Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #18 (Winter 1952–53). Art by Maurice Whitman.
Publication information
Publisher	Fiction House primarily
First appearance	Wags #1 (1937), UK Jumbo Comics #1 (Sept. 1938), US
Created by	Jerry Iger
In-story information
Abilities	Ability to communicate with wild animals Proficient with knives, spears, bows (2000 TV series version) Able shapeshift into any animal she makes eye to eye contact with

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is a fictional American comic book heroine, originally published primarily by Fiction House. She was the first female comic book character with her own title, with her 1937 (in Great Britain; 1938 in the United States) premiere preceding Wonder Woman #1 (cover-dated Dec. 1941). Sheena inspired a wealth of similar comic book jungle queens. She was predated in literature by Rima, the Jungle Girl, introduced in the 1904 William Henry Hudson novel Green Mansions. Sheena was ranked 59th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.

An orphan who grew up in the jungle, learning how to survive and thrive there, she possessed the ability to communicate with wild animals and was proficient in fighting with knives, spears, bows, and makeshift weapons.

Sheena debuted in Joshua B. Power's British magazine Wags #1, in 1937. She was created by S. M. "Jerry" Iger who ran his own small studio, "Universal Phoenix Features" (UFP), and who commissioned Mort Meskin to produce prototype drawings of Sheena. UFP was one of a handful of studios that produced comics on demand for publishers and syndicates, and whose client Editors Press Service distributed the feature to Wags. Saying he could no longer afford to pay Will Eisner as a freelancer, he co-founded Eisner & Iger, which continued the work of UFP, but Iger bought out Eisner when (according to Iger) Eisner went to produce propaganda for the US Army but other sources say Eisner left so he could create The Spirit. To help hide the fact their studio consisted only of themselves, the duo signed their Sheena strip with the pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas". Eisner said an inspiration for the character's name was H. Rider Haggard's 1886 jungle-goddess novel She.