The Green Lama #2: Babies for Sale & The Wave of Death

Summary

The jade-robed Buddhist priest who battled crime as the Green Lama is back! Conceived in 1939 at the behest of the editors of Munsey Publications to compete with the Shadow, the Green Lama was the creation of writer Kendell Foster Crossen, who was asked to think up a hero who could lure mystery-minded readers away from the Shadow's loyal legion of followers. "The basis for the Green Lama came after I'd read a nonfiction book review in the New York Times about an American who really became a lama," Crossen once recalled. "The book was titled The Penthouse of the Gods." From that gossamer inspiration, the writer spun an outrageously unique superhero. Returning to the States, young Jethro Dumont assumed an alternative identity of a Buddhist cleric, the Reverend Dr. Pali, then began gathering about him a band of civic-minded citizens to join him in his Buddhistic battle against suffering in all forms - particularly that caused by criminals. Aiding him from the shadows was the mysterious Magga, a woman of many faces who had taken an interest in guiding the Green Lama's campaign against malefactors. It was an outlandish concept. While the Shadow possessed the power to cloud men's minds after his time in the East, the Green Lama relied on other even weirder powers - including the ability to become radioactive and electrically shock opponents into submission! He carried a traditional Tibetan scarf, which he employed to bind and befuddle opponents, and possessed a knowledge of vulnerable nerve centers that he put to good use in hand-to-hand combat. James C. Lewis gives a thrilling performance of the mystical Green Lama for two more exciting exploits: "Babies for Sale" and "The Wave of Death", both set in 1940 Hollywood. Om mani padme hum! The Green Lama knows!

©1940 Red Star News Company and assigned to Kendra Crossen Burroughs (P)2016 RadioArchives.com