Rima

Origin

Rima is the fictional heroine of W. H. Hudson's 1904 novel Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest.

The novel tells of Abel Guevez de Argensola, a native of Venezuela, being forced to flee the country for political reasons. He escaped to the jungles of South America where he met a group of indians with whom he made peace and became treated as one of them. Whilst walking in a forest, he heard bird-like singing, and was told that it was made by the daughter of the Didi. Whilst the indians warned against searching for her, he ventured deeper into the forest. In there, he met Rima who appeared to have the friendship of the animals of the forest. Although a nearby snake did not harm her, it bit him and he fell down a ravine, later waking in a cabin where Rima lived with her grandfather, Nuflo. Nuflo turned out to have once been a bandit who had repented, then subsequently rescued Rima's mother. Some years after Rima was born, Nuflo took Rima into the forest to live. During the years there, he kept the location of her real home from her and that her entire people were long dead. Abel agreed to lead her and her grandfather back to her people's mountain. When Abel returned to the indian village, he learned that they had burned down Nuflo's cabin, then trapped Rima up a tree and set fire to it. Abel joined forces with a rival indian tribe and wiped out the indians who had killed her, before leaving the forest for good.

Other Media

The story was made into a 1959 film starring Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins. Although the ending was left ambiguous as to Rima's fate, with an eye open to a potential sequel, it was neither a commercial nor critical success, with Hepburn seen as an inappropriate choice to play Rima.

In 1974, the character was published by DC Comics in 7 issues of Rima the Jungle Girl. Whilst the comic largely mirrored the novel as far as issue 4, this time Rima was only slightly injured by the flames and recovered. Issues 5-7 then told stories slightly reminiscent of the Tarzan style, before the book was cancelled.

Following the cancellation of the comic, this version of Rima made appearances in three episodes of Hanna-Barbera's Saturday morning cartoon series The All-New Superfriends Hour between 1977 and 1980 ("Fire", "River of Doom" and "Return of Atlantis").

An alternative version of Rima appears under DC Comics' 2010 First Wave banner, as one of the non-superpowered characters populating the title.