YEAR 1954: ANNIE OAKLEY

There was of course no resemblance between the real-life sharpshooter Annie Oakley and this early television heroine, played by frequent Gene Autry leading lady Gail Davis.

I've only seen a couple of episodes of this now-obscure western series. From these few, I can still tell that though Davis's pigtailed Annie character wasn't stridently feminist, she made no bones about being a better shot than any man in her small town of Diablo, Arizona. 

Though the show isn't of easy access today, it had a definite impact on the female audience of the 1950s.  Ms. Davis is quoted as saying:

"Back then I knew the show was having a positive impact, especially on little girls. It wasn't until years later that I realized just how much. Little girls had turned into influential women, thanking my portrayal of Annie for showing them the way."

YEAR 1954: JANN OF THE JUNGLE

1954 is one of the weaker years for femmes formidables, but "Jann of the Jungle" still indicates that there remained life in the jungle-girl concept launched by SHEENA in 1938. 

Jann first appeared in Atlas Comics' JUNGLE TALES #1 (Sept 1954), which changed its title to JANN OF THE JUNGLE with #8, and lasted about three years total.  She was created by artist Jay Scott Pike and by writer Don Rico, who also worked on Jann's predecessor "Lorna the Jungle Girl" (from 1953) and another heroine called "the Leopard Girl."

Frankly, I thought Lorna was a lot more fun than Jann, but unfortunately she'll have to wait for another time. Both heroines have had a few spotty reprints from Marvel Comics, the successor to Martin Goodman's Atlas, but neither lasted into the 1960s decade, making them the last of the original jungle-girl comics-characters until Marvel returned to that well for one last time with the 1970s' SHANNA THE SHE-DEVIL.