Shanna the She-Devil is an adventure superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Carole Seuling and artist George Tuska, the character first appeared in Shanna the She-Devil #1 (cover dated December 1972). She was one of three ongoing titles, alongside Night Nurse and The Claws of the Cat, that Marvel launched using concepts and names developed by Stan Lee and commissioned by editor Roy Thomas in an effort to draw back female readers. Shanna the She-Devil is the persona of Shanna O'Hara, a veterinarian, ecologist, and former Olympic-caliber gymnast who works at a Manhattan zoo. After a sniper kills the animals in her care, Shanna abandons city life and remains in Africa as a jungle-dwelling protector of its wildlife. The character was later paired with the jungle lord Ka-Zar, whom she eventually married, and the two raised a family together in the Savage Land. In 2005, writer-artist Frank Cho introduced a separate character using the same name and visual concept for a Marvel Knights miniseries; this version, a genetically engineered blonde discovered on Monster Island, is not confirmed to share continuity with the original Shanna O'Hara. Since her creation, commentary on Shanna has centered on the sexualized visual presentation of the character. Stan Lee said the character, along with Night Nurse and The Claws of the Cat, was created in part to appeal to male readers, and editor Roy Thomas said this shaped early creative decisions on the book. Reviewers of the character's 2013 appearances in Savage Wolverine similarly linked her depiction to the visual conventions of the earlier jungle queen comics genre.
Publication history
Design and creation Stan Lee by late 1972 was trying to "feature as many females as possible" among Marvel Comics' headlining characters, a goal that led to three new titles: Shanna the She-Devil, Night Nurse, and The Claws of the Cat. Asked years later whether the books were meant to win back a declining female readership, Lee agreed, adding that Marvel also wanted "to appeal to the male readers who liked looking at pretty girls." In a separate interview, editor Roy Thomas said Lee originated the concept and names for all three series and that his own contribution was seeking out women to write them. Thomas asked Carole Seuling, who had written for fanzines connected to her ex-husband Phil Seuling's comic conventions, to script Shanna the She-Devil, saying he approached her because she liked jungle and adventure comics and was a fan of Wonder Woman. Seuling recalled that her brief was to write a heroine "who would fit in with the times and also was a little more prone to violence than Sheena or the other jungle queens of the past." She wrote the character's origin and scripted the series through issue #3 (April 1973), leaving after taking a full-time teaching job that prevented her from attending Marvel's script conferences. Steve Gerber, whose first Marvel assignment had been writing additional dialogue for Seuling's script on issue #1, took over as writer for the rest of the series. In a later interview, Seuling said she wanted to correct the record on Gerber's role, stating that many sources incorrectly credit him as a co-creator or originator of the character, and that Gerber himself denied any part in Shanna's origin before his death. George Tuska drew the interior art of the debut issue. Ross Andru became the regular interior artist beginning with issue #2, inked by Vince Colletta; Thomas said in retrospect that he had specifically paired the two artists to make Andru's rendition of the character more visually appealing.
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