RAR #42: THE RED MAN and MANTOKA

Here's the first of two obscure Native American heroes, both of whom had just two Golden Age adventures. In both cases, online reprints carry just one of those two adventures, but not the other.

In the case of "the Red Man"-- the strip's full title being "The Red Man of the Rockies"-- he may have had an origin in his first appearance, but in his second and last appearance in Centaur's FUNNY PAGES, he just roams around solving white people's problems with his ambiguous powers, which include the making of rain, as shown here. If he had any other name, it's not shown herein.

Much more salutary is MANTOKA, MASTER OF INDIAN MAGIC, by the renowned artist Jack Cole. Cole created a sort of "Indian Spectre" who could do almost anything with his magic, and who is seen in his first story defending his people from evil white exploiters. The opening page, in which Mantoka symbolically "dies" to gain magical power, is better than the rest of the story. Given that a little later Cole would concoct the oddball and somewhat offensive Indian villain Great Warrior, the mere existence of Mantoka indicates that the artist wasn't totally insensitive to the plight of the "red man."