If you’re seeking an imposing but not impossible collecting challenge, try to find all 26 issues of Marvel’s Lorna the Jungle Girl. The title ran from 1953-57, though she is called Lorna the Jungle Queen in the first five issues. Both Lorna and her companion title, Jann of the Jungle, were victims of the “Atlas implosion” in 1957, which claimed dozens of titles.

As far as I know, Lorna never appeared in any comics other than her own title. It’s a bit of a mystery why Lorna # 1 (July 1953) was even produced, since Marvel had no other jungle girl type strips at the time and, indeed, had never had any! Lorna received a huge boost when Fawcett’s long-running but much less sensational Nyoka the Jungle Girl ended with # 77 (June 1953). That left a gap in the market for female vine-swingers, since the likes of Fiction House’s Sheena, Queen of the Jungle and Tiger Girl were also gone by then.

At just about the same time as Lorna debuted, Magazine Enterprises gave Bob Powell’s nicely rendered Cave Girl her own title with # 11 (A-1 # 82) following Cave Girl stories in Thunda #2-6 in 1952-53. But Cave Girl appeared only four more times --in Cave Girl -- #12-14 and Africa # 1, as what was really the fifth issue of Cave Girl was entitled. There was no mention of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who created the Cave Girl name in stories written for All-Story Weekly in 1913-1917 and forged them into a book in 1925, so M.E. may have thought it had invented the name. At any rate, Cave Girl didn’t appear often enough to threaten Lorna’s newsstand supremacy among jungle girls, although Charlton provided moderate competition with reprints/revivals of Nyoka for Zoo Funnies # 8-13 and Nyoka # 14-22 in 1954-57.

As lushly rendered as Powell’s Cave Girl stories were, Lorna was clearly queen of the comic book jungle during her four-year reign. Editor Stan Lee and his staff produced remarkably tightly written but compelling stories of no more than seven pages. Unlike the Fox jungle girls of a few years earlier, or stories of the nicely rendered but often poorly written Fiction House femmes, the Lorna stones actually follow logically (well, if you can suspend your disbelief) and are generally effective and fun to read.

It’s also interesting to see how Atlas had no trouble coming up with a kinder, gentler Lorna for the Comics Code with issue # 12 (March 1955) on. The racial stereotypes were less obvious, as was the cleavage, and scenes of bondage and the like were eliminated, but Lorna remained essentially the same. The Gerber Photo-Journal shows only # 1-12, so the beauty of the post-Code covers remains unseen. I like them even more than most of the pre-Code covers, since they needed to be highly imaginative to be compelling yet pass the Comics Code.

Joe Maneely, Syd Shores and Bill Everett drew most of the post-Code covers, which were absolutely some of the best on the newsstands of 1955-57. Since none of the post-Code issues lists for more than $12 or $13 in Overstreet “good,” I consider them among the best bargains in all of comics from the period. Russ Heath had a lot of fun with signed covers for # 6 and # 7, showing Loma stabbing a huge alligator and a lion, respectively, so these are also bargains.

The Photo-Journal gives every issue of Lorna a “four” or “five” but they simply don’t seem quite that easy to find as a group. But who knows? The last Lorna I needed -- # 18, with a cover that was penciled by Al Williamson -- seemed very hard to find after looking for years, yet the next year I saw three of them for sale at shows!

Ironically, in the last Lorna story in the last issue, she wears a pink dress when Greg Knight takes her to the “big city.” In this unusual story, she tackles “the night beast ... part ape, part lion and all demon!” The story makes only marginal sense, but the real Lorna finally emerges on the next-to-last page when she says “I can’t move properly with this dress on ...“ and reveals her jungle costume underneath! But she had no secret identity ... as a policeman says earlier in the story, “This is Lorna! She knows what she’s talking about when it comes to jungle creatures!” It’s discoveries like this that make collecting that much extra fun, right?

I suspect what also helped keep Lorna going was the popularity of the mid-1950s Sheena television series with Irish McCalla, a statuesque blonde who indeed looked as though she had stepped out of a comic book. In fact, she looked more like Lorna than Sheena in some scenes.

It’s intriguing to note that Marvel began Lorna on a monthly basis for the first three issues, which was highly unusual for Marvel. But Lorna skipped from September 1953 with # 3 to December with # 4 and became a bimonthly. Nevertheless, sales reports must have been good, for Marvel introduced Jungle Tales # 1 (Sept. 1954), with Jann of the Jungle, and Jungle Action # 1 (Oct 1954), with Leopard Girl.

Jungle Action lasted six issues and Jungle Tales ran seven, but Jann took over for # 8 (Nov. 1955) and the title ran through # 17 (June 1957). These 10 issues, which seem generally a little more available than Lorna, also have bright, lively covers. The covers of Jungle Tales and Jungle Action, though, are divided four ways among the characters and thus not very appealing. Marvel clearly did the right thing by giving the covers and title to Jann.

Leopard Girl’s full-body suit was among the most impractical ever conceived for a comic book character, especially a jungle girl, even though Al Hartley did a nice job on the strip. At the end of the first Leopard Girl story, the blurb curiously began, “In another part of the jungle, Lorna the Jungle Girl goes in search of adventure!” The lead character in # 1, Lo-Zar, is drawn by Maneely and fights communists in the jungle who admit to being “Red agents ... battling each other to get uranium so our chiefs would give credit to whoever won out!” Marvel Mystery’s once and future jungle king, Ka-Zar, had appeared only 15 years earlier in the comics and pulps.

Bob Powell’s five issues of Cave Girl (including the last one mysteriously entitled Africa # 1, perhaps for Comics Code reasons) can easily hold a place of honor with Lorna and Jann, even though the stories are more fanciful. Powell’s art alone makes these highly prized collectibles … it’s not at all strange that they usually sel1 for about three times what Lorna does. The Photo-Journal gives them “fives” except for a “six” on Cave Girl # 14, and I would agree with that. Of all the 1950s jungle girl comics, Cave Girl # 14 (A-1 # 125) -- an undated 1954 issue that appeared just before the Comics Code took effect -- indeed seems the most seldom seen.

This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.