P41-2
Character - The Green Lama (Jethro Dumont)
Appearances - Prize Comics No. 7-34; Green Lama No. 1-8
Length of Run - Dec 1940 - Mar 1946
Writers - Kendell Foster Crossen (writing as Richard Foster), Otto Binder
Artists - Jack Binder, Dick Briefer, Mac Raboy, Harry Anderson (finishes on Raboy)
Publishers - Prize Comics, Spark Publications
Colors - Green, then two-tone green
History - The Green Lama was a multimedia hero. He first appeared in the pulp magazines (Double Detective Magazine Vol 5, No 5, 1940 through Vol 8, No. 2, 1943) and then in the comic books (Prize and Green Lama) and ultimately on the radio in 1949. He was created by Ken Crossen, a pulp editor who wrote stories under the pen name, Richard Foster.
Jethro Dumont was a well to do adventurer who gained supernatural powers from Tibetan monks. Returning to America, Dumont had but to speak the magic phrase... OM MANI PADME HUM!... and he would be instantly transformed into the mighty Green Lama. He had super strength, invulnerability and could fly. In prize comics he wore a traditional monl's robe that was green but when he got his own book Mac Raboy drew him in a hooded super hero costume, not unlike the futuristic suits he would design for the Flash Gordon newspaper strip a few years hence. With neither outfit did he wear a mask. Dumont has a Tibetan manservant named Tsarong. On the radio, the public knew that Jethro Dumont and Green Lama were the same man. The actor who portrayed him was Paul Frees. It was boradcast 4 years after the comic was cancelled.
Additional information provided by mjpankr (as posted http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/goldenagers ):
Hi, just wanted to put my two cents in about the Green Lama. I first became familiar with the character back in 1967 when my cousin Tom, who used to buy big boxes full of comics for 50 cents at auctions (those were the days) lent me a copy of "Daring Adventures" number 17. Published in 1964 by I.W. Enterprises, it reprinted a story from circa 1945 (art by Mac Raboy) in which the Lama battles a villain named Falstaff, patterned after the Shakesperean character. There was also a reprint of a Lieutenant Hercules story--a superhero spoof.
The info from Bill Black certainly covered the Green Lama pretty completely--except for the origin and meaning of the phrase he would use to give himself his mighty powers. "Om mani padme hum" was not something the writers of the pulp stories made up as I learned back in college when I encountered some Buddhists going around campus trying to sell some of their literature. Here's an entry from a book I have "Dictionary of Foreign Terms" by Mario Pei and Salvatore Ramondino:
om mani padme hum (Sanskrit) OHM-MAH-nee-PAHD-meh-HOOM. In Buddhism, an invocation which loosely means "O Jewel in the Lotus! Amen!"
Not quite as catchy as "Flame On!" or even "SHAZAM!" but it worked for the Green Lama. Incidentally, I suspect GL's creator(s) was(were) inspired by James Hilton's bestseller "Lost Horizon" about a mysterious Himalayan land (Shangri-la) ruled by Lamas in which people have incredibly long life-spans and stay youthful and vigorous far, far longer than anyone in the outside world.