With a new print series on the way from Devil’s Due Publishing and plans in the works to bring her back to movie screens, Golden Age heroine “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle,” has been pretty active lately thanks to “Die Hard” screenwriter Steven de Souza. In fact, the award-winning writer has made it his mission to bring the Will Eisner character back to the big screen like so many of her peers.

De Souza told MTV News that a movie based on the “Sheena, Queen of the Jungle” character is “absolutely our intention” now that he’s co-writing her adventures for Devil’s Due. Although he sees the “Sheena” comics he’s writing as a necessary foundation for the property (come back tomorrow for more on the print series and an exclusive preview of the upcoming “Sheena” miniseries), he didn’t hesitate to throw out a name when asked who he believes should don the ol’ leopard-skin bikini in a live-action “Sheena” feature film.

“In my mind, the character as reconceived is a multi-ethnic Latina,” said de Souza. “Somebody like Jessica Alba would be the perfect type.”

While the character’s return to the comics world has been warmly received thus far, de Souza admitted that bringing her back to the big screen could be a tougher sell, given the missteps of the past. When de Souza’s pal Paul Aratow first acquired the rights to Sheena around 25 years ago, he was a “young, naive man who was just interested in growing better arugula,” according to de Souza, “so the deals he made weren’t that great.”

“There was a Sheena movie made about 25 years ago that he set up, but he really cringed at the premiere,” continued de Souza. “Paul was able to get the rights back to Sheena a few years ago and we decided to make a fresh start — and this time, put her back in her home turf in comic books on her way to the motion picture screen again.”

Among those cringe-worthy Sheena projects was an early 2000 television series starring “Baywatch” actress Gena Lee Nolin — no stranger to running around in skimpy clothes — and featuring a Sheena that could transform into animals while fighting injustice.

“I don’t know what they were smoking when they put that on the air,” said de Souza. “They gave her superpowers. It was like making Batman an alien.”

The “Commando” screenwriter told MTV his writing style for Sheena is similar to that of another tough solo act he’s scripted: former actor and current California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“It feels like some of the movies I did for Schwarzenegger, because when I write for Sheena I write the same way I did for Schwarzenegger: a very no-nonsense, practical, tough protagonist who speaks English as a second language,” laughed de Souza. “So I’m just writing Arnold Schwarzenegger dialogue for Sheena. It’s so great coming out of that figure and those pouting lips.”

As for Sheena’s future in film, de Souza said readers of the Devil’s Due series will find ample hints thrown their way regarding elements of the film, in much the same way other characters’ print adventures have fueled their big-screen counterparts.

“If you follow the fascinating, almost Darwinian evolution of characters from the page to the stage, then you’ll recognize in ‘Iron Man’ they had the Ring of Ten, and they had Ironmonger, and in the first Batman movie [Christopher] Nolan did, you had ‘Batman: Year One’ combined with the origin of Ra’s Al Ghul,” said de Souza. “There’s this thing in issue #3 of ‘Sheena’ that we liked, and we have about 2/3 of the Lego pieces for the movie in there.”

“I just had a meeting about the picture the other day,” he added, “and I said, ‘If you read this issue and this issue, that will give you a sense of what the half the movie will be, and I’ll cover the other half.’”

Are you glad to see Sheena in comics again? What do you think about Jessica Alba playing the Queen of the Jungle? Are you looking forward to Sheena’s big-screen adventures?