(Jungle Comics 013, 1941)
While searching for her champion Sir Champion (annoying thing to have to write and the main reason I'm happy that he eventually fades into obscurity), who has failed to return from a hunt, Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire is confronted by the ghostly vision of a blonde lady who rules an ancient lost castle. This is just a kind of person you get in the undefined part of Africa that houses the Lost Empire.
The lady's name, by the way, is Zira, Princess of the Palace of the Black Heart. She also refers to herself as a "wizardess," and while I am generally of the opinion that gendered job titles like that are retrograde and unhelpful I must admit to being charmed. Wizardess!
This vision leads Camilla back to the aforementioned Palace of the Black Heart, where her mortal form is revealed to be a middle-aged lady, or "old hag" as our hero so tactfully puts it. Zira states that Sir Champion is locked up in her dungeon and she will return him in exchange for all of Camilla's magic powers. The sum total of these powers, from my notes, being the ability to talk to gorillas and the power to call upon Thor and Baal to freeze someone. Frankly not a bad trade for someone's life. Do we include her eternal life? She got that from a potion, after all.
Camilla evidently wishes to continue to speak to apes and so she and her men battle with Zira's forces until they are ironically defeated by some apes.
It then turns out that Camilla has more tricks up her sleeve than I had in my notes. She offers to brew up a potion to make Zira good looking in exchange for freedom for her and her men, and since this is the same comic that made a point of calling Zira a wizardess, she is of course very vain by default and takes the deal immediately.
The thing about taking advantage of a woman's default vanity in such a comic is of course the fact that the vain woman will also be extremely fickle, as seen when the newly-hot Zira reneges on her deal in favour of keeping Sir Champion for her own horny purposes. Things quickly turn violent and Sir Champion is forced to slay Zira to save Camilla's life. All in all it's a real eleventh-hour fumble on Zira's part.
Categorized in: Accessories (Castles), Genrica (Ends in -a), Powers (Various Magics)
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