In Felifax, originally published in 1929, the son of Paul Féval took on the nearly impossible task of trying to bring together two archetypes: Sir Eric Palmer, the great British detective, a successor of Sherlock Holmes, against jungle-born Felifax, a hybrid tiger-man, a literary clone of Tarzan, in the hope of generating a singular synergy.

Unlike the vast majority of Tarzan imitations, Felifax is not a feral child but something brand new and ground-breaking: the result of a biological experiment, thus forging a thematic link with comic book superheroes such as The Incredible Hulk.