On her way back from interviewing Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Africa, Lois Lane’s small plane develops engine trouble.
Bailing out, she strikes her head on a rock upon landing and develops amnesia. And that’s how the Daily Planet’s star reporter became The Leopard Girl of the Jungle (Lois Lane 11, Aug. 1959).
So maybe a subplot involving a jungle girl novel written by Lana Lang made little sense. And maybe writer Bill Finger had to perform logical backflips to “explain” why Superman didn’t simply rescue Lois, but let her knock about for weeks with wildlife while secretly helping her.
But all that really didn’t matter. We wanted to see Lois as a jungle girl, with all that gorgeous Kurt Schaffenberger art. And that’s what we got.
“The end result is an homage strategically placed in the jungle girl history,” observed G.W. Thomas. “Most of the jungle comics and movies were done by the early ’50s. The only significant one was in 1959 with Audrey Hepburn playing Rima the Jungle Girl in Green Mansions. That premiered around the same time this issue of Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane appeared. Coincidence? Probably not.
“DC had no jungle comics in 1959. Bill Finger’s tale is a swan song to an era of liana-swinging gals in leopard bikinis. The 1960s would be the decade that gave us Ron Ely on TV, Jack Benny and Gilligan parodies, George of the Jungle and Ray Stevens singing ‘Guitarzan.’ We had become too sophisticated for Nyoka serials or Irish McCalla as Sheena.”
As usual, Jimmy Olsen had macheted a trail through the jungle before Lois, in this case three years before (Jungle Jimmy Olsen!, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen 10, Feb. 1956).
Because Lois’s title began four years later than Jimmy’s, the kinds of things that had happened to him tended also to happen to her later. So he became Elastic Lad and she Elastic Lass. Both moonlighted as werewolves. And both tried the Tarzan life.
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