JUNGLE GALLERY

 

Sheena leads the pack, as always.

However, Camilla comes in second with two strong showings.

However, a story I'll entitle (for reference) as "The Death Idol" (JUNGLE COMICS #46, 1943) requires a little explication. In it, an evil chieftain named Kann has set up an idol that dispenses death to those who come near it, for the idol dispenses deadly germs. Kann denies his sister Lelia the right to marry her beloved, the strangely named tribesman "Red Rogue," though Kann gives no reason for the injunction. Foreign Legionnaire Terry Thunder, having wandered very far from his usual North African haunts, gets involved. Despite the hero's presence, Lelia saves the day. She stumbles across the door in the back of the idol, and when her brother gets close, she triggers the germs, kills him, and gains the freedom to marry her beloved. As for the most unusual aspect of "Idol," Lelia is portrayed as the only White person in an otherwise Black tribe. But since this wasn't a strip by Black artist Matt Baker-- an artist who frequently had his heroes encounter tribes of Black men married to White women, I suppose for his own amusement-- it's pretty likely that Lelia was simply intended to be Black but a colorist rendered her as White.