Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

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Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #18 (Winter 1952-53). Art by Maurice Whitman.
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #18 (Winter 1952-53). Art by Maurice Whitman.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a jungle-dwelling comic book character, published originally by Fiction House. Lithe, athletic, and clad in skimpy leopard skin, and barefoot, she possessed the ability to communicate with the wild animals she had grown up with since being orphaned in the jungle. Her diet was based on bananas and various fruits and nuts, giving her the needed figure and strength to fight battles. She was fiercely proficient in fighting with knives, spears, bow-slinging, or improvising with makeshift weapons. Her primary ability was to surprise her opponents, either human or animal. She could also withstand a surprise attack of any kind.

She was the first female comic-book character with her own title, with her Spring 1942 premiere beating Wonder Woman #1 (Summer 1942) by three months, and she inaugurated the jungle girl comic genre.

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Irish McCalla in 1950s publicity still as TV's Sheena
Irish McCalla in 1950s publicity still as TV's Sheena

Sheena debuted in Joshua B. Power's British magazine Wags #1, in 1937. She was created by Will Eisner and S.M. "Jerry" Iger of the comic-book packager Eisner & Iger, one of a handful of studio that produced comics on demand for publishers and syndicates, and whose client Editors Press Service distributed the feature to Wags. To help hide the fact their studio consisted only of themselves, the duo signed their Sheena strip with the pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas".

Sheena first appeared stateside in Fiction House's Jumbo Comics #1, and subsequently in every issue (Sept. 1938 - April 1953), as well as in her groundbreaking, 18-issue spin-off, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (Spring 1942 - Winter 1952), the first comic book to title-star a female character. Sheena also appeared in Fiction House's Ka'a'nga #16 (Summer 1952) and the one-shot 3-D Sheena, Jungle Queen (1953) — the latter reprinted by Eclipse Comics as Sheena 3-D (Jan. 1985) and by Blackthorne Publishing as Sheena 3-D Special (May 1985). Blackthorne also published Jerry Iger's Classic Sheena (April 1985. Fiction House, originally a pulp magazine publisher, ran prose stories of its star heroine in the latter-day pulp Stories of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (Spring 1951) and Jungle Stories vol. 5, #11 (Spring 1954).

A version of Sheena, transplanted from Africa to South America, appeared in London Night Studio's Sheena, Queen of the Jungle one-shot comic book and subsequent four-issue miniseries (Feb. 1998 - Spring 1999). As well, AC Comics publishes Sheena reprints, as well as reprints and some new stories of the jungle femmes that followed in her wake.

Model Irish McCalla portrayed Sheena in a 26-episode TV series aired in first-run syndication from 1955-56. McCalla told a newspaper interviewer she was discovered by Nassour Studios while throwing a bamboo spear on a Malibu, California beach, famously adding, "I couldn't act, but I could swing through the trees".[1]

A 1984 Columbia Pictures film, Sheena, produced by Paul Aratow starred Tanya Roberts, who had previously co-starred as Kiri in MGM's 1982 movie Beastmaster. Marvel Comics published a comic-book adaptation of the Sheena movie as Marvel Comics Super Special #34 (June 1984), reprinting it as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #1-2 (Dec. 1984 - Feb. 1985).

Sheena was revived by TV syndicator Hearst Entertainment in October 2000, portrayed by Gena Lee Nolin, formerly of The Price Is Right and Baywatch. Sheena was given a new power in this 35-episode Columbia/TriStar series, the ability to adopt the form of any warm-blooded animal once she gazed into its eyes.

Galaxy Publishing, Inc., circa 1999, launched an animated Sheena series on the Web. In 2007, Galaxy licensed the comic book rights to Devil's Due publishing, launching a new cycle of popularity for this character.

Sheena, herself a distaff Tarzan, inspired a wealth of similar comic-book jungle queens. These include:

The zebra-bikini'd Camilla, Queen of the Jungle Empire,from Jungle Comics #9 (Sept. 1940). Art by Bob Powell.
The zebra-bikini'd Camilla, Queen of the Jungle Empire,from Jungle Comics #9 (Sept. 1940). Art by Bob Powell.

The name "Sheena" is from the Old Irish word for "storm," sion (pronounced sheen). Eisner said an inspiration for the character's name was H. Rider Haggard's 1886 jungle-goddess novel She AdventureStrips.com: "Will Eisner's The Spirit: The Wildwood News, Chapater 2 - Setting Up Shop", by Tom Heintjes

On the TV series Lost, the character Sawyer has referred to Alex as "Sheena".

Comic author Robert Crumb was a great fan of Sheena and had her appear in many of his works.

  1. ^ Associated Press obituary, Feb. 11, 2002, quoting her from a previous article in The Prescott Courier of Prescott, Arizona

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