Zaro, Jungle Magician had competition. The 1940s was the hey-day of jungle lords and ladies. It was hard to hold your own. Tarzan, Sheena, Kaanga, Tabu, Camilla, Zara, Marga, Zomba, Keeto, Wambi, the list goes on. How to stand out among all that leopard print? Well, Zaro had magic. Whether he turned into a tree or shot a beam of power from his hand, he was as much a wizard as a tree-swinger.
But it didn’t get him too far. The character appeared for the first time in Holyoke‘s Sparkling Stars #10 (February 1946) and was gone by #12 (April 1946). Just three short adventures buried in the back pages with Speed Spaulding and Screwy Sam. The first adventure was drawn by Francois Leland, but all other credits are not known.
“Invasion of Terror” (Sparkling Stars Comics #10, February 1946)
A native village is taken over by Blackwall and his bandits. Their favorite method of killing is by tearing a man apart between two elephants. Zaro is out enjoying the jungle with his friends, Gerda the crocodile and the monkey Gog, when he intervenes between a black panther and a visitor, the beautiful woman, Vilma Day. Vilma has been separated from her safari.
The two go to the village without knowing about Blackwall. Zaro is shot then tied up. When the elephants can’t rip him apart, the baddies realize he is Zaro.
Instead they free a rhino from a cage, thinking it will do the job. Instead, Zaro uses his magic to call the rhino to free him. Zaro punches Blackwall out and the natives capture the rest of the murderers.
“Who’s Camp Is This?” (Sparkling Stars Comics #11, March 1946)
Dr. Denman Fall and his colleagues have come to the jungle to open the tomb of Fautra, an Egyptian king. The porters become ill, because of a curse. Fall deciphers the hieroglyphics and knows of a cure, but is too weak to find it. It is in the Zambesi country. Zaro offers to get the cure. Using his magic, he freezes a raft of crocodiles to form a bridge and arrives at a fort.
He kills a guard then is captured. Zaro learns of the purple vial that holds the cure. If he can pass the test of the Green Serpent he can have it. He enters the scary catacombs. He encounters strange rat men.
He turns them into actual rats, then summons a cat to chase them. In the shadows the Green Serpent sees this. The dragon-like beast attacks. Zaro knocks it out with a beam then kills it with his great strength.
He has passed the test. The Fautrans try to stop him from gaining his prize but he magically locks them in with prison bars. He returns to the jungle with the cure. The archaeologists are saved.
“It’s Getting Dark, Jim” (Sparkling Stars Comics #12, April 1946)
Jim and his father are in the jungle looking for the legendary “Elephant’s Graveyard”. A sick man appears in camp asking for water. When the father goes to tend him, the stranger plunges a dagger into his heart and steals the map.
Jim goes after him only to be shot from ambush. The evil stranger has been following the expedition in secret. Jim crawls along through the jungle when he encounters two lions. Fortunately, Zaro appears. He takes out the lions and joins Jim on his quest for vengeance.
Returning to camp, Jim gathers his people. Later they encounter a tribe of apes. Zaro tells them not to shoot. A nervous lieutenant does and the apes attack. Zaro saves the safari.
They continue on to the Elephant’s Graveyard (good thing Zaro knows where it is) and run across the bad guys. When the bad guys start shooting Zaro turns into a tree and the bullets are harmless. The bad guys run. Jim wants to shoot them but Zaro tells him to let the jungle take revenge. The bad guys are eaten by crocodiles and Jim doesn’t have blood on his hands.
Zaro was replaced by Jungo, the much-more Tarzan-like character in Sparkling Stars #13, who went on to fourteen episodes and a name change. (He became “Jungol” around episode nine.) Jungol would lose the limelight to Fangs the Jungle-Boy. That’s just how it is: the law of the jungle…
These comic are available free from Digital Comics Museum.