Who was Fantomah?
Fantomah,
the "Mystery Woman of the Jungle," is a mysterious goddess-like being
who protects the jungles of Africa. She has vast magical power, to the
point of being practically omnipotent, and can transform herself into a
frightening blue phantom/skeleton creature as well as a floating skull
with blonde hair. Like her fellow Fletcher Hanks creation, Stardust,
Fantomah often used her vast magical powers to sentence her enemies to
bizarre and brutal punishments. For instance, in Jungle Comics #7 she
transforms a band of greedy diamond miners who oppressed the natives
into one man, then sends that man to an "unfound world" to be enslaved
by hideous green fanged monsters, then sent into a pit of cobras, and
then absorbed into a wall by a giant hand. Besides greedy treasure
hunters and slavers she wreaked her brutal vengeance on such bizarre
foes as Org, who controlled giant spiders with a hypnotic drum, and
Professor Zomax, who wanted revenge on nature after being successively
attacked by a lion, an elephant, gnats, a snake, and a gorilla. ..
She is so weird. I love her.
Sadly after Fletcher left the comic they made her into something more generic.
When Fletcher Hanks left the comic books industry in 1941, Fantomah
was the only one of his characters to continue to appear in the Golden
Age after Hank’s retirement. The unknown creative team that replaces
Hanks would tone would down Fantomah to a regular Sheena-clone with some
mystical power. Interestingly the first post-Hanks story did try to
make Fantomah look like she under Hank, but with a more revealing
swimsuit design.
In March 1942, Fantomah was retcon to be the princess of a lost
civilization with ties to Ancient Egypt. Beyond the new backstory, she
also gains a new Egyptian queen inspired get-up and a panther companion
named Fury. Interestingly this incarnation of Fantomah was the
longest-lasting, with this status quo lasting until Fantomah’s last
Golden Age appearance in Jungle Comics no. 51 in 1944... Unlike many of her Golden Age peer, it wasn’t until the 21st century
that would be any effort to revived Fantomah. Beyond some reprint in AC
various reprint titles and a cameo in a group shot in Femforce, Fantomah would not return to comics until 2009.
Since
nothing is obscure on the Internet Fantomah has inspired fan art,
cosplay and even action figures. Lets check out some of it as well as
some more of the original artist's work.
Goldenagefigurines.com
Colors by Rob Shalda
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