Gwenna (Jo-Jo Congo King)

Gwenna
Character Information
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Residence	Congo, unnamed universe
Occupation	Queen of the Bonangi
Behind the Scenes
First seen in	COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King
Copyright	Public Domain

In one universe, a version of Gwenna was the Queen of the Bonangi, a small, independent Congolese tribe residing in a jungle village. She was friends with Jo-Jo the Congo King, (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King) who shared his title, and many traits, with the Kaza of another world; (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King) in yet another world, another version of Gwenna was the wife of another Kaza. (COMIC: The Serpent Sorceress, etc.)

Description

Physical appearance

Gwenna was an attractive, lithe woman with long black hair, dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. She appeared to be white, despite her ostensible status as a native Bonangi. At the time of the adventure of the Iron Beast, she wore a bikini-type outfit, red with star-shaped yellow spots. (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King)

Personality

Gwenna was a just and personable Queen to her village. She had a liking of gold on purely aesthetic grounds which once caused her to go against the advice both of Jo-Jo the Congo King and of tribe elder Subbi that holding and flaunting too much of the stuff would bring greedy intruders to the village; however, after this grim prophecy came to pass and disaster was narrowly avoided, she agreed to heed Jo-Jo's advice going forward. (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King) )

Biography

Gwenna was the Queen of the Bonangi, and (despite her apparent whiteness) apparently the daughter of a member of the tribe whom Subbi remembered, who had not possessed her extravagant, though guileless, liking for gold.

Gwenna is abducted by Ungulla's warriors. (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King)

She was friends with Jo-Jo the Congo King, thanks to whose protection Gwenna's rival Ungulla was reluctant to attack her tribe's village. Eventually, much as Jo-Jo had warned a heedless Gwenna would eventually occur, a white outlaw learned of the gold she possessed and plotted to steal it. He formed an alliance with Ungulla, showing him how to armour his elephant with steel so that he could use it as the vanguard of a raid on the village, with no fear of the beast being brought low by Bonangi spears.

Gwenna and Jo-Jo victorious. (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King)

In the raid, Gwenna was taken prisoner by a few of Ungulla's warriors, and was being taken away alongside the plundered riches when Jo-Jo ambushed the victorious convoy, felling trees in the elephant's way and making it panic until it threw off its villainous rider, whom the elephant subsequently stomped to death. After the dust cleared, Jo-Jo advised Gwenna not to exact vengeance on any members of Ungulla's tribe save Ungulla himself. She agreed, and promised to also listen to him about the gold going forward. (COMIC: Jo-Jo Congo King)

Behind the scenes

Gwenna was short-lived within the pages of Jo-Jo Congo King, being replaced as early as the very next Jo-Jo story in the same issue by a largely-identical character instead known as Geesha. Notably, although Geesha (like multiple further renamed variations on the same character archetype) was a love interest to Jo-Jo, this was not explicitly the case with Gwenna, who was referred to only as his friend. Another notable trait of this original Gwenna is that the script patently assumed her to be a native woman, only for her to be coloured as white.

The spurious cover of Jo-Jo Congo King #7A.

On the cover of Jo Jo Congo King #7A, which ostensibly depicted the climax of this first story, Gwenna was depicted as being tied to the side of the Iron Beast during the final showdown, thus presenting Jo-Jo with a dilemma as he hesitated to throw a spear at the outlaw, which would risk injuring her if he missed. However, no such scene occur, or could occur, in the actual story, where Gwenna is clearly shown to simply be walking with the convoy with her arms bound behind her back, some distance behind the elephant, on the second panel of Page 5.

Jay Epps's Gwenna in her debut in COMIC: The Serpent Sorceress, still showing clear influence from her public-domain counterpart.

After the comic entered the public domain, a rebooted Gwenna would gain a new lease of life as the protagonist of the Jenny Everywhere-adjacent webcomic Kaza's Mate, Gwenna, now paired up with Kaza, a distinct jungle-hero character who originated a renamed version of Jo-Jo in a reprint of a later Jo-Jo Congo King story. The rebooted Gwenna was originally depicted with black hair similar to the public-domain version, but this was gradually altered. U

External Links

• Gwenna of the Bonangi on the Public Domain Super-Heroes Wiki