Comic Review: Savage! Jungle Princess #2 / Writer: John A. Short / Art: Gabrielle Noble / Publisher: Kult Creations / Release Date: Out Now
Starburst had reservations about #1, but #2 is a definite step forward. To recap, the setting is WWII and Death Island, where Nazi submariners have come in search of the Philosopher’s Stone. Pitted against them are shipwrecked MI5 secretary Friday Robinson and dreadlocked castaway Arabella Adelaide Savage, the jungle princess of the title. In this instalment the girls tangle with female ninjas and velociraptors as they try and stop the baddies from guzzling on – wait for it – the Fountain of Youth.
With scantily clad heroines and cute Nazi chicks in bras, the effect Noble and Short are presumably going for is an innocent sauciness akin to the Daily Mirror’s old Jane comic strip (about a female spy with a bad habit of shedding clothes on the job). Their first attempt was a bit too jokey, but this time round the pair have come up with something that amuses and titillates while also working as a story. As before, there are no complaints about Noble’s art, with its clean palette, chic character design and lovingly detailed panels. The improvement has come in Short’s script, which manages to keep the facetiousness under wraps and switches nimbly between cheesecake and high-kicking action.
Regular dinosaur slayings and a white girl ruling over a tribe of black warrior women make the whole thing rather un-PC, but it’s a lot of fun, and a welcome change from the usual comic-rack fodder.
