Not having heard any buzz surrounding Marvel Comics’ revival of SHANNA, THE SHE-DEVIL, I asked a friend far more knowledgeable than me before deciding whether to pick up the trade paperback. He replied he was doing so already, and that a friend of his had given it his stamp of approval because Frank Cho’s art “makes me want to masturbate.”

Damned if that wasn’t the case.

Introduced in 1972, Shanna was, in essence, a female Tarzan –  a redheaded jungle heroine in skimpy outfits. In Cho’s reinvention – the first seven issues of which are collected here – she’s one of many genetically harvested specimens rescued from an abandoned Nazi lab by a team of American soldiers. Well, almost abandoned; the place is still home to some ferocious velociraptors eager to feast on human heads.

The surviving GIs take the near-feral Shanna back to camp, where she’s subjected to humiliating rounds of jumping jacks and whatnot from the horny guys who can’t help but be drawn toward her massive, barely clad bosom. But when a Nazi virus accidentally is unleashed and threatens to kill them all, Shanna leads a group back to the dinosaur-infested lab for an antidote.

From there, SHANNA becomes an all-out battle between babe and dinos –  gory, action-packed and even humorous (although Doc’s constant utterance of “Holy buckets!” is beyond annoying). That may be the barest of stories, but it’s the barest of female leads that counts here, and Shanna is simply stunning. Cho draws her so well (and so well-proportioned) that one can’t help but fall in love a little and dream.

Though branded on the back cover as having “EXPLICIT CONTENT,” any chance for nudity on Shanna’s part conveniently are obscured, even if her breasts forever threaten to become unleashed in any given panel. You’ve gotta hand it to those Germans: They know how to build a lady. And if the rumored, “unrated” hardcover pans out, you’ll get to see a lot more of her. –Rod Lott

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