2.5 stars

Who Killed Jimmy Olsen was an incredibly tedious read. Both the silver age pastiche and matt fraction's writing style made getting through this story annoying at best.

My main frustration with this series was how convoluted it was for no real reason. We follow so many different plot threads and just back and forth through time to add complexity to a narrative in a way that doesn't satisfyingly pay off. I've defended Fraction's non-linear storytelling before but Who Killed Jimmy Olsen lacked the clarity and focus needed for me to enjoy the story

I can hold space for the fact that this book was trying to be silly in homage to the wackiness of silver-age Jimmy Olsen comics. the book emulates a lot of the aesthetic trappings of comics at the time but it just didn't work for me. firstly I'm not overly familiar with silver age comics so the references had very little mileage for me. but even with the scant amount of knowledge I do have about that era of Jimmy Olsen, the homage didn't work. there was a sincerity to the silver age comics I've read that fraction just didn't manage to capture. the modern irony as seen in his splash page monologues and all over the rest of the felt out of step with the silver age tone he was attempting to capture

Don't get me wrong I did like some of the gags in this book. the Lil Olsen strips in some of the comics but by and large I just didn't find this book funny. And I think if anything this book was trying very hard to be funny.

Overall I'm a tad disappointed I didn't enjoy this one. Matt Fraction is one of my favourite writers but I just don't think this story was for me.