May 1947 gave us Nyoka the Jungle Girl #7 and a three-part adventure in the Arctic. Now if you aren’t familiar with Nyoka, she is kind of a jungle queen, not the leopard skin wearing kind but still a heroine of the tropics. Nyoka Meredith got her start in the Edgar Rice Burroughs story “The Land of the Hidden Men” in Blue Book, 1932. On the silver screen she appeared in Jungle Girl, a serial starring Francis Gifford. Fawcett was the first of three comic companies to publish the comics after the serial.
The writer and artists of “Death in the North Pole Jungle” are not known.
Part I: “Unlucky 13” begins when Nyoka and her father, Professor Gordon are flying back to the jungle. The plane they are on is filled with unusual people, thuggish people.
One of the passages is a duchess. She gets it into her head they are doomed because there are thirteen passengers. When she becomes frantic a German passenger, Schnauz, knocks her out.
One of the thugs tries to get fresh with Nyoka and she teaches him a lesson. Nyoka goes to the cabin to talk to the pilot but something seems off. Her father notices too, when he sees bodies being thrown out of the plane. Another one of the thugs attempts to kill them with a knife, but Nyoka’s karate skills again prove victorious.
Suddenly the plane begins flying erratically. Nyoka is thrown from the plane into the snow. She slides down into a crevasse where she finds a tropical jungle full of animals frozen in the ice.
Part II: “Axe Murder” starts by meeting the remaining inhabitants of the landed plane. We meet Ivan Popkoff, a Russian, the German Schaunz, a crazy woman who claims to be a spirit of death, and the thug known only as Robby. Professor Gordon introduces himself then realizes Nyoka is missing.
The travelers join Gordon as he tracks Nyoka to the crevasse. The Russian Popkoff goes down a rope to retrieve her while the German keeps saying there is no point because she is dead. The rope snaps but Popkoff manages to climb out with Nyoka using a pick ax.
Back at the plane, Robby’s dead body is discovered and the crazy woman goes on about how she predicted it all. The thugs take Nyoka out while the others are distracted and tie her to a pole, then return to the frozen jungle to steal jewels found there. They start cutting into the ice, freeing the animals. A polar bear is looking Nyoka over for a snack!
Part III: “The Icy Tomb” has Nyoka tied to her pole as the polar bear gets closer. It is the frozen jungle lion who saves her but the gorilla attacks instead. The elephant saves her from the ape but there is still the cobra!
Inside the plane, Professor Gordon wants to help his daughter but a thug has pulled a gun. When the crazy woman starts up again he shoots her, then he shoots all his companions, knowing one of them killed Robby. He is about to start on Gordon when Nyoka gets the draw on him. They scuffle and during the fight the thug pulls off Popkoff’s beard. This surprises him long enough for the Russian to shove him out the plane door. The lion pounces on him almost instantly.
Nyoka goes outside and sees the thug is dying. The animals from the ice are also dying. She hands Popkoff his beard back, suspicious he is an escapee from prison. He isn’t. He is Dudley of the F. B. I. He was watching Schaunz who was a Nazi agent. Nyoka recounts all the animals she had to survive, including how she shot the snake. We also learn the thugs in the ice cavern died when it collapsed on them. The stewardess says they have radioed for help, and soon all will be back in the jungle.
This Fawcett Northern has just as many incredible ideas in it as any of the Captain Marvel family stories but more violence. The writer worked really hard to keep a jungle angle in it, but still have some Northern motifs like polar bears and ice caves. I wonder if the jungle stuff was really needed? Nyoka is a woman who can handle herself in any environment.
