This Just In: Jimmy Olsen STILL Not Dead!

APOKOLIPS - Local gambling dens are gloomy over the protracted existence of James B. Olsen of Metropolis, Earth. Oddsmakers put the redhead's chances of survival at 500-1 last year, but now are lucky to take action at 3-2.

"What can I tell you, the kid's like a weed," mutters Draka Soob, proprietor of a nameless betting parlor in the shadow of Darkseid's 17th-largest statue. "We keep expecting to hear that he's gone, but no! Shows up again with some funky power, like he's buddies with the Source or something. I hoped that freaky red eye thing that ate Apokolips a couple weeks ago might do the job, but again--no."

"Olsen's goin' toe-to-toe with the boss," added Thudd, Soob's crony and night shift bouncer (which means he works roughly 23.5 hours per day). "One flick of the Omega Beams and the kid's toast. I got money ridin' on it."

Perry White, editor-in-chief of the Daily Planet, said, "Olsen is one of my top young recruits. He's gutsy and is getting some good training in being a newsman. If he makes it through this whole New Gods thing, he'll be a top notch reporter... eventually."

Red Robin, who has fought alongside Olsen recently, said, "Where's the justice, man? This pipsqueak has superpowers, now? Oh, I just came back from the freakin' dead is all-- but all the fuss is about a redheaded shutterbug who thinks he's Captain Fabulous. Whatever. I gotta get back to busting heads."

Neither Olsen nor Darkseid could be reached for comment. An earthbound Mother Box said only, "The Source knows. The Source knows." (Of course, it had been saying that for about four years--experts at STAR Labs think this Mother Box may be more of a Great-Grandmother Box and thus a little tetchy.)

More news as it develops.

Artwork copyright DC Comics, all rights reserved.

Deep Dark Secrets: Darkseid, Beat Poet

Welcome to the first installment of a new feature, DEEP DARK SECRETS. We broke news of Doomsday's real name here some time ago, and that triggered... well, something. All of a sudden, people are coming out of the woodwork to give us super-gossip.

We'll start with a deep dark secret about one of the universe's most feared tyrants: the legendary New God known as Darkseid.

We found archival photos of the Great Stone Face giving a reading at the Coffee Bean in Manhattan in 1954.

"Back when I knew the 'Seid, he was a groovy cat, man," said Franklyn Delyle (aka Frankie the D). "Liked the dark stuff a lot, can ya dig it? No bongo-playin', just straight-up at the microphone. He did his thing prob'ly two, three months, back in the five-four. He was hangin' with Jack K and Allen G, if ya know where I'm comin' from. He sat in with the Beats and laid down some words, my friend.

"He started gettin' a little heavy, though, man. Everybody gets hecklers, it's just how the beats groove, baby. But... ain't nothin' cool 'bout what he did, man. Not groovy. See, he had these laser beams'd shoot out of his eyeballs. Freaky-deaky! We, uh, didn't ask him back after that."

Notorious sixties scene maven Jo Stockton said, "For awhile, I thought Darkseid was really onto something groovy. I was shooting fashion layouts for a magazine or two and he was on the scene, y'know, scribbling his notes. I remember he had an hour-long thing he did called 'Anti-Life Equation' or something like that. It was terrible but none of us could ever tell him that. He was just too intense."

Darkseid's flirtation with beat poetry came to an end in 1958 when he disappeared from the scene entirely. It may be no coincidence that that year he ruthlessly suppressed an uprising by the Hunger Dogs of Apokolips.

"He never wrote another poem after that," said long-time flunky Desaad. "He told me that annihilation was his epic poem, his paean to the Old Gods. Maybe he was in a bad mood that day, though sometimes it's hard to tell."

What if Darkseid had gone on with his poetry? Would he be remembered in the same company as Kerouac, Ginsberg and their brethren? Or would he simply end up battling Orion, this time on a stage instead of on Apokolips? The universe may never know...

Artwork based on Walt Simonson, copyright DC Comics, all rights reserved. "Jo Stockton" (aka Audrey Hepburn) image from FUNNY FACE, all rights reserved.