MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 584: THE LEOPARD MEN

(Exciting Comics 002, 1940)

Recently graduated top college athlete Ted Crane and famed anthropologist Professor Hawkins (and Hawkins' daughter Betty, who stowed away as all young women had to if they were going to have adventures in the 40s) set out to find Kenya's lost Konogo Tribe but almost immediately meet opposition from one of the Leopard Men. Despite being a supposedly mythical group, this Leopard Man has a gas-dispenser in his mouth that really knocks Ted for a loop while it gets away.

Even with the additional help of rubber plantation owner J. Atkins Bullard, the party is being harried by Leopard Men at every turn. Why if anything it seems to be worse after he joins them! How can this be?

It turns out (of course) that Bullard is taking advantage of the local superstitions about the terrible Leopard Men in order to make it easier to kidnap the Konogo as slaves for his plantation. A terrible man! Also a very unobservant one, as somehow in the months and months that he had been leading raids on this poor community he never noticed that the centre of the Konogo village is dominated by a huge solid gold idol.

Ted Crane, by the way, is a pretty by-the-book adventure character with the addition of a completely football-centric worldview: all of his allusions and most of his fighting are football flavoured. It's novel!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 341: THE LEOPARD MEN/ MINOR SUPER-HERO 040: NEDDA, QUEEN OF THE ELEPHANTS

(Master Comics 007, 1940)

The Leopard Men are whatever. Groups of evil African (or South American or Indian or Native American etc etc) warriors who dress up like big cats or other animals are a dime a dozen in jungle adventures and I usually don't find them noteworthy enough for inclusion here (also the racism inherent in the whole Jungle Adventure genre kind of dampens the ol' enthusiasm).

Why include them here? Why because they are the arch-foes of Nedda, Queen of the Elephants, of course! If there is one thing I like enough to take some of the bad Jungle Adventure taste out of my mouth, it's the hint of a larger world inherent in one hero crossing paths with another. Like in Halloween 4, when Doctor Loomis hitches a ride with what is clearly another man on his way to confront a different evil in another, unseen movie. Or in this case, Lee "Jungle King" Granger finding himself in the middle of a Nedda, Queen of the Elephants story.

I think I like Nedda, Queen of the Elephants a disproportionate amount precisely because she only appeared this once. She was raised by elephants, she battled the Leopard Men because they were after her herd's tusks, she teamed up with Jungle King and Eric the Lion. FINIS. No additional baggage. Never bring her back because it can only go downhill from there.