Plot
In Marshville, a town that has been teleported to the prehistoric past, life goes on as normal as possible, despite being surrounded by the jungle primeval and dangerous dinosaurs. Children Lumpy, Will, Miguel, and Susie are about to play a game of baseball but need an umpire. Lumpy asks Meriem Cooper, the superhuman Cavewoman who acts as a guardian over Marshville, if she would be their umpire. Meriem, with plans already made to relax in the magma-heated pools outside the town and recompose herself, asks for a raincheck.
At the bottom of the ninth, Will hits a ball that gets caught by a pterodactyl and then dropped in the jungle. The children set off to retrieve one of the many lost balls and happen upon a dark cavern. Inside they discover a nest of eggs. Will handles an egg but winds up breaking it, awakening a slumbering monster in the process. The children attempt to flee the cave as they are pursued by dozens of tentacles from the shadows. Susie becomes trapped in a crevice while the other three kids escape to seek help from Meriem.
Meriem braves the cave by herself to rescue Susie and pit herself against the tentacle monster who has been angered by its eggs being disturbed, encountering a powerful foe of the likes she has never encountered before. Meriem takes a battering from the monster’s tentacles, but Susie distracts it with an egg, the last one since the others in the nest appear to have broken. Deducing the monster is the last of its kind, and the egg its sole lineage, Meriem and Susie give the egg to the monster, who retreats into the darkness, allowing the duo to escape. Back at the surface, Meriem promises Susie ice cream after demonstrating her braveness and teases the three boys to stay out of trouble.
Commentary
“Extinction” is a one-shot, self-contained comic in the Cavewoman series, published in 2010 with the story and art done by Rob Durham. Though Budd Root’s Cavewoman series is known for its cover nudity and cheesecake portrayal of Meriem, “Extinction” is rather chaste and instead feels like an 80s/early 90s Saturday morning cartoon that revolves around children getting into trouble and then getting saved. The first few pages feel like the movie The Sandlot (1993), where a group of kids playing baseball lose their balls over the fence into a backyard guarded by “The Beast” (a big English Mastiff). In “Extinction” the children playing baseball lose their balls in the jungle, and the beast they encounter is a Cthulhu-esque monster with dozens of tentacles that protrude from a central, crab-carapace-like, body. The children are put into peril, but it is no more violent than, say, what kids encounter in cartoons like Denver the Last Dinosaur or Dinosaucers. “Extinction” is also full of kid friendly messages akin to the endings of episodes of G.I. Joe or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: don’t play in unsafe areas (dark caverns), don’t be a bully (calling one a chicken to force them to go into said cave), seek the help of adults (Meriem), leave wild animals and their offspring (eggs) alone, the importance of bravery, and so on. All of the above demonstrates that Cavewoman, or at least this specific issue, can be surprisingly kid friendly and positive.
That is to say not all of “Extinction” is without some form of titillation. Aside from her standard issue attire of a leopard print bikini that showcases her body, there is a sequence of Meriem bathing in a hot pool. All of her nudity obfuscated by lapping water or wafts of steam, yet her voluptuousness is still on full display. Late in the issue when she is fighting the underground monster, there are numerous panels of Meriem surrounded and grabbed by tentacles, veering in the direction of Toshio Maeda territory.
Naughty tentacle innuendo aside, the underground monster in “Extinction” is quite cool. The monster does not fit into the cosmic horror bucket per se, so it is not Lovecraftian in the traditional sense, but all of its tentacles give it that Cthulhu, perhaps Gla’aki (from the Ramsey Campbell story “The Inhabitant of the Lake”) vibe. The beast is extremely formidable, and its one on one battle with Meriem at the issue’s climax is a great sequence. There is a series of panels that shows the monster grabbing Meriem and slamming her from side to side, like Bamm-Bamm from The Flinstones. It is a captivating battle.
Finally, aside from the aforementioned morality messages geared toward children, there’s other themes present in “Extinction”, especially around Meriem’s character. Selfcare is important, and Meriem realizes this has she has to say “no” to the children (and sometimes, one has to feel comfortable saying “no”), to go and relax in the superheated pools. But it is a short respite and Meriem is cursed with what other superheroes have to deal with: they always must be on “on mode” and be able to save the day at a moment’s notice. Rest is extremely important to avoid burnout, but it is easily taken away.
Just like Ripley and the alien queen in Aliens (1986), there are some matronly themes between Meriem and the underground tentacle monster. Meriem takes a motherly role to the four children, especially Susie when she rescues her from the dark and gives her comfort. Conversely, the monster is trying to protect its last egg, the last of its kind (of note – how did the rest of the eggs break between the children finding them and then giving one back to the monster?). Meriem and the monster have a lot more in common with each other, both being incredibly strong and protective of their children.
Conclusion
“Extinction” is a terrific one-off, self-contained story in the Cavewoman series. It is a quick adventure, with fairly low stakes and that by the issue’s end, the narrative returns back to the status quo, with the hope that the children will stop peer pressuring each other and taking off on dangerous excursions. The issue standalone enough in that it is not too reliant on other issues to establish the universe. A general feeling of what Cavewoman is about is sufficient for reading the issue which can act as an entry point into the series proper. Meriem herself is selfless and brave, and Durham’s art renders her in a detailed and sexy style that brings these attributes to the forefront of the character.
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