NED MUNGO

Real Name: Ned Mungo

Identity/Class: Human (Post-World War II era)

Occupation: Escaped convict

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: A leopard

Enemies: Jann of the Jungle (Jane Hastings), Pat Mahoney, Officer Bob Lester

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: The jungles of the Congo

First Appearance: Jann of the Jungle#16/2 (April, 1957)

Powers/Abilities: Mungo could hypnotize animals, making them obey his will with his spoken commands. The nature and limits of his power are unknown, although it did seem to be ineffective to humans (see comments).

History: (Jann of the Jungle#16/2 (fb) – BTS) – Ned Mungo's past is unknown, but at some point he learned to mesmerize animals. He was later imprisoned (for unknown crimes), but escaped and swore revenge on Bob Lester, the policeman who arrested him -- details of his escape, along with his picture, were printed in a newspaper. Mungo hid out in the jungle and used his power to put a large leopard under his thrall.

(Jann of the Jungle#16/2) - Jann and her photographer friend Pat Mahoney were in the jungle when they spotted the leopard's huge paw prints. Pat wanted to get a picture of the great beast, but unknown to both of them, the leopard was prowling in the trees overhead. Suddenly, the leopard leapt from above and bounded towards Jann. As the jungle girl took shelter beneath an outcropping of rock, Pat pulled his gun and fired several shots. A single bullet hit the leopard on its paw, and the slight wound caused it to retreat to the protection of the jungle. More than before, Pat was determined to shoot the giant creature -- with a camera! -- so he rigged up a "camera trap" with bait and a trip cord.

  The next morning, Pat and Jann found the trap tripped. Pat took the film to develop in his dark room, and in the resulting photo, he and Jann saw the leopard with a white man, which immediately aroused Pat's suspicions (Pat: "He and the leopard appear friendly! I wonder who he is?"), but Jann only told him that he got his picture and to stop wondering about it. Moments later, Jann took to the jungle treetops above -- she had recognized the man in Pat's photo as Ned Mungo, whose picture she had seen in the paper, and she intended to find him.

  Jann looked down, and (as fate would have it) she just happened to see Officer Bob Lester driving in a jeep with three natives... and ahead of them was the leopard, perched on a rock! When Lester saw the beast, he swerved the jeep, making it overturn (luckily, all of the men where uninjured). Then Ned Mungo appeared out of the jungle and addressed Lester, telling him he just wanted him to know who was responsible for what was about to occur, and ordered the leopard to attack!

  Leaping from the trees, Jann pulled her knife and landed upon the leopard's back -- Mungo could only laugh at her seemingly feeble attempt to stop the massive carnivore ("A cannon couldn't stop him!"). But as Officer Lester grabbed his rifle, Jann told him not to shoot, then made a slight nick on the leopard's ear with her knife, causing the animal to pause because of a power greater than Mungo's hypnotism -- JUNGLE FEAR... the terror of the wildest beasts of the unknown... even the unknown of the slightest wound!

  Jumping off the intimidated beast's back, Jann went over to Mungo and punched him. As the dazed Mungo lay on the ground, Jann pointed out to him how the leopard was now slinking off into the jungle, and that it had forgotten his commands in the face of its fears.

  The grateful Officer Lester asked Jann how he could thank her for her help, but Jann only asked him to just forget she had anything to do with it ("I know a fellow [Pat] who'd bite off my head if he knew I'd left him out of this adventure!").

  Ned Mungo was taken back into custody, putting an end to his plans for jungle vengeance.

Comments: Created by Don Rico and Al Williamson.

It was never elaborated upon what the origin of Mungo's powers was (...c'mon, it was only a 5-page story!), but I guess it's possible he could be using either supernatural or superhuman means.

Mungo only used his power on the leopard in this story, but Jann did say he could hypnotize "animals" in general, so presumably that means he could potentially enslave the entire animal kingdom to do his bidding; but I'm guessing he couldn't entrance humans simply for the fact that he didn't do so in the story (Otherwise, why not just command Officer Lester to shoot himself?).

I think this guy should be brought back as an enemy of the G-Men ("1950s Avengers") -- maybe his power would work on Gorilla-Man... Jann could even make a guest-appearance...

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
Ned Mungo has no known connection to:

• Mung, of the Lords of the Golden Dragon @ Dr. Strange II#42
• Mung, Sakaar native, accompanied Warbound to Earth, slain by Punisher @ Incredible Hulk III#108
• Mungo, of the Corporation @ Machine Man I#9
• Mungo Jerry, 1970s folk/rock music group
• any other characters with similar names

leopard

An extremely large and powerful leopard, it fell under the hypnotic spell of Ned Mungo until Jann freed it.

--Jann of the Jungle#16/2

images:
Jann of the Jungle#16/2, p4, pan4 (main)