Tag Archives: jana

Review: Jungle Girl Season 3 #4

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JGSea3-04-Cov-A-ChoThe jungle sub-genre of adventure comics is one which doesn’t really have a home in modern culture.  The genre itself can trace its roots back to the stories of Allen Quatermain and his adventures in colonial Africa, but with the passage of time, the continent of Africa (and other locales of the jungle) have lost their allure.  Popular culture has filled in the gaps in people’s knowledge of these places, as National Geographic, nature documentaries and rapid modern travel have made these places a lot more approachable and less otherworldly than they once were.  This offers an interesting challenge to the writers of this series as it attempts to put a jungle girl back into the modern context of comics.

The action in this series picks up exactly where it previously left off.  If there was ever a series in need of the “in the previous issue” blurb it is this one.  Jana’s story in the jungle has gone from the somewhat regular, to the absurd as she is now dealing with underground humanoids, dinosaurs and aliens.  This story tells the remainder of this volume’s story as she must find a way to vanquish all of the threats against her and her allies and for them to come out alive.

This volume of Jungle Girl has been a strange ride.  Read on the surface it might appear to be a confusing collection of characters and influences, but that is exactly the point of the series.  It is not meant to be coherent but rather to pay homage to a variety of different genres, in this case throwing in aliens into the “jungle girl” genre.  Those reading this for a strong central core of story telling will likely be disappointed, but it is not really intended as such, instead focusing on the fun moments of action and not so much worrying about exactly who or what Jana is fighting (cue the dinosaurs and the giant insects.)  At the same time the story ends up being a little bit disorganized, but it is still worth a look for its mashup of comic book history.

Story: Frank Cho and Doug Murray Art: Jack Jadson
Story: 7.7 Art: 7.7 Overall: 7.7 Recommendation: Read

Dynamite provided Graphic Policy with a free copy for review

Review: Jungle Girl Season 3 #3

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JGSea3-03-Cov-A-ChoAlthough the sub-genre of jungle comics is one which has a solid foundation in the golden age of comics, it is also one which is limited in both its appeal and its ability to impress.  In the early golden age when the jungle comics were originally introduced, there was only 7 or 8 decades since when Africa and India were being heavily colonized by the European powers, and without the advent of mass media, there was still very much the feeling of the exotic when it came to these places.  Now further separated from this era in time, and far better able to access these remote areas through all forms of media, there is less place in popular culture for stories featured around the jungle.

It is likely there that the creative team got behind this issue got to this mish-mash of story telling.  Jana’s jungle island is already one which is intersected by other sub-genres, notably the apocryphal dinosaur setting.  Those reading this series at the moment might think that Jungle Girl is even a bit of a misnomer.  The titular series heroine Jana is after all dressed in a black catsuit which would be more at place in an espionage story and her main enemies seem to be some kind of extraterrestrials.  She still has her old enemies, the Dirt People, to deal with, but there is definitely a bit of science fiction mixed into this jungle fantasy.

While the mish-mash of genres doesn’t seem like it would produce anything of note, it actually manages to do so.  Conversely it is not as though this is amazing story telling or a gripping plot, but it contains pretty much what one would expect out of a series called Jungle Girl, a cool heroine embroiled in adventure, and in the case of this series, with a heavy dose of humor thrown in.  That the story doesn’t necessarily follow a jungle story line makes the title of the series a bit of a misnomer, but it doesn’t make the series any less fun.

Story: Frank Cho and Doug Murray Art: Jack Jadson
Story: 7.7 Art: 7.7 Overall: 7.7 Recommendation: Read

Dynamite provided Graphic Policy with a free copy for review