4 out of 5

While it might be short on brand spankin’-new concepts – city-dweller turned jungle-dweller, animal killers/poachers painted as one pure shade of evil, leopard animal familiars for our lead – Shanna hit the shelves with a good balance of energy and confidence.  And importantly, whether guided, initially, by Steve Gerber’s scripting over Carole’s plotting on issue one or wholly decided upon by co-creator Seuling, the short-lived series set forth with a good attitude of having a strong woman who isn’t afraid to stand up to men, but doesn’t speak in feminist parables, being a comic book action tale first and foremost.

So Shanna’s living a rich life, workin’ for the zoo, when she’s woken by a call one eve to find out that – gasp – some dastardly human has shot almost every feline for no reason other then sport (zoo’s being popular places for hunters, of course).  Survivors? Ini and Biri, two jungle cats she had raised since birth.  In frustration she withdraws from society (and her chances at joining the Olympics for some kinda athleticism) and takes a job transporting animals to a preserve in Africa, where she takes up the ‘She-Devil’ mantle, forging a bond with the animals there a becoming a legend of fury to the local villages.

This is all sort of uncomfortably revealed to us in flashbacks after Shanna’s been knocked out by issue one’s hunter villain, but George Tuska’s layout makes it work and I actually appreciate that Carole just to start us in on the action and do the past reveal pretty quickly.  Ross Andru takes over at some point and Steve steps fully into the reigns… right before the book’s canceling after issue 5 – despite, if the letter cols are to be believed, good sales – to reshuffle titles.  This allowed Steve some time to lay some links to his Daredevil run, for which he also got the chance to explore Shanna’s pathos a bit, her questioning of her ‘why’ to her behaviors a good extra dimension to the jungle Queen shtick.

Even though the book is essentially just a jungle romp, it’s madly entertaining, easy to read and paced perfectly to maximize thrills plus story.  By not drilling any particular ‘message’ too deep into the dialogue, the issues get to just focus on a core ‘fun’ experience.  Though there’s not a lot to draw from, it’s absolutely worth a look – it exemplifies the skill Gerber had even so early on (Shanna one of his first assignment), coming up with ‘organic’ ideas to pad out the story, and also shows that some books just had the distinction of being fairly timeless; Shanna can be read now and fully enjoyed for all its quaint talk-to-yourself 70s writing, in sync with Frank Cho’s pulpier version of the character decades later.