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| Zago exists in a strange universe. He is claimed to be a "Jungle Prince", but unlike say Dell's BROTHERS OF THE SPEAR, that title is never explained. Zago exists without benefit of origin or hint of a backstory of any kind. He lives in a native village where all the females are light-skinned like himself, but all the males besides himself are dark-skinned. There are several instances where we see a dark-skinned native refer to a light-skinned girl as his daughter, or his mate (or the light-skinned girl refer to a dark-skinned male as father or husband). In addition, all of the women are young and attractive; and children or elders are never seen -- either female or male. In the one story where a child seems to appear, he actually turns out to be a 20-year-old midget! That not only seems to present an extremely odd picture of Africa, but seems especially puzzling when you remember these stories were published in 1948. Native women are, without exception, whether good or evil, portrayed as light-skinned. We never, ever see a dark-skinned woman, yet all the male natives are dark-skinned (as you would expect for Africa). At first when I noted this in a couple of stories, I simply wrote it off as a mistake of the colorist (they are notorious for not actually reading the scripts), but after a goodly number of stories, it became obvious that this policy was not only consistent, but quite deliberate, and somewhat baffling. |
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| Additional Information |
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| Publication | March 1949 | Price: 0.10 USD | Pages: 1 | Frequency: Bi-monthly |
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| Featuring | Zago |
| Credits | Pencils: Matt Baker | Inks: Matt Baker |
| Content | Genre: Jungle |
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| Comic Story | The Red Witch (10 pages) |
| Synopsis | Lotaa murders her husband, the witch-doctor of the neighboring Banco tribe, and allies with Benton to take control. Benton uses his weather machine to convince the tribe that she, calling herself the Red Witch, should rule them. Then they go to war against Zago's village. |
| Featuring | Zago |
| Credits | Pencils: Jack Kamen? | Inks: Jack Kamen? |
| Content | Genre: Jungle | Characters: Lotaa (villain, dies); Benton (villain, dies); Kanti |
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| Comic Story | The Boy Who Didn't Believe (8 pages) |
| Synopsis | Thomas wins a competition among the New York City newsboys to spend a week with Zago in the jungle. Zago has to rescue him when Ktal and her girl warriors kidnap him, thinking he is Zago's son. |
| Featuring | Zago |
| Credits | Pencils: Jack Kamen? | Inks: Jack Kamen? |
| Content | Genre: Jungle | Characters: Commissioner Blodgett; Zago; Thomas Donavan; Ponto; Ktal |
| Notes | The competition includes shooting marbles, wrestling, and blowing bubble gum. |
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| Text Story | Death Dance (2 pages) |
| Credits | Letters: typeset |
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| Comic Story | Kansas Killer (6 pages) |
| Synopsis | Former world champion boxer Kansas Killer wants to make a comeback, and his fiancée takes him to the Congo to train. |
| Featuring | Zago |
| Credits | Pencils: Jack Kamen? | Inks: Jack Kamen? |
| Content | Genre: Jungle | Characters: Kansas Killer; Sally; Zago |
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| Comic Story | The Girl Who Bribed Death (5 pages) |
| Synopsis | One of the richest women in the world, heiress Polly Marston moves to Africa to build a shelter from the coming atomic war. Instead, her aide Renfrew is killed by tribesmen and she is killed by a gorilla. |
| Content | Genre: Jungle | Characters: Polly Marston (dies); Renfrew (dies); Itiwa; Hamu |
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| The data in the additional content section is courtesy of the Grand Comics Database under a
Creative Commons Attribution License.
More details about this comic may be available in their page here |
