Matilda Marshall
In one universe, Matilda Marshall was an elderly, widowed socialite from New York City, the richest woman in the world and one of the oldest.
She was courted by Tom Rubio, a venal man interested purely in her millions, but was wise to his interest's true tenets and held him in little regard. Instead, she became enamoured of the idea of Kaza, “the Congo King”, from stories she had heard. She set her mind on selecting him as her new husband.
Learning that she intended to travel to his jungle in an effort to pressure him into marrying her, the Commissioner try to warn Kaza about the “threat” and tell him to lay low for a while until she lost interest, but due to being attacked by big-cats and a large water-snake on the way to the Commissioner's house, he instead happened to be there right when Matilda appeared. However, she had been followed to the Congo by Rubio, who briefly attempted to assassinate Kaza. After realising that their interests aligned, however, Kaza pretended to lose to Rubio in a fistfight, causing Matilda to lose her fixation on Kaza and see Rubio in a new light. Meanwhile, Kaza was free to enter a romance with Matilda's attractive lady-in-waiting Dorothy Gray. (COMIC: Fear in the Jungle)
Behind the scenes
This original version of Matilda Marshall appeared in a 1949, now-public-domain comic story featuring Jo-Jo the Congo King, The Dauntless Dowager. The story was reprinted in 1954 in Fantastic Fears #8 as Fear in the Jungle, with the names of Tom Payne and Jo-Jo changed to Tom Rubio and Kaza respectively. Matilda and Dorothy Gray's names remained unchanged, but Matilda's design was altered, with her hair being depicted as white (whereas the 1949 iteration dyed it blond).
The obscure figure of Kaza was eventually resurrected in a new incarnation by Jay Epps for the webcomic Kaza's Mate, Gwenna. Matilda never appeared in the comic, but seems to have been a visual influence on the elderly form of Catherine Maxwell-Hopkirk, a more likable recurring character original to the series.
