The theme today is animal gods. Joboloa the Elephant God: Joboloa the Elephant God is invoked by Fantomah to punish the evil M’Dibo by means of a horde of spectral pachyderms. Honestly he is an odd choice for the job, as while M’Dibo’s crimes involve elephant ivory it’s not so much that he’s killing elephants to get it as stealing it from other people. Is Joboloa cool with elephant hunting as long as a proper chain of possession is maintained?…
(Jungle Comics 015, 1941) Akina is the hereditary ruler of the African kingdom of Lomar, and as such she has just inherited the mystical Stone of Hanniban. As a newly invested magical being, she falls into the very common trap of deciding that she must be the very best and most powerful of all magic users right away, and immediately sets out to prove herself by challenging Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle to a death duel. This goes poorly. Tabu defeats the inexperienced Akina…
Mostly a case of the Usual Suspects today here in the Real Person Round-Up, I’m afraid. Adolf Hitler: The bulk of the comic this panel comes from is MIA as far as people without hundreds of dollars of Buy Golden Age Comics money are concerned, and this is the only real look we get of this slightly off-brand Hitler and Goering. I might not have bothered to include them here devoid of other context except for… … the splash page…
(Jungle Comics 014, 1941) Zomax, the “demonized marine scientist,” has a very over-the-top, Fletcher Hanks villain goal: to kill every animal in the jungle. And he isn’t afraid to say it. I won’t say that Zomax has a good reason for wanting to destroy all jungle life, but he does have some justification, stemming from a big game hunt he went on that involved, in order: 1. being mauled by a fatally wounded lion. Once the lion died, Zomax wandered away, only…
I’ve heard of comics in the media, but media in comics? Books: This book is only our second example of a piece of media called Crime Does Not Pay! but I am confident in predicting that that particular phrase – the regular shouting of which appears to be the major means by which people in the 1940s discouraged children from adopting a life outside the law – is going to be the one we see the most as time goes on….
(Jungle Comics 013, 1941) The Vahines, aka the Tiger-Women of Wildmoon Mountain, have a plan: kill every other woman in the world, which will then give them ultimate power over all men. Some thoughts on this setup: 1. The logistics of this plan are trash. There are maybe 15 to 20 Vahines total and estimates put world population at around 2.3 billion in 1940, so murdering half of those people will be a full-time job that will probably take the…
(Jungle Comics 013, 1941) While searching for her champion Sir Champion (annoying thing to have to write and the main reason I’m happy that he eventually fades into obscurity), who has failed to return from a hunt, Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire is confronted by the ghostly vision of a blonde lady who rules an ancient lost castle. This is just a kind of person you get in the undefined part of Africa that houses the Lost Empire. The…
A series of cautionary tales for budding young scientists. Orid Dass: Orid Dass is your standard jungle scientist: he’s out there making apes into men and men into apes, all for the love of the ape-man game. He also has the distinction of being the only foe faced by Fantomah the one post-Fletcher Hanks adventure in which she is still kind of a jungle demigod rather than a jungle hero who knows some magic. In that capacity, Fantomah does a…
It’s a big year for the jungle-based heroes of Fiction House, and also Radior is here. Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire **UPDATE**: 1941 is the year of change for Camilla. First off, she faces a series of threats to the Lost Empire itself, beginning when an evil magician nearly conquers and partially razes the city. (Jungle Comics 014, 1941) Next issue, the otherwise-unremarkable lech Prince Renardo finishes the job and burns the city to the ground as part of…
If I see a wound, I catalogue it. Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire: Shot in the back with an arrow. (Jungle Comics 019, 1941) Captain Flag: Nearly dies of the Black Hand’s horrible hand disease. (Blue Ribbon Comics 016, 1941) the Cat-Man: Stabbed in the chest, to death (he gets better). (Crash Comics Adventures 004, 1940) Killed by a blood-freezing ray. He gets better again. (Crash Comics Adventures 005, 1940) Dynamo: Dynamo gets his skull creased by a bullet…