Friday, July 17, 2015

Curiously Familiar #5: South Sea Girl and Vooda

Today I bring you another "Curiously Familiar," a series of posts where I'm examining various comic book characters who turned up at at least two different publishers, but wore a different name at each one. This is not the same as characters who were created in homage - in this instances, the two characters were actually intended to be the same entities. Here we go!

Alani, queen of the Vanishing Isles, proves to be an adept protector of her realm! Known as "the South Sea Girl," she uses her wits and daring to drive away those would exploit her land.

Vooda, queen of a Congo kingdom, proves to be an adept protector of her realm! She uses her wits and daring to drive away those would exploit her land.

The Story Behind the Story: The short-lived adventures of Leader's South Sea Girl appeared from 1946-47 in Seven Seas Comics, a delightful series of swashbuckling adventure tales. By 1955, Farrell introduced their heroine Vooda (named so that they could continue to publish the comic Voodoo with a Comics Code-friendly name) but, being a publisher with very little in the way of original material, they looked to reprints of South Sea Girl to fill in most of Vooda's adventures. The fact that the South Seas are rather, well, in Asia-Pacific while the Congo is rather, well, all the way on the Atlantic coast of Africa mattered little. The Congo, Polynesia... they're practically the same place!

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2 comments:

  1. Britt ReidJuly 18, 2015 at 8:07 AM

    You'll note Vooda's wearing a full sarong since the Comics Code disapproved of Alani's skimpier attire in stories published before the Code took effect!
    Other modified Alani tales appeared in Vooda's previous incarnation, Voodoo!
    Since that title was published before the Comics Code existed, she was still wearing less than her Vooda incarnation.
    (Voodoo ran 1-19, then the Comics Code tool effect and it was retitled Vooda, which ran 20-22)

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  2. Michael HoskinJuly 20, 2015 at 9:13 AM

    Thanks for those details, Britt! It looks like the Congo Queen character debuted in Voodoo #19, one issue before Vooda started. Unfortunately, the DCM doesn't have that issue for me to verify.

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