One of those powers the Green Lama acquired in Tibet must have been adaptability.
Though little-known now, the Green Lama was a fairly important American superhero in his day, a crossover character in three media — pulp magazines, comic books, and dramatic radio.
In the pulps where the Buddhist superhero first appeared, he was like the Shadow. In comic books in the 1940s, he was like Superman. And on the radio, he was like the Saint.
The Green Lama, who was really millionaire Jethro Dumont, was created in 1940 by pulp writer Kendell Foster Crossen as an assignment from Munsey Publications. His mission was to duplicate the success of the pulp and radio Shadow.
“I was trying to pick a name somewhat like in sound to Lamont Cranston,” Crossen recalled. “You know what I mean, Lamont-Dumont. It was as close as I dared get to Lamont Cranston. A book had just been published about an American who had gone to Tibet and studied and had become a lama, the only white person who ever had at that time. The result was the Green Lama, which the company liked.”
Sales of Double Detective Magazine jumped for the issue when the Green Lama appeared. Unlike other superhero creators, Crossen wisely retained the rights to his character.
When the Lama’s pulp magazine ran its course in 1943, Crossen springboarded the character as a rival for Captain Marvel and Superman. The Green Lama’s comic book adventures for Spark Publications benefited from art by the much-admired Mac Raboy.
In comics, the now-caped Green Lama could fly and smash Japanese Zeroes. But even in pulps, he had some modest superpowers. He could, by ingesting “radioactive salts,” stun criminals with a gentle touch. Seems more fitting for a Buddhist hero than a teeth-rattling haymaker, somehow.
In 1949, as the comics’ superheroes were fading, Crossen sold the character to CBS as a radio series, and the Green Lama almost made it onto early television.
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