Sabu & Dorothy Lamour's Further Adventures

Fox Feature Syndicate borrowed the idea of combining movie characters and the actors who played them into a composite being. In 1950, they did this with two actors normally featured in costumed fantasy/adventures, both of which were jungle-based characters. The issue both of these fictional offshoots premiered in was Rural Home's Red Circle Comics #4 from 1950 where actors Sabu and Dorothy Lamour got their own segments as jungle adventurers with no real connection to their real-life counterparts. Dorothy Lamour was the Jungle Princess who is your average white girl living in the jungle trying to protect her domain. No backstory is given to how she became the Jungle Princess or if she had a career as an actress before or after this series of cliffhangers, but Dorothy would defend her territory from outlandish villains like winged men, self-proclaimed goddesses, and pesky pirates. This led to getting her own comic book series from Fox later that year of Dorothy Lamour: Jungle Princess which lasted for two issues, although it started out in issue #2 continuing from Jungle Lil #1. This version of Dorothy continued to be a jungle defender against troublesome tribes, pervy panther kings, and a power-hungry pharaoh's daughter. The other star from Red Circle Comics #4 was Sabu, who was a popular actor from various jungle and Arabian Nights movies. The actor was in a 1937 movie titled Elephant Boy based on Toomi from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. Sabu the actor is now rewritten as being the actual Elephant Boy as he helps a princess catch a giant bird, two other princesses work out their rivalry, and saves a safari. Fox gave Sabu his own series titled Sabu The Elephant Boy continuing from the My Secret Story romance comic with Issue #30 and the second issue being renumbered as #2. In his own comic, Sabu tangles with the Tiger Queen, rescues a pair of slave princesses, stopping the lethal Leopard Man, avoiding a deadly temple, thumping jewel thieves, and vexing a voodoo witch. One of Sabu's adventures was redone for Charlton's Ramar Of The Jungle #2 where Sabu is now called Garo: Prince Of The Jungle. Whoever the creative team behind the Red Circle stories is unknown, as well as to how the characters changed publishers to Fox in the same year. Both Sabu and Dorothy's titular comics were lucky enough to have the legendary Joe Orlando and Wally Wood providing the artwork which made all four issues must haves for any collectors. Since both tropical heroes were named and modeled after real actors, it might have made more sense to just put them both together in their own comic like the Godzilla Power Hour, although the choice to give each of them their own title might have been to please separate male and female demographics as each actor had their own set of admirers. There might have eventually been an entire comic book universe like this with other actors turned adventure heroes like Tim Holt or Buster Crabbe who also got their own titles fighting the forces of evil.

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