| The Jungle Girl | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Nyoka Meredith/Gordon |
|
First Appearance |
Jungle Girl #1 (1942) |
|
Original Publisher |
Fawcett |
|
Created by |
Harry Anderson |
Origin[]
Nyoka's father, Dr. John Meredith, came to Africa with his daughter to escape the shame brought upon their family by his criminal twin Bradley. Dr. Meredith uses his medical skills to help the natives and ends up displacing the local witch doctor of the Masamba, Shamba. However Shamba later teams up with Bradley and Slick Latimer, who arrived looking for a local diamond mine, to kill Dr. Meredith. Bradley then replaces his brother and takes over his life. Nyoka discovers their plan teams up with Jack Stanton and Curly Rogers to stop her villainous uncle and his allies.
Her fiancé was named Larry Grayson. Unlike normal jungle girls who wear animal skins and speak broken English, Nyoka was civilized and dressed in safari gear. However, in most of her stories she was knocked out and tied up at least once, but in the end she has to come to the rescue of her inept fiancé, Larry.
Public Domain Appearances[]
- Jungle Girl #1
- Nyoka the Jungle Girl
- vol. 1 #2-77
- vol. 2 #14-22
- Danger and Adventure #22-23
- Master Comics #50-71
Notes[]
- Nyoka was a licensed character from Republic Studios. In 1939, Republic made the serial Jungle Girl based on the novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. However, the serial bore no resemblance to Nyoka (and no character with the name appears in the novel), the novel is set in Cambodia rather than Africa. Republic made a sequel, Perils of Nyoka (1941), which was based on the previous serial but, with Burroughs not credited at all.
- In Jungle Girl, Nyoka is the daughter of Dr John Meredith. In Perils of Nyoka, she is the daughter of archeologist Professor Henry Gordon.
- Tina Turner stated that when she and Ike Turner began performing together, Ike wanted her to act wild on stage emulating Nyoka the Jungle Girl.