DC once almost killed Jimmy Olsen from AIDS, so here’s some old DC AIDS PSAs

It’s been a while since I did one of these Crazy Comic Ads, but I’ve been holding this one in my back pocket for a while until there was a good reason for it. A few weeks ago at the Nashville Comic & Horror Festival, Jim Starlin revealed that back in the 80’s, DC almost killed off Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen by giving him AIDS. However, they backed away from it when someone pointed out that Marc McClure, the actor who played Jimmy Olsen in the Christopher Reeves’ movies, was in fact gay in real life, and that would probably make for a bad idea.

Kids these days may laugh about it (and we’re going to later, as it’s been long enough that it’s OK now), but back in the day AIDS was a huge deal, and we were all pretty dumb about it. When Arthur Ashe and Magic Johnson came out saying they had AIDS, everyone simply flipped their shit. Up to that point, AIDS was pretty much just affecting the gay community, and was universally ignored by your average Middle American. Until then, AIDS sufferers had been pretty gay (Liberace; Jim J Bullock; Rock Hudson; Freddie Mercury; a gayer group of men you will not find). But once it started affecting regular white people, like Kevin Peter Hall (the god damn Predator) or Issac Asimov (though they didn’t admit it for another 10 years) and famous sport stars, my god, it was crazy. I remember assemblies being held in elementary school to watch special episodes of Nick News with Linda Ellerby. Ryan White being kicked out of school for having AIDS was mentioned not once, not twice, but thrice during my graduation ceremony from 6th grade in 1993. Every year during health class they basically beat into us that if you ever have sex without a condom, you will get AIDS and die horribly. Right around that 1993 timeframe, AIDS got its shit together and was just killing people left and right. Pedro Zamora, Easy E, Tom Fogerty, no one was safe.

And then something weird happened. People just stopped dying, or at least famous ones. Think about it, I really thought long and hard, and did the research, but I couldn’t find a single really famous person of tremendous importance who died of AIDS after I graduated from high school in 1999. As astounding as it is to say based on their current track record, it seems like MTV actually did some good. Pedro Zamora’s ordeal with AIDS on Season 3 of The Real World put a real average American face on AIDS and lead to all kinds of education and research shortly after his death in 1994. Sure, Magic Johnson has had his one singular AID for over 20 years, and Jim J. Bullock has had HIV for over 25. At some point after I graduated, AIDS went from being a certified death sentence in the 80’s, to a (very expensive) nuisance in the 00’s. I suppose I don’t need to be worry about catching anything anymore, and can go get myself a girlfriend now. Yeah . . . That’s totally what’s been keeping me from doing that. . . AIDS.

OK, so enough with the setup. You just want the funny pictures. During the timeframe from 1992-1994, DC ran a bunch of AIDS PSAs. All of the ones featured today came from my reading of various Knightfall titles. I’m sure there were more, but these are the ones I found.

Now I know when I’m asked to name the two biggest DC characters, I immediately think of Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. That may be kind of cruel, but they seem like a very odd choice to pick. The Big Three never made an appearance in these from what I can tell, but that’s probably because at the time Superman was dead and Batman was Jean Paul Valley, who was not the touchy-feely type (I don’t know what Wonder Woman was up to). Fire does bring up a good point here in that at the time everyone thought you could “see” AIDS on a person, and that it only affected “dirty” or “not nice” people, and that Brazil was hit pretty hard by the AIDS epidemic. However, she probably could have gotten her point across in a better way than literal finger pointing and yelling at the top of her lungs. Although Booster Gold does portray the douchebag very well here, I can’t help but feel like the next sentence here involves Booster and Beetle planing to rape Fire.

Next up is Nightwing, Beast Boy, and I believe Wonder Girl going to an AIDS ward for no specific reason. Besides all the rockin’ 90’s style mullets, I love how dumb Beast Boy is, and how he casually compares having AIDS to being a wildebeast. This PSA doesn’t really have anything informative to say, except maybe that having AIDS won’t affect your ability to paint trees.

Next we have the Tim Drake version of Robin being a brooding teenager, whining that no one ever tells kids the facts about AIDS. I can’t say that was ever the case, as I was told nothing but the facts about AIDS for years on end. Also, I don’t quite understand where Robin swings away to trying to get more information on AIDS from, as he is literally sitting in front of the most powerful computer in all of Gotham, so there’s really no need to swing off to the campus library.

Rounding out the group is Green Lantern. Now, I don’t really know why, but DC made two different versions of this PSA: one with Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, and one with John Stewart. Using John Stewart as the Green Lantern here adds a whole other layer of subtext that I don’t think they intended too, and can only really be seen when you see the two versions side by side. I like how they went with the absolute most stereotypical gay couple they could for this: The big hulking bear with a goatee and a vest, and his swishy, well dressed partner.

Looking back on these now, they come off as funny and kind of ridiculous. I don’t think there is any way they would have worked on me as a child. Regardless of their effectiveness at the time, or how funny they are now, AIDS really isn’t a laughing matter, even if Family Guy is singing songs about it. Educate yourself about the disease and how you can help those affected by it over at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, the Elton John AIDS Foundation, or the AIDS Project Los Angeles from all the PSAs, which is still around and helping.

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook