{"id":7825,"date":"2026-11-06T10:19:22","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T14:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=7825"},"modified":"2026-11-06T10:19:22","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T14:19:22","slug":"super-hero-file-015-congo-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=7825","title":{"rendered":"SUPER-HERO FILE 015: CONGO BILL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(More Fun Comics 056, 1940)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here’s the thing about Congo Bill: he is functionally exactly the same as a hundred other two-fisted Golden Age jungle adventurers. Perhaps he is a bit less bloodthirsty than some of his peers, but if you lined up every single one of them and asked someone not in the know to pick out the one who would still be appearing in comics eighty-odd years later there is no way that they would guess correctly other than by a fantastic coincidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why did<\/em> Congo Bill make it where your Ted Cranes and Steve Conrads and Clip Carsons and Larry Kanes fell flat? As far as I can tell there is<\/em> no reason beyond the fact that his feature kept appearing right through to the Sixties, first in More Fun<\/em> and then moving on the Action<\/em> and Adventure<\/em>, and that gave him enough time to become interesting. Specifically, he eventually gets a magic ring that allows him to transfer his mind to a gorilla body, and then later gets trapped in that gorilla body and then later still gets added to the Justice League in the tremendous bummer of a book that was Cry for Justice<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of 1940, however, Congo Bill is just traveling around Africa – frequently but not exclusively the Belgian Congo – with his friend\/client Professor Kent and getting into the standard array of jungle-based adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Congo Bill is also among the small percentage of super-heroes who are WWI veterans. (More Fun Comics 059, 1940)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(More Fun Comics 056, 1940) Here’s the thing about Congo Bill: he is functionally exactly the same as a hundred other two-fisted Golden Age jungle adventurers. Perhaps he is a bit less bloodthirsty than some of his peers, but if you lined up every single one of them and asked someone not in the know to pick out the one who would still be appearing in comics eighty-odd years later there is no way that they would guess correctly other…<\/p>\n

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