Actually, my stepson is living in Columbia right now, and I hope he's not having any High Adventures (he's already been drugged and robbed blind once)!

But that reminds me, I forgot to note that, as one might have expected, Dell's comic is based on a series of Thomas Lowell travel documentaries called High Adventure. For those interested, here's a sample:

FOUR-COLOR 949 Lowell Thomas High Adventure 1959, Dell Comics



You can read this comic at comicbookplus.com/?dlid=38285

The issue was written by the prolific Gaylord Du Bois, with art by Bob Fujitani. 

While this will serve as my sample of Dell's FOUR COLOR, which included at least one other jungle feature--namely Tarzan--over its long run. FOUR COLOR can't really be called a jungle comics series, since it featured a random variety of features and genres, changing every issue. I wouldn't even really call it a "series" in the sense in which the term applies to almost every other comic book. It was more of a publication tracking mechanism of value only to Dell, not to the consumer. A reader couldn't use the numbering to tell how many other installments of a particular feature might have appeared, or what month it came out or release order (Dell might issue multiple FOUR COLOR issues in a given month or week). If they tried, they would be woefully misled, since the indicia for this particular issue declares that this is HIGH ADVENTURE No. 949! Imagine the poor collector assuming there were almost a thousand issues of this that he'd never noticed on the stands!

But anyway, for the purposes of modern day collectors, FOUR COLOR is a "series", and it had some issues fully devoted to jungle stories, so I've got to do it...

Lowell Thomas was an adventurous traveler, writer, and radio broadcaster, and he helped popularize the travelogue as narrator of 20th Century Fox's Movietone newsreels. This comic, which had at least one other installment in FOUR COLOR, is presented as a comic book travelogue, hosted and narrated by Lowell, focusing on the lifestyles of jungle peoples but framed within a narrative context that has Thomas participating in thrilling but presumably common jungle adventures, with characters introduced as if they were real-life subjects in a documentary--and who knows, perhaps they were!

The photo cover promises New Guinea headhunters on a rampage, an impressive nose piercing, the lumpy-faced Thomas, and some elephant riders.

We get more photos of the travels to be explored, in comics form, on the inside front cover, in black and white, of course.



First up, is New Guinea. According to this comic, the natives are cannibals who keep their victims' skulls as souvenirs. The white governor has provided native police to protect Thomasin his travels through the New Guinea jungle, and he's accompanied by a white crew, mostly Australian veterans. As the group travels four hundred miles of the Sepik River, they document the sights.

In a friendly village, we see the native's skill at piloting shallow canoes, operated from a standing position. Thomas gleefully documents the sale of wives in a panel that demonstrates how Dell's non-participation in the Comics Code allowed them to depict female nudity, at least in the acceptable "National Geographic" manner:



After showing us the sculptor and the most important man in the village, the canoe-builder, Thomas hires 60-year-old Tom Davidson to guide them further up-river, where they barter with fish hooks, razor blades, and tobacco with another friendly tribe. This tribe demonstrates bare-handed crocodile-catching:



Next, we observe the governing council, the initiation of young men into manhood, and bull-roarers, tattooing, and drumming:



And finally, on to the main attraction, the cannibals! Here, we have a bit of narrative introduced, as Thomas and his crew meet up with Peter O'Sullivan, the white police officer in charge of the area. Peter explains that two local tribes are in conflict, after one tribe turned a peace feast into a skull-collecting party! Peter is cool as a cucumber, despite being under threat himself:



Thomas accompanies O'Sullivan on another issue, the return of a captured native girl to her tribe:



We watch as O'Sullivan boldly faces the savages unarmed, pleading for peace and declaring the kidnappers punished; he wins his suit for peace and the expedition comes to an uneasy but bloodless ending as Thomas heads back downriver, leaving "a man whose life is almost unbelievable adventure---a strong, friendly, yet lonely figure---Peter O'Sullivan!"

Thomas's next High Adventure takes place in the Indian jungles, where we will witness "Tracking a Man-Eater"; apparently tigers were taking 5000 human lives per year!?



Thomas arrives at an elephant training camp to join a tiger-hunt aback specially trained elephants. We witness the capture of new elephants to be trained and see some of the training process before hitting the trail in pursuit of some man-eaters:



Along the way they astound the primitive locals with modern technology:



The villagers report the savage attacks they've been suffering, depicted with some restraint, but still a startling sight only found in non-CCA-approved comics of the time:



After many more pages of preparation, including a religious ceremony, and search, we finally see the crew capture and kill a tiger, whose beautiful head is held up as we gaze into its lifeless green eyes for the final panel of art before the concluding Dell Pledge:



The inside back cover provides some more photo documentation of the tools and weapons of New Guinea, proving that Thomas really had been to the area as reported in the pages of the comic, and the back cover has a color comic page cutting tigers some slack from the terrifying reputation that had been tagged with a few pages earlier:



OK, that was different. Exploitative, definitely, and exaggerated, most likely--it's my understanding that cannibalism is far less common in these "primitive" tribes than was reported to credulous, thrill-seeking audiences of the past. But there is clearly some educational content in documenting some interesting customs and ways of life, although it is framed, unsurprisingly, in an atmosphere of superiority of the "civilized" world.

This would be a Jungle Gem to at least some readers looking for thrills and, err, titillation, and despite my hesitation, I found it to be an engaging and interesting comic, with at least a somewhat convincing air of authenticity. Not bad for an "educational" comic!

And while we've got Ivan Tors' GENTLE BEN on the page, I also (probably) won't be able to include a couple of other more genuinely jungle comics that were based on Tors' productions, COWBOY IN AFRICA from Gold Key and DAKTARI from Dell. I just don't have copies and can't find any available scans.

Most people that think they know what an oxymoron is don't really know what an oxymoron is--that is, they know a definition they think they understand, but they don't know why the term exists other than as the subject of lame "humor".

It took me a while of hating every time I'd see someone share some "oxymorons" they thought were funny before I bothered to think and research enough to understand and appreciate them.

ASTONISHING TALES #12, June 1972, Marvel Comics



If the United States could be considered to include a jungle—by one definition, an area of dense forest and tangled vegetation, the Florida Everglades would surely be the most widely acknowledge. It has, of course, served as a convenient substitute for African jungles in many an American film and tv show, and it is to the Everglades we go for a sample of the adventures of Ka-Zar, “Lord of the Hidden Jungle”, for this tale from his sojourn in the States from the early 1970’s, one that incorporates a very special treat: the pages from the previously-unpublished second Man-Thing installment intended for Marvel’s black and white SAVAGE TALES #2, left homeless when that legendary publication was cancelled as of its first issue. (SAVAGE TALES would be revived the following year, but initially as an exclusive vehicle for Robert E. Howard properties, not Marvel creations like the Femizons, Man-Thing, Ka-Zar, and Black Brother, who had backed up Conan in the debut issue.)

Roy Thomas wrote and John Buscema and Dan Adkins drew the new Ka-Zar pages for this issue, with Len Wein writing and Neal Adams drawing the Man-Thing sequence in ASTONISHING TALES #12. The amalgamated story is titled “Terror Stalks the Everglades!”

It opens with Zabu, Ka-Zar’s sabretooth tiger companion, breaking out of a cage as he is being unloaded from the hold of an airplane landing in Miami. Ka-Zar, who was onboard with his human companions, prevents the airport police from shooting the beast, who is obedient to the Jungle Lord, but the cops still try to take them in, forcing Ka-Zar and his government-sponsored crew (including Barbara Morse, who will later become a costumed heroine known first as The Huntress, then as Mockingbird) to flee to the waiting helicopter, to head off to the top-secret mission for which Ka-Zar has been recruited.

That mission is to track down the missing scientist Ted Sallis, who was working toward a “bio-chemical breakthrough” before disappearing in the Everglades, possibly because of a female companion, Ellen, who is thought to have been a spy for AIM.

AIM is indeed active in the swampy rainforest, and they fire on the chopper, forcing it to land in the waters. Ka-Zar and Zabu get everyone out safely, but the two of them have to battle off a mob of hungry alligators, re-enacting a classic jungle hero trope.



They make their way to the government complex, where the crew are watching over an ailing Dr. Calvin, a nearly comatose old woman whose only words for the weeks she’s been under care have been “Ted Sallis” and “Man-Thing”.

That very “Man-Thing” happens to be lurking outside the window, helpless to tell them the truth behind the local rumors of a horrible creature that burns faces and may have killed Ted Sallis…



And here comes the Man-Thing insert…

Neal Adams’ pages were intended for black and white publication, and Marvel wisely limited the new coloring to yellow tints and blue caption boxes, distinguishing them as flashback scenes. (The first panel is fully colored; this depicts Man-Thing lurking outside a window, and the main story was constructed to mesh with that to allow this single panel to be “current time”.)

The Man-Thing sequence quickly recaps the character’s origin: Ted Sallis injected himself with the Super-Soldier formula he was there to develop, causing his transformation into the mute Man-Thing when Ellen betrayed him, and Ellen paid for her treachery at Man-Thing’s burning touch, while Man-Thing was left to roam the swamps seeking revenge.

A local yokel happens upon Man-Thing while hunting for a “witch-woman” reputed to be building “monstahs”. When he tries to shoot Man-Thing, the swamp monster’s grip burns his arm, causing him to drop his pistol and flee in pain.

Man-Thing happens upon the “witch-woman” and follows her to the government facility where she is revealed to be Dr. Calvin, working in a high-tech facility. I suspect the dialog has been altered to make reference to AIM and Bobbi Morse, in order to more closely align with the main story, but anyway, a mob shows up at the place, holding Bobbi Morse hostage, reporting that Jasper Petrie (the previously-seen yokel) has just had his arm amputated thanks to the “research” that the mob presumes Dr. Calvin is responsible for.



(As an interesting aside, this page served as the inspiration for Man-Thing’s cover corner box image, after a single issue using a less moody head-on body shot on Man-Thing’s first color feature installment!)



Morse shouts that the ringleader is an AIM agent stirring things up, and she tries to escape, but the AIM guy grabs her and carries her away into the swamp. (Again, I wonder what the original dialog indicated here, because there is likely some cobbling going on here. The hostage girl now identified as Bobbi Morse looks more like one of the townspeople, but appears to be sympathetic to Dr. Calvin. Perhaps some pages were deleted?)

Man-Thing suddenly appears, killing off and/or burning many of the mob members and saving the girls. The Man-Thing is able only to grunt unintelligibly, but Dr. Calvin recognizes some humanity, and runs fearlessly to the monster, suspecting some connection with the missing Ted Sallis.



Dr. Calvin, though, is shot from behind by the dying ringleader, and Man-Thing flees back to the swamp.

Back to present time and Ka-Zar, who hears the creature lurking outside, and pursues Man-Thing into the swamp. The Man-Thing falls into a pit trap dug by AIM agents in their highly-recognizable bee-keeper gear, and when Ka-Zar reaches them, he knows somehow that he should be protecting Man-Thing against the AIM agents, and begins to fight.



One AIM agent falls in the pit, where he’s burned to death, but eventually Ka-Zar, himself, ends up tossed into the pit, and his face shows fear as he faces “the most startling swamp-creature of all” (as Marvel would tag his comic in later years). And as we know now (but didn’t know then), “whatever knows fear burn’s at the Man-Thing’s touch!”

But that’s a matter for ASTONISHING TALES #13, because we end on this cliffhanger!

While this is something of an aberrant installment of the Ka-Zar feature, I’ll get to his more typical environment, the Hidden Jungle of the “Savage Land”, when I sample the character’s solo series. This will also serve as my only consideration of Man-Thing; if the Everglades is indeed a jungle, that makes the Man-Thing feature a jungle comic itself, or at least a twist on the genre worth recognizing in this thread. My fondness for Man-Thing, and indeed, the entire microgenre of swamp monster comics, elevates this issue into a Jungle Gem for me, boosted even further since it is also an example of another thing I always get a kick out of, comics that mine leftovers from cancelled comics. But no, this isn’t a fair look at Ka-Zar, an out-of-place Jungle Lord in long trousers for this stretch of stories.

It's not really a great comic, though, and not it’s an exemplar of the jungle comic, so my rating is admittedly subjective. The construction is one of insignificant events assembled to accommodate the Man-Thing pages. There’s no suspense to fighting off a few cops, alligators, and AIM agents, it’s all about arranging a face-off between Ka-Zar and Man-Thing for the next issue. The Man-Thing sequence is the real highlight, and it’s a fairly trivial and unsatisfying installment.

I can’t honestly heap much praise on the John Buscema artwork for this issue. It meets his usual standard for competent comics, but his ubiquitous presence in Marvel’s 1970’s comics was fatiguing to me. I know many comics fans among us can never get enough of his work, and it’s an exaggeration to say he would eventually show up drawing an issue of everything (I can’t remember him drawing any issues of Iron Man or Spider-Man or X-Men, for instance), but seeing him on everything from bottom-rung features like The Golem to middle-of-the-pack comics like Nova to top-tier books like the Fantastic Four became tiresome to me, and his stock poses, composition, and expressions began to bore me.

Adams’ work, though, is just the kind of thing I most enjoyed seeing from him, moreso than his overwrought superhero material. It’s moody, rich art, and Buscema and Adkins’ rendition of Man-Thing looks a bit laughable in comparison. At this point, Marvel hadn’t figured out how they were supposed to color Man-Thing, and what works in the (almost) black and white of Adams’ pages looks awkward in four colors, with Man-Thing looking like a hairy brown gorilla with orange warts and a small green face with short tentacles. They were on their way to refining it, though; the next issue of ASTONISHING TALES would promise the start of a new Man-Thing feature soon to begin in one of their “presently feature-less” monster mags, from Gerry Conway and Grey Morrow. That mag would turn out to be FEAR #10.

The earliest one I've found is in SUPERMAN #48, Sept/Oct 1947: