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 seems to curse dead those who come near it, though the reality is that the idol dispenses deadly (fast-acting) 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.            

CHESHIRE CATTING AROUND

 When the villainess Cheshire cats around, it's her victims that do a fade, be it fast or slow.

These all appeared in ACTION COMICS WEEKLY, and apart from the Cheshire-scenes, these particular issues only boasted one minor punchout by a heroine, with elf-eared Arisis Rrab clouting a creep.

In later issues we're back to Hoodlum Girls as the Lantern takes on "Runaround Sue"-- no comment needed.

JUMBO THRILLS

 No scene like the cover of JUMBO 105 inside the comic. 

The Sheena story concerns the Jungle Queen contending with juvenile warriors, whom her mate calls "the Dead End Kids of the jungle." Along the way she beats up some more standard villains.

 

FROM HERE TO OBSCURITY

I had never noticed Fox Comics' ALL GREAT COMICS title, and I find it hilarious that the cover to issue 14 claims that any of these comic strip features (aside from BRENDA STARR) were "famous" even in 1947. There's no scene resembling the tough-girl fisticuffs in the "Surgeon Smith" feature, so it's almost certainly something that was whipped up to sell the book.

   Worthy of a quick look is the 2-page feature THE KRIME KIDS, whose format does not look like any sort of newspaper comic strip. In it, the mischievous brats first tease, and then venerate, the dynamic "Sweet Miss Carroll."

 

An issue of ALL GREAT designated only as "1945" on Comic Book Plus includes more obscurities, like "Pussy Katnip," a borderline superhero in the funny animal genre.

In a humor strip called "Bill Buster," Bill gets busted up by a tough girl named Mabel.

TERRA-RIZED

 

The Gold Key villainess (not the DC character) TERRA OF JERZ, who hands Mighty Samson a shocking time.  

SLAM THAT SPIRIT

 Sad to say, the splash showing Ellen trouncing the Spirit is merely symbolic, and the story's last page doesn't show her doing anything as violent as her girl-buddy, who gives the masked manhunter a good one in the labonza.

 

SWING OUT, NYOKA