(Jungle Comics 022, 1941)
Zuko, aka the Bird King, is in a lot of ways a very classic minor super-villain. He has an obsession with birds and has both a flock of trained vultures and a set of working bird wings for personal flight that he uses in the pursuit of crime. He also has an obsession with diamonds that makes him jealously guard the ones that he has collected, and stop at nothing, including kidnapping and murder, to acquire more.
The really unusual thing about Zuko is the fact that all of this villainous potential exists in a guy who lives in a treehouse in the middle of a crocodile-infested swamp in the middle of a jungle in an unspecified part of Central Africa. He only learns that there are people nearby with diamonds that he might be able to steal when one of them accidentally wanders into his front yard. In the next issue of Jungle Comics some crooks come looking for Zuko's treasure so it's possible that he was a super thief somewhere else before moving to the jungle to hide but as presented in his own story it's kind of like if Dr Doom had just forged his mask and then stayed on the mountain with those monks.
The Bird Man makes a spirited attempt to steal the diamonds from Kaänga's adopted people but is unable to contend with jungle-man resistance. This all ends with him learning the ultimate lesson for people who choose the life of the wingsuit, all the way back to Icarus himself: they don't work very well if they are on fire.
Categorized in: Accessories (Wingsuits), Animals (Birds), Theft (Jewel Thieves)
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