Friday, December 4, 2009

Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle (Fiction House; 1941)








With today's post my "Week of Jungle Girls" crossover with Pappy's golden Age Comics blog comes to a close. Our selection for today represents two distinct periods in the publishing life of Fantomah, an odd character from the ranks of publisher Fiction House.

Fantomah started out more like you'll see in my story, which was taken from Jungle Comics #13 (Jan. 1941), when she was billed as the "Mystery Woman of the Jungle". Pappy's tale was chosen from the latter part of Fantomah's historic run, when she was recast as a "Daughter of the Pharaohs". In an odd way, Fantomah's appearance in my featured story puts her ahead of the costumed heroine curve, even before Wonder Woman or the Woman in Red.

This story was credited to Barclay Flagg as writer and Henry Fletcher as artist. Thanks to everyone who stopped by both of our blogs this week, hope you enjoyed your visit. I'm sure Pappy will post more jungle tales from time-to-time, but my own jungle posts will continue unabated. The Catacombs is grateful to Don "Zu-Gogo" Falkos for providing the scans for this story. Note: The copyright for this issue, its contents and artwork belong to the original publisher and/or the creators and is reproduced here solely for entertainment purposes.

See you later on today for my regular "Gal" Friday feature. Enjoy!

2 comments:

Mykal Banta said...

Chuck: This is amazing. It has convinced me to get the recent Fletcher Hanks collections, whose work this is. This entire story is like some acid, fever dream. It is so incredibly ruthless - "even the baby girls were destroyed" - and full of moments of direct power. My favorite moment was when the transformed Fantomah, raging at the Vahines, says simply "You Are Doomed," while behind her, flocks of vultures descend.

Not even dousing themselves in glow worm oil can save the evil ones!

Love it! Thanks so much for posting this. - Mykal

Runs.with.Ferals said...

Good to see some of the 'banned' GM scans (no longer allowed @ Golden Age Comic Downloads). Fletcher Hanks art deco style rocks when mixed with the jungle babe genre~! More~ more~ more~!!