Green Lama

Superherobox|

caption=
character_name=Green Lama
real_name=
publisher=Prize Comics, Spark Comics
debut="Prize Comics" #7
(Dec. 1940)
creator= Kendell Foster Crossen
alter_ego= Jethro Dumont
species =
homeworld =
alliances =
aliases = Dr Pali
powers = Flight, super-speed, super-strength, ability to emit energy beams

The Green Lama was an American pulp magazine hero of the 1940s. In many respects a typical costumed crime-fighter of the period, the Green Lama's most unusual feature was the fact that he was a practising Buddhist. Slightly different versions of the same character also appeared in comic books and on the radio.

Publication history

Pulp origins

The Green Lama first appeared in a short novel entitled "The Green Lama" in the April 1940 issue of "Double Detective" magazine. The novel was written by Kendell Foster Crossen using the pseudonym of "Richard Foster". Writing in 1976 cite book |last=Weinberg |first=Robert |title=Pulp Classics #14|year=1976 |publisher=Robert Weinberg p. 3 ] , Crossen recalled that the character was created because the publishers of "Double Detective", the Frank Munsey company, wanted a competitor for "The Shadow" which was published by their rivals Street & Smith. The Green Lama proved to be successful (though not as successful as "The Shadow"), and Crossen continued to produce Green Lama stories for "Double Detective" regularly up until March 1943.

Although appearing in a detective fiction magazine, the Green Lama tales can be considered science fiction or supernatural fantasy in that the Green Lama and other characters are possessed of superhuman powers and super-science weapons. The Green Lama is an alias of Jethro Dumont, a rich resident of New York City who spent ten years in Tibet studying to be a lama (a Buddhist guru) and learning many mystical secrets in the process. Dumont is also endowed with superhuman powers acquired through his scientific knowledge of radioactive salts. Dumont has two alter egos - the crime-fighting Green Lama, and the Buddhist priest Dr Pali.

Comic books

The Green Lama's first comic-book appearance was in issue #7 of "Prize Comics" (December 1940), where he continued to appear for 27 issues. In "Prize Comics" #24, he teamed up with "Black Owl", "Dr. Frost" and "Yank & Doodle" to take down Frankenstein's Monster. He then moved to his own title, "The Green Lama" (Spark Publications) which lasted for 8 issues from December 1944 to March 1946. The character of the Green Lama was somewhat different in his comic-book incarnation (for example having the power of flight, and wearing a skin-tight costume) although the scripts were still written by Kendell Foster Crossen who had created the earlier pulp version of the character. [ [http://www.toonopedia.com/grnlama.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia: The Green Lama] ]

Over the last 20 years, the publisher AC Comics has been virtually the only source for the original Golden Age material featuring The Green Lama, and intermittently used the character in their long-running, original series, "Femforce". In 2004, writer/artist James Ritchey III started production on a two-part graphic novella, entitled "Green Lama: Man of Strength" [comicbookdb|type=issue|id=1317|title=Green Lama: Man of Strength, Part 1] , revamping the version from the Spark Publications era. Billing the story in interviews as a "Superhero Mystical Murder Mystery involving Reincarnation", Ritchey never completed the art for part two, due to illness--so it was shelved for three years.

"Green Lama: Man of Strength "#1 shipped through Diamond Distributors on April 5 2008, after a requested 1 month delay from Diamond, due to their frowning upon smaller independents having two similar titles shipped simultaneously.

The Green Lama is currently one of several public domain Golden Age characters appearing in the Dynamite Entertainment comic-book series "Project Superpowers", by writer Jim Krueger and artist Alex Ross. [ [http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=121397 Newsarama.com (July 18, 2007): "Ross and Krueger on "Superpowers", by Matt Brady] ]

Reprints of the Green Lama stories from his 8-issue series will be available in 2008 in a pair of hard-cover volumes produced by Dark Horse Comics.

In other media

Radio

More than three years after the demise of his comic-book, the Green Lama was resurrected for a short-lived CBS radio series that ran for eleven episodes from 5 June 1949 to 20 August 1949, with the character's voice provided by Paul Frees. [ [http://www.audio-classics.com/lthegreenlama.html Audio Classic Archive: Green Lama] ]

Buddhist element

The Green Lama stories are unusual amongst the pulp fiction of that era in their sympathetic and relatively knowledgeable portrayal of Buddhism, both in the text of the stories and in numerous footnotes. From Crossen's own comments,Fact|date=July 2008 however, it is clear that this was not proselytism on his part but simply because he wanted to create a Tibetan Buddhist character and then read everything he could find on the subject.

The most frequent reference to Buddhism in the stories is the use of the Sanskrit mantra "Om mani padme hum" (roughly "Hail, the jewel on the lotus", though the actual phrase defies exact translation), which would indeed be used by Tibetan monks. However, the majority of other references to Buddhism in the stories, while accurate, relate to the Theravada form of Buddhism rather than the Tibetan form, with frequent use of Pali words such as "Magga", "Nibbana" and "Dhamma" which would be unlikely to be used by Tibetan Buddhists.

Footnotes

References

* [http://www.majorspoilers.com/archives/3761.htm A Hero History Of The Green Lama]
* [http://www.philsp.com/mags/double_detective.html Page with "Double Detective" cover scans]
* [http://www.radiolovers.com/pages/greenlama.htm The Green Lama] at Old Time Radio
* [http://bedardrenaud.googlepages.com/greenlama The Green Lama] at Old Time Classic Radio Lovers
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/grnlama.htm The Green Lama] at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
*comicbookdb|type=character|id=13779|title=Green Lama (Jethro Dumont)
*comicbookdb|type=character|id=16745|title=Green Lama (Gordon Dumont)
*comicbookdb|type=character|id=16745|title=Green Lama (Jethro Dumont II)