Review - Green Lama
Not just a collection of one old superhero, but several stories within a title, “Green Lama” — the product of Spark Publications in Springfield, Ma. — offers a modern reader the experience of buying a comic book 60 years ago. Back then, comics weren’t slim volumes with extended serials, but self-contained variety packs that offered a little of this and a little of that for whoever might buy it. There might be superhero action, maybe some crime or suspense drama, perhaps some fantasy or science fiction, and always a good bit of humor. “Green Lama” offers all of these, featuring the first five issue of the comic of the same name, featuring that very superhero and an oddball collection of accompanying tales.
The Green Lama himself is the first encounter I’ve had with a Buddhist-based superhero. Millionaire playboy Jethro Dumont returns from a decade in Tibet with his manservant and mentor Tsarong with the mission of spreading peaceful ways to America. No surprise, the writers use Eastern religion and meditation as a form of magic and mysticism that Dumont decides to use in an effort against crime. Through his magic mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum,” the Green Lama takes down all sorts of oddball villains, while also — very strangely — using his means to bomb Tokyo. When it comes to pacifism, he draws the line at Tojo!
Alongside the main feature, the book offers the comical adventures of “Lieutenant Hercules,” a buffoon of a superhero who can’t support himself on the side, so hires his alter ego out for pay; “The Boy Champions,” a sometimes absurd contribution to the genre of the time that involved gangs of street kids getting into trouble and solving mysteries; “Rick Masters,” a rather dry suspense series about a commercial pilot and his American Indian partner; and “Pop Flys,” a gag strip about a boxer.
The most amusing and original back-up series is “Angus Mac Erc” the story of a fairy released into the modern world by a war plane that crashes into the tree he is held prisoner in. Angus manages to play tricks on the pilot in order to gain his freedom. Later in the series, he contends with an shifty ancient wizard, Ponce de Leon and horror filmmakers in Hollywood. The art is whimsically cartoonish and often gorgeous in its fantasy realizations.
Mixed in with the comics, Dark Horse has maintained the old extras — impassioned and haunting pleas for readers to buy war bonds and fight racism, as well as offers to join the Green Lama Club. It’s the thoroughness of the presentation — as well as the beauty of the reproduction — that makes this book such a hoot. As the 1940s become further and further away, it’s nice to be reminded of the lesser-known parts of its culture. In “The Green Lama,” we are also given some surprise of a country in transition — some of the scraps of racism still hang around (the depiction of Pacific Asians leaves something to be desired), but the diginity the strips lend to Buddhism and American Indians is certainly progressive — and unexpected — and lends some meat to a book that is otherwise filled with delightful, nostalgic fun.
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