JUNGLE TALES #1, September 1954, Atlas Comics (Marvel)
The cover, by Joe Maneely, is inconsistent with the interiors: the blonde jungle queen does
not look like the dark-haired Jann, neither of the natives battling near the volcano look like Waku, and the specific scenes of the white hunters appear nowhere in the interior pages, although the fellow in the upper left is mustachioed like Cliff Mason. Future issues would retain this four-panel sampler, but with all four of the individual ongoing features generally recognizable and labeled.
Jann of the Jungle appears for the first time in “Rampage”, an origin story illustrated by Art Peddy. It opens with Jann coming to the rescue of a white man being pounced upon by a lion, but all is not as it appears: this is a movie being directed by one Pat Mahoney, a filmmaker who has relocated permanently to Africa, where he specializes in jungle films. The star is Eva Dawn, a pampered actress who relies on her stunt double to perform all the action scenes.
The natives, friendly to “B’wana Pat”, urge the stuntwoman to ask Pat to cease production: it is a time of drought, and the local wildlife is restless, dangerous, and unnerved by the bustle of the production crew. When they learn that this is Jane Hastings, “former circus trapeze artist and animal trainer”, they inexplicably begin cheering her as “Jann! Jann! Jann!”
Pat insists on continuing the filming, but before Jane can explain why the natives are calling her “Jann”, the camp is stampeded by a menagerie of beasts, led by a ferocious rhino.
“Jann” leaps on the back of the rhino, uses her bow like reins to redirect the beast away from camp, and the rest of the animals follow. Before she can return to camp, she is attacked by a huge snake, and she dispatches it with a knife to the neck.
Finally, Jane explains her new name: the natives have a legend of a white woman years ago who served and protected the tribe. This original Jann left with a white lion-hunter, and they see Jane as their returning protecting jungle goddess. Pat scoffs at the tale, but is told that the original Jann was Jane’s grandmother: Jane, like her mother, was trained by Grandma in the ways of the jungle.
As the filming crew prepares to leave, “Jann” vows to stay in this, her second home, and Pat stays, too, “to watch over the new Jann!”
While I have my doubts that Grandma could very effectively teach Jane and her mom the ways of the jungle without actually being there, it’s a good touch to make Jane a legacy jungle heroine. I also doubt that Pat is qualified to “watch over” Jann, but patronization was not exactly uncommon in comics of the era. And it’s probably just an excuse to give Jann a supporting (white) character and romantic interest to interact with. It’s unclear how and why these natives recognize the new “Jann”, but perhaps it was not intended as “recognition” so much as fate bringing Jane Hastings back to reclaim Grandma’s role in the tribe: a coincidence that was no coincidence at all.
Next, Waku, Prince of the Bantu makes his bow in “Fire Spirit!” with art by the wonderful Ogden Whitney. This is Waku’s origin story, beginning with Waku’s father, Chief Kaba, forcing Waku to vow he would never rely on force to rule the Bantu. Kaba dies at peace, but Waku’s vow prevents him from accepting the tribal tradition that calls for a prospective chief to beat the strongest of the tribe in combat.
Consequently, the strong and wicked Mabu assumes the chieftainship, while Waku is exiled, much to the dismay of Waku’s lover, Lalei, who overheard Waku’s vow and knows why Waku stoically refused to meet the challenge. Mabu proves to be as cruel a leader as Waku had feared, forcing the tribesmen to fight for his amusement and planning to sell them as slave laborers.
During a ceremony to honor the late Chief Kaba, Lalei masquarades as the spirit of the deceased chief, proclaiming that Waku has been released from his vow of pacifism. Waku, watching from the trees, realizes that it is a ruse by Lalei, but breaks his vow anyway when the angry Mabu protests. He drops from the trees and engages Mabu in silent combat, kicking his opponent to a death in the fire!
The tribesmen are happy to have Waku back as Chief, but Waku must make penance for breaking his vow, and prepares to sacrifice himself in the flames. Lalei argues that
she should pay the price, and Waku decides that they
both will willingly walk into the fires and perish together.
Before they enter the inferno, the
real spirit of Kaba materializes; he had indeed inspired Lalei to speak for him, and it was his genuine intent that Waku be freed from the too-restrictive oath. The people celebrate, and Waku and Lalei live to have adventures in future issues of JUNGLE TALES!
Was this the first serious solo feature for a Black character at Atlas/Marvel? I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some caricatured Blacks taking the lead in some of their humor series, but I can’t think of any other straight adventure characters, certainly none that made the covers. My research indicates that Waku never appeared after his 8 issue run here; the series was retitled JANN OF THE JUNGLE AND OTHER JUNGLE TALES as of issue 8, after which Waku was displaced in favor of multiple Jann of the Jungle stories. In an era when few characters from Marvel’s extensive catalog avoid being dragged back into the Marvel Universe, Waku is an oversight who could easily be worked into a modern-day Black Panther story. (What a kick it would be to see a Black Panther story that featured T’Challa, Waku, “Black Brother” from SAVAGE TALES #1, and a grown up Calvin “Li’l Kid” Kidd in Africa!)
I liked this one a whole lot. Of all the jungle comics I’ve sampled in this project, few have focused on native characters. That is a big draw in itself, but the story was a fun one in its own right. I liked the surprise of Waku’s lethal dispatching of his enemy, the unexpected element of the supernatural with Kaba’s spirit.
“Strange Valley” is the two-page text story, with author and spot illustrator uncredited. The bar for text stories is pretty low, but this one is very readable and fairly interesting. An artist moves to Africa to paint scenes from deep jungle life, but communications with his agent suddenly stop. The agent travels to the jungle, where he learns that his client disappeared in the taboo region on the other side of the blue hill. The agent goes to his rescue, discovering pygmies in a frigid zone on that far side, pygmies who have enslaved the artist and others to mine the blue coal that heats their village. It is the residue of the blue coal that has given the hill its blue tint!
The agent uses a discarded blowgun to fire matches at the pygmies’ grass huts, and the ensuing fire allows the artist and other slaves to escape. The agent has had his fill of African adventure, but the artist remains there to paint on the peaceful side of the hill with his native friends.
The Unknown Jungle debuts with the story “The Challenge of the Pit”, drawn by Jack Katz. This feature was to focus on the wildlife of the jungle rather than humans. The narrative captions provide ongoing commentary on the experiences of Numa, the lion, as he guides the runt of his litter to maturity. These captions impose human-relatable emotions on the felines, as might the voiceover on a nature film for children: Numa is chastised by his mate, the lioness Nami, for bringing meat to his newborns, and feels embarrassed not to have realized they subside only on milk for now. Nami pacifies him with assurance that his time to participate in the cubs’ lives will yet come, and Numa feels great pride in his family.
Of his cubs, one is weaker and thinner, and in him Numa takes the most care in protecting and teaching, but the young one falls into a pit dug as a lion trap, and does not know how to escape it. Numa chooses to take the risk of jumping into the pit with his son so that he can demonstrate how to leap to the edge of the pit and climb out, but the cub doesn’t understand the lesson. Numa dives back in and feigns anger at his slow-witted offspring, engaging his son in fierce battle. Fueled by rage, the son leaps out of the pit on his own, in pursuit of the fleeing father, and turns to comprehend the lesson. They leave in harmony again, both confident that the young lion is ready for the dangers of the jungle.
This one was quite a bit more fun than I usually expect from “nature comics”. The art was quite nice—who better to assign this to than Jack
Katz, right!—and the narration was engaging, illustrating how effective it is to anthropomorphize animals’ thoughts in stories like this. Skimming through the other installments of The Unknown Jungle, I see that each issue spotlights a different jungle animal. Although lions will return to the spotlight in issue 7, it’s not
this Numa, so there is apparently no continuity linking these installments, unlike some of the other animal-centric jungle features seen in previous comics.
Finally, Cliff Mason, White Hunter makes his first appearance in “The Fangs of the Big Cat!” It’s drawn by Sid Greene, one of my favorite artists at Silver Age DC. Greene had a lush, detailed inking style, and while his page compositions and poses weren’t always the most dynamic and exciting, his human figures were authentic and appealing. Cliff Mason, at least in this issue, is among the minority of jungle comics features set in India rather than Africa, so the “big cat” in the story title is, of course, a tiger. (A peek at later installments shows Cliff hunting in Africa, Asia, and unspecified islands that might have been in the South Pacific, so I guess Mason was a globe-trotting trophy-seeker.)
The story is pretty slim: a portly hunter named Meneer wants to hire Cliff to help him hunt, but Cliff is busy hunting a man-eating tiger that has been terrorizing the village. This is no sport hunt, and he has no time for the thrill-seeking Meneer:
Cliff begins tracking the tiger, but when he has a clear shot, Meneer stumbles on the scene: he’s been trailing Mason uninvited. To no surprise, the tiger attacks Meneer and drags him off, forcing Mason into a rescue operation. He tracks the tiger to a cave, where it has dragged the unconscious Meneer. Wary of the tiger’s unmatchable reflexes, Mason must execute a slow-motion aim to avoid triggering the big cat’s pounce:
Mason successfully bags the Bengal, and rescues Meneer, who shucks off the experience, mindless of how risky his actions had been. The furious Mason chases Meneer off with rifle fire, and commiserates with the carcass of the man-eater: “Well, old tiger, I guess both our troubles are over! You’re free of being hunted…and I’m free of that pest that would have gotten me killed!”
Well, the “slow motion” scene was something I haven’t seen before in any of the jungle comics I’ve read. With the compactness of these tales, it’s surprising that they allotted for four consecutive panels of incremental movement, but it was effective. The story offered up some colorful Indian language hunting terminology, and Mason’s role as a hunter was central to the tale. White hunters are common leads for jungle comics backups, and too often, the hunting is just a convenient excuse to put the character in conventional jungle adventures.
So, JUNGLE TALES #1? It’s a
Jungle Gem, for me. The Atlas jungle comics are always fun, quick reads, never a grind to read like some of the other jungle comics I’ve had to plough through. Atlas’ policy of short tales with focused plots make for easily digestible treats, the art is always competent if not always impressive, and the variety of features in this issue hadn’t been seen since the glory days of Fiction House’s early JUNGLE COMICS. Two origin stories of two worthy character concepts each provide some relatively fresh twists on the usual jungle heroes. The Unknown Jungle evokes the more memorable nature films that kids have always had to sit through in school. The text story is really worth reading, and the story I most expected to dislike, with the generic and well-worn white hunter character turns out to be an enjoyable yarn. I'm a bit sad that I have only one more Atlas jungle comic on my list, and it's only there on a technicality...
