Captain Thunder, I Presume?

As i mentioned yesterday, Captain (Terry) Thunder started out as an action/adventure strip. Although we have a vulture in the first panel, it's not Vincent, just local colour. Art Peters, and later Buck Johnson and Pierre LaRue, were pen names so we have no idea who was writing. But we do know it was originally drawn by Arthur Peddy whom we've already seen drawing the Red Panther (also for Jungle Comics).

On that first episode, he's listed as only Captain Thunder. They changed it to Captain Terry Thunder for the second issue of Jungle Comics and that stuck until his final appearance in that incarnation of the title in #151. As we saw yesterday, however, other things did change. A half dozen issues into the run Gloria hit camp...

...and they even got fireworks when they kissed. Gloria stuck around for another issue, just long enough to leave Terry with Kismet the Camel. Kismet found Anderson, and Vincent soon joined in the madness. Terry Thunder's once 'normal' life was warped and soon his adventures had transformed into this sort of affair...

Slowly, it seemed, Terry Thunder got over the trauma of Gloria Frazier. The presence of Kismet, Anderson, and Vincent diminished, and by issue #40 they no longer shared billing on the strip, and soon vanished entirely. Anderson lingered the longest, what with being human and all.

Perhaps he went crazy again later in the series. I'll have to keep reading and see...

page art from Jungle Comics #s 1, 6, & 29 (1940, 1942)