver Age. I know I'm going to be on the lookout for a bowtie alarm. Don't forget to come back next month for more silvery goodness! Bye for now!

This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.