SHEENA: QUEEN OF JUNGLE VOL. 2 #1
Story: Wes Clark Jr. and Steven E. De Souza
Art: Ediano Silva
Dynamite, $3.99
If you liked Tarzan in New York, you'll love "Sheena: Fatal Exams"!
JK, as this storyline is nothing like that one. Well, except for the square-peg-in-a-round-hole humor, as Sheena (real name: Rachel Caldwell) takes a year at an exclusive all-rich-girls school in her fictional country, Val Verde. She makes the usual rookie moves (like scoring on her own team in lacrosse) that, while funny to us, make her "monkey girl" and an object of ridicule to her bratty peers. We also witness Sheena's actual introduction to civilization, which is far less civilized than she describes to her classmates.
But, unlike a lot of this sort of thing, it's all an act. Sheena is perfectly well-educated and is just pulling a Clark Kent to disguise her real motives: Finding out what some norteamericano cowodis (outsiders) are looking for in a nearby jungle. She not only has her jungle friends (a parrot, a monkey, a jaguar) but a network of reporters and environmentalists that I assume have been established elsewhere.
But the bad guys are organized too, and while we don't know yet what they're up to, methinks we're going to discover that they're in the employ of Caldwell Industries, Sheena's very rich industrialist family.
But that's for later. For now, this is a fun bit of fish-out-of-water fluff.
Well, it's not so fluffy when Sheena kills some of the cowodis, but frankly, it's about time characters who grew up in the "savage" jungle are merciless toward environmental rapists and poachers who are armed with the latest weaponry. It wouldn't track for her to treat them with kid gloves.
The art is adequate, with less cheesecake than I expected. Naturally, I'm not keen on objectification. But part of Sheena's appeal is of the sex variety, so I wouldn't object if they strayed a little toward Zenescope territory to keep this book in print.
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