Sheena and Schwarzenegger and absurd connections

According to this link we will have three Arnold Schwarzenegger films coming down the pike with him revisting three of the franchises that helped make him a Hollywood icon.

One of those is Commando 2.  Because of this I thought it would be fun to explore the link, superficially though it is, between Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger and pulp comic icon, the most famous Jungle Girl, Sheena.

The short answer is screenwriter Steven E De Souza.

Commando, the film from 1985, is an only in the 80s absurdly fun Arnold Schwarzenegger action vehicle about a retired specialist trying to rescue his daughter from a general who's planning a coup in his own country.  The name of the country?  Val Verde, a stand in for whatever location screenwriter De Souza needed to make the plot make sense.

Val Verde is also the name of the country in South America where Sheena makes her home in a somewhat lengthy run across three comic book companies.  De Souza was effectively given carte blanche to reboot the character for a modern audience.  The only reason this works as well as it does is her first appearance in this rebooted version is from 2007 with Devils Due Publishing.  Her last mini series in this rebooted form came from Dynamite Comics and left her in a boarding school.  De Souza's rebooted Sheena is fun for what it is even if the continuity doesn't quite gel between the Devil's Due Era and the Dynamite Comics era.  

The Val Verde used in the Sheena comics is not the same Val Verde in the Commando film but I thought the connection was funny.  I don't expect the filmmakers to revisit that fictional country for the plot of the sequel.  According to the article the sequel has already been written which is further along in development than some announced projects.  I will be curious to see if anyone other than Schwarzenegger comes back into this.  Alyssa Milano returning as his daughter would be hilarious.

Sheena's comic book future, at least in the rebooted form, is dormant right now.  She'll probably turn up in another form down the line.  If Commando 2 can be made 40 years after the original then Sheena can make a comeback as well.  As risk averse as most American media companies are, if the idea is executed well enough then an audience will seek it out and may find something fun.