Camilla started out as something from an old movie serial that eventually evolved into a female Tarzan rip-off. Her first incarnation is the Queen of the Lost Empire that is discovered by nosy explorer Jon Dale in the middle of Africa and is in charge of a viking kingdom. Dale finds the village where Camilla welcomes him to take part in their festival, complete with not fireworks, but human sacrifices! Dale manages to sabotage the ancient Norse electronic murder machine allowing him to escape which results in this Camilla's death. The next issue of Jungle Comics has Camilla as being a blonde white descendent of Genghis Khan and Queen of the "Lost City" which is found by Captain John Stanley. Here, Camilla's subjects are armed with radio guns that they either put together from ancient technology or stolen from materials in one of their caravan heists. Stanley refuses to become Camilla's pet boyfriend, so she sentences him to death in one of their flexodium torpedoes. He escapes causing the city to be burned to the ground. In the following issue, the Queen of the Lost Empire returns with Jon Dale and his current girlfriend Ruth. Camilla had sacrificed herself in a fire to the gods who restored her and subjects' empire, then tries to have Ruth dipped in the life-stealing Blue Bath that helps Camilla maintain her girlish appearance. Ruth is saved thanks to a conveniently nearby spring of eternal youth that Dale found, leaving Camilla to face slowly aging which has her people cast her out. Despite being alone in the jungle, Camilla is still able to call upon the powers of the Norse Gods to have Dale frozen alive. To rescue her boyfriend, Ruth leads Camilla to conveniently duplicate spring to help her refresh her youth. Camilla is restored to the throne, and the plot fast forwards three years in the next issue where she has reportedly been a kinder gentler self-absorbed dictator that has to deal with a monthly cavalcade of usurpers to her status including none other than Satan himself taking on the form of a giant two-headed monster. Aside from a rotating selection of invaders to her empire, Camilla just ditches her crown and helps out a crashed pilot named Ben Austin in the wilderness. She then settled down into the comfy job of Queen of the "Jungle Empire" where she lived out the majority of her comics run as a Sheena clone using her warrior skills to help out root out whatever form of greed-scented evil happens to show up that week. A jungle girl going from She Who Must Be Obeyed to Sheena was one of the more convoluted histories for a typical vine-swinging vixen.
Comments
Post a Comment