Recently it's been running a story from 1940 in which Mandrake sets out to find the source of the mysterious "flame pearls", but it's really just an excuse to have him travel around to different locations to have a bunch of different unconnected adventures.
My favourite so far is the story of Amoz Island, home of the legendary Amazon warrior women. Mandrake finds the men of the island first, and is absolutely shocked to see them doing "women's work"...
... and then of course the women show up and capture Mandrake and the leader of the expedition. The Amazon queen is instantly smitten with Mandrake, because of course she is...
... but there's a bit of a snag there because the queen's sister also wants to marry him.
Women, am I right? They just can't help themselves. And then it's a man's job to step in and take care of things before it gets out of hand.
The queen is still determined to marry Mandrake, but unfortunately she already has a husband, so he has to be killed, because that's just what happens when you let your society be run by women. Chaos and madness. So Mandrake rescues the prince consort as he escapes himself.
Once they're out of danger it's time to put these women back in their place, but unfortunately they've got the men thoroughly whipped. Fortunately Mandrake has that handy deus ex machina power of his...
... and soon everyone sees the error of their ways.
Sure, it might look like the women are completely subjugated, made to do all the work and given absolutely no say in anything, but we all know who's really in charge here, right guys? And everyone's happy now because the natural order has been restored. I think we could all learn a little something from Mandrake the Magician.
Actually though the women do get back in charge pretty quickly.
So Mandrake has to find some other way to escape. It's OK though, because you can always appeal to a woman's vanity.
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