I belong to several mailing lists, including one dedicated to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS characters. Besides the usual bitching and moaning about the lack of new material from DC (currently licensed to use the characters), the members will occasionally bring to our attention other things which might be of interest. Earlier today one of the posters sent along a link a website dedicated to (of all things) a Philippine female super-hero, DARNA.

Checking out the page I was amazed that this character, whom I had never heard of before, had such a history both on the comics page and in a series of motion pictures (live and animated). You can see from the hundreds of illustrations and photos that the character has gone through a number of costume changes, but like her American counter-part Mary Marvel she is still easily recognizable.

Back in 1947 the late Mars Ravelo and Philippine illustrator Nestor Redondo (probably known to many American comics fans for his work on various DC and Warren comics back in the 1970s) created a female comics character, similar in many ways to Mary Marvel. The idea was to create a character who embodied the best of the Philippine spirit at a time when the island nation was just recovering from the trauma of WWII. This flying avenger, originally called Varga, was created for Bulaklak comics / magazine.

A year or so later, Ravelo and the comics’ editor had a disagreement, so he packed up and took his creation along with him. In April 1950, Mars Ravelo and Nestor Redondo re-launched their heroine now called "Darna" The mighty warrior from planet Marte, named after the mythological Adarna bird (a Philippine fairytale, of a magical bird which could restore health to the sick). Darna comes to life when a young girl, Narda places magic stone in her mouth (the art seems to imply that she swallows the stone, but how she reverts back and retrieves the stone I haven't figured out yet :-) and calls out Darna’s name. Darna's adventures were first serialized in the pages of Pilipino comics (Ravelo’s new publisher) and she quickly became one of the most popular comic characters at the time. Despite changing tastes in comics and the emergence of numerous other characters DARNA continues to appear in comics to this day

Within a year Darna found her way onto the silver screen, where she has continued to appear (played by several actresses over the years) from the first in 1951 (simply titled, DARNA) until the 1994 feature DARNA ANG PAGBABALIK (Darna the Return).

All this information is from the 'official' DARNA site created by fans of the comic, with the assistance and cooperation of Ravelo's family.

I was so fascinated by this that I just had to share!