Ever since somebody figured out that they could put a woman in Tarzan's loincloth and appeal to a whole different segment of comic book readers, jungle ladies have been parading across the pages in a variety of revealing animal-print outfits. Sadly, the advent of less juvenile outlets for the appreciation of feminine beauty has left our former jungle queens out in the cold. Every once in awhile somebody will try to revive the genre, but it never quite seems to work out. Maybe their problem is that they're still concentrating on one fetish... what if they combined the jungle girl motif with another appealing concept?
That's the premise behind Kyra; a jungle goddess who's also built like a lady bodybuilder! Her giant thighs and massive forearms can crush your naughty, naughty skull like an eggshell, and as we can see from this cover, she's really flexible. This charmingly and energetically drawn comic is produced by creators who have a real interest in the material. I mean a REAL INTEREST, a Krafft-Ebing kinda thing, if you know what I mean, and if you don't now, you soon will.
I know you were thinking to yourself "not another jungle girl", but here in this helpful introduction we learn that we're not alone when we feel female superheroes should be at least as muscular as their male counterparts, and that female bodybuilders are now really trendy, and that everybody connected with this comic thinks they're really sexy. That's what I'm learning, anyway.
So here's Kyra, her jungle bikini bouncing as she patrols the pine forests (?) of her jungle home.
Since this is a jungle girl comic, obviously there are strangers in her jungle conducting some sort of torture inquisition. Cue awkward, splayed "spying on strangers" pose.
And as big and threatening as these strangers are, they're no match for the Fist Of Kyra!
She's just beating the hell out of these guys, some of whom paid up to $75 for the privilege of being beaten by Kyra.
Then there's a flashback sequence where Kyra thinks of her mom, the jungle queen Kageena, who was seduced by some tiny-moustache explorer and raised Kyra alone in the Asian jungles with only a mountain lion for company.
Meanwhile in Bangkok, the evil witch Johanna Starling, who apparently also runs a multi-national mining conglomerate, is determined to exploit the vast mineral resources of Kyra's jungle. Not really sure where witchcraft and mining come together on the Venn Diagram Of Evil, but I'm sure they've got to meet somewhere.
And soon more thugs are invading Kyra's deep virginal forest, requiring her to contort into still more poses to avoid their thrusting attacks. She knows what the local muscle is here for! (sorry, subtext is just erupting into the surface narrative here and there's nothing we can do to stop it.)
But even after she's vanquished the foot soldiers, here comes the witch, who probably should have just shown up first anyway.
Here we have the jungle-girl fetish, the muscle-woman fetish, and the shrinking fetish, all on the same page. 3 kinks in one! Who says comic books aren't your most economical entertainment value?
And then the dead start rising out of the grave, because apparently there are a lot of cemeteries in the jungles of Thailand, I guess. Sure, why not.
Luckily Kyra remembered a vital piece of zombie lore, that they can be defeated by salt. Watch your diet and get some exercise and get your blood pressure checked, zombies.
And with a pot of really unhealthy, sodium-laden soup from a convenient nearby hamlet, Kyra dissolves the zombie, and her witch opponent vanishes in a puff of smoke. What a world! This is like the end of "Horror Of Party Beach", what with the sodium and all. Sodium.
Quit beating yourself up Kyra, we think you're doing a great job defending the jungle. Now pose some more. Little more leg... that's it. Got it!
Kyra wasn't always the star of her own obscure B&W comic - in her earlier adventures she was the star of an even MORE obscure B&W comic, and that's where our second Kyra story comes from. The artwork is a little simpler and the goal of the illustrations is a bit more... shall we say, direct.
Yes, it's Kyra in Jungle Justice! So that's what the kids are calling it these days. Looks like she's got that guy in a figure-four face lock! How much longer can he hold out? Where's the ref?! Ref!
It's downright refreshing to see a comic book that just dispenses with all the pretense. Here's what you want to see, fellas. Right here. Comin' at ya.
Leaping! Splaying! Spread-eagling! It's everything you could ever ask for in a comic book, provided you are really interested in two very specific visual fetishes!
What's this? An intruder in Kyra's jungle ready to engage in some spirited rough-housing with our muscular Amazon? Are YOU ready to submit to Kyra's firm yet loving embrace?
Yes. Yes this is a sequence where Kyra grabs a guy with her crotch, swings him out over a "chasm" and then lets him plummet to his death. Remember the old saying, we can't choose how we're born but we can choose how we die? Here's an option I was not previously aware of, death between the bronzed and muscular thighs of a jungle goddess. It takes all kinds, I guess.
As a special treat we get a few pages of the adventures of Kyra's mom Kageena, who ditched a husband and two kids in Levittown to move to the jungle and wrestle with cavemen. According to the text we learn the surprising fact that this was some sort of "fetish" publication. You don't say!
Just to firmly cement which artistic movement to place "Kyra" in, here's the back cover, a photo of a model in a bikini-loincloth. "Auto Parts Calendar", that's the artistic movement that comes to mind here. Farewell Kyra, enjoy defending the jungle! Good luck finding the protein powder and free weights necessary for your muscular physique, and look out for those alligators!
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