Zegra, Jungle Empress
Entry updated 26 January 2026. Tagged: Character, Comics, Publication.
US Comic (1948-1949). Fox Publications. 5 issues, numbered #1-#5, but #1 titled Tegra, Jungle Empress. Artists include Vern Henkel and Jack Kamen. Script writers include Vern Henkel and John Lanier. 36 pages with 3-4 strips (1-3 featuring Zegra or Tegra) and a short text story each issue, plus short filler material. Tegra, Jungle Empress #1 was published in August 1948 and Zegra, Jungle Empress #2 in October 1948; aside from the slight alteration in name the only difference of note is Zegra being blonde and Tegra brunette (brown-haired on the cover). They are here treated as the same character.
Tegra #1 opens with "The Soldiers From Saturn", where "astrologists" [sic] peering through a telescope notice an explosion on Saturn (see Outer Planets), caused by a Spaceship departing for Earth. It lands near Tegra's village, having been guided there by a local Mad Scientist: from the ship steps "Zanto, Queen and ruler of Saturn, the omnipotent potentate of the heavens", accompanied by a few soldiers and a pack of horned wolves. Intending to conquer Earth (see Imperialism), she and her troops seem invulnerable and are armed with a Weapon that paralyses. Tegra discovers the spaceship's passage through Saturn's rings led to its hull becoming coated in radium dust – which burns the Aliens. The first adventure as Zegra is "The Flying Death!" (#2): here her village is attacked by armed men on flying carpets from a lost Persian City in the region. In #3 a murderous female wrestler with Hypnotic powers comes to Zegra's territory hoping to discover a new world heavyweight champion (see Games and Sports), and thinks she has found him in caveman Zubba. Another tale includes jet-propelled diving equipment (see Inventions). "The Legion of Mad Mummies!" (#4) has a female archaeologist bringing mummies back to life (not to be confused with a similar plot in Phantom Lady #13). There are no genre tales in #5.
Each comic has one or more non-Tegra/Zegra strips. In #1 Rocket Kelly (see Rocket Kelly) combats "Interplanetary Murder, Inc.", who demand all of Earth's Lethium 45 – a newly discovered rare metal – and blow up Mars to show they mean business: fortunately the Death Rays protecting their headquarters' walls do not cover the roof. There is a Blue Beetle (see Blue Beetle) story, but without genre elements. #2 has Phara, Living Goddess "part woman, part myth. Keeper of the lions for 3,000 years ... the Immortal protector of the temple of Kait" (see Ancient Egypt in SF), which is "in the outer reaches of the Nile". She sees off ex-Nazis come to mine uranium in the region, build atom bombs and restore Germany's glory (see World War Two). The self-explanatory Ted Tyler, Ghost Detector, his built a Disintegrator that dissipates ghosts (see Supernatural Creatures) [for Occult Detectives sThe Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. "Jungle Nightmare" (#4) has the "tribe of girl warriors of the Z'gotti" seeing three western visitors to Africa and deciding to kill the two women and kidnap the handsome man; "apemen" looking like large gorillas arrive and kill the girl warriors, so their captives escape.
As with most of Fox's jungle comics of this era, the local population's males are black and the women white (see Race in SF): thus in the previously mentioned non-Zegra story, the Z'gotti warrior women object to the arrival of three westerners because "white ones are forbidden here", despite being portrayed as white themselves. #1 and #2 are the most interesting issues, some stories having pleasing absurdities. Sadly #2 was the only appearance of Phara, Living Goddess in comics; the Egyptian setting added a little variety to the jungle girl trope. [SP]
links
- Comic Book Plus – Tegra #1
- Grand Comics Database – Tegra #1
- Comic Book Plus – Zegra #2-#5
- Grand Comics Database – Zegra #2-#5
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Occult Detectives
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