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Dark Horse Archives: Thun’da, King Of The Congo
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writers: Frank Frazetta and Gardner Fox
Artists: Frank Frazetta and Bob Powell
If I used a star system in my reviews, I would give this 5 out of 5 stars. Dark Horse Comics continues its fantastic line of archive editions, with yet another amazing entry, Thun’da, King of the Congo! Before we go into details, I just want to give a shout out to Dark Horse for their archive line, which has provided us with amazing reprints of such titles as Creepy, Eerie, The Green Lama, Herbie, Tarzan, and more. They have always given us the best possible reprints, on wonderful glossy pages, all wrapped together in a nice hard cover; and the collection for Thun’da, King of the Congo is no different. A stellar job done here in presentation.
Thun’da, King of the Congo started its publication in 1952, and lasted six issues. The character also made appearances in Cave Girl and Africa: Thrilling Land of Mystery (all of these appearances collected here in this single volume). Thun’da starts out as a ton of fun, telling the story of Roger Drum, whose plane crashes into unexplored territory in Africa, and he becomes a Tarzan-like jungle god in a sort of Lost World-esque place filled with dinosaurs and such; he’s given the nickname Thun’da and becomes king of the Congo.
The stories highlight an array of tales,varying from Thun’da fighting off dinosaurs, to typical adventures like seeking treasure. Cave-girls to giant apes fill these four-color pages with brilliance of a yesterday that is still as interesting today. Nothing feels dated, everything feels new as you unravel page after page in this collection. The artwork is fantastic. The entire first issue is drawn by the famous Frazetta, however due to some eye-to-eye problems with the publisher, starting with the second issue it switches to art by Bob Powell (who drew everything from Sheena, Queen of the Jungle to Mars Attacks trading cards). Both artists have provided a wonderful style of artwork that captures the thrill of adventure in these lost world jungle landscapes and scenarios that we are provided. The writing is also solid and stands up against the test of time,with Frazetta as writer on part of the first issue and Gardner Fox providing writing on the rest and subsequent issues/tales. The writing is very much at home with the Tarzan/pulp stories that came a few years before, but is solid, always entertaining, and filled with action.
It is with great delight that I urge you to go out and buy this collection. Although some may be a little leering at the price of $49.99 to buy a hard cover collection, I assure you it’s worth every penny, and remind you of the amazing job Dark Horse has done with cleaning up the artwork to provide us with a beautiful version of this lost comic material. Get it today!
Drew McCabe
drew@comicattack.net