Sheena swung onto Home Video in March of 1985, after an August 17th, 1984 theatrical release, almost 50 years after her comic book origins.
Co-created by the legendary Will Eisner, Sheena was one of the first female comic book heroes to headline her own solo series – beating Wonder Woman to the punch by a few months in 1942. First appearing in 1937, Sheena’s adventures ran through the mid 1950s and sparked a cottage industry of jungle-queen comics, all following the same she-Tarzan blueprint. She also had a brief syndicated television series around the end of her original print run.
By the time of the movie’s release, Sheena hadn’t graced comic book pages for decades, but the jungle queen archetype she helped define never really left the public imagination – especially for fans who grew up on her four-colour vine-swinging adventures. That nostalgia, mixed with the rising appetite for pulp fantasy and sword-and-sandal epics, made the timing feel right.
After a few years in development jungle hell, Columbia Pictures finally acquired the rights, reimagining her not just as a throwback heroine but as a modernised eco-warrior fit for the 1980s. The new Sheena would trade in some of her more dated trappings, swap her jungle cats for a zebra (actually a painted horse), and set her sights on the leather-loincloth crowd who’d made hits out of Conan, Greystoke, and The Beastmaster.
Starring Tanya Roberts, the movie makes the most of its lush Kenyan filming locations, giving the film an epic feel – but for all that natural splendour, it also includes the sort of breathtaking visuals that had every teenage boy attempting to pause a VHS tape just right. They managed to squeeze a lot of sex appeal into that skimpy PG rating, but Roberts, fresh off Beastmaster and just shy of becoming the next Bond girl in A View to a Kill, looks every bit the classic buxom blonde jungle goddess.
Sadly, Sheena didn’t tame the box office, crashing hard with critics and audiences. But like her spiritual sibling Supergirl (released the same year), she carved out a spot of cult class, and even got another stab at a TV show in 2000.
Sheena’s movie is a wholly watchable attempt to deliver epic adventure, empowerment, and more than a little cheesecake, it’s definitely worthy of a rewind (and maybe a pause or two).