“Caveman” as a term is a little too broad to be helpful. I’m sure you can picture one if I asked you to: a hunched, hirsute, humanoid figure who wears fur, wields a club, and sells car insurance. We now know this depiction may be inaccurate and is based on outdated reconstructions of Neanderthal skeletons, though there is certainly still plenty of debate on the topic. In any case, it’s an image that continues to resonate, including in comic books. Why are we so fascinated with cavemen, anyway? I suppose the answer to that is the same as it is for the pharaohs: they represent a more “primitive” yet more powerful version of ourselves. This contradictory combination of strength and weakness makes for a compelling enemy, especially when the person on the other side of the fight is a superhero who represents all that is good about modern man. So let’s see how these men of tomorrow react when faced with the men of yesteryear…
Previous #SuperheroProblems
So Your Family Was Erased From RealitySo You’ve Been Retconned into a ScumbagSo You’ve Been De-Aged Against Your WillAnd more. Savage infiltrated the U.S. government in an attempt to turn World War II in Germany’s favor. He figured a world run by dictators is less boring. (When you’re an immortal, boredom is a big threat.) GL gets him on fraud charges — Savage had to use a fake name to hide his immortality — and then dumps in a bottomless pit. Despite his transformation, Yellowjacket somewhat remembers his wife, the Wasp, and kidnaps her when she comes to rescue him. Even Ronan points out that she could easily escape his grasp, but she chooses not to because love, I guess. So she sits around crying until the other Avengers save her. Lovely. Garn’s a pretty groovy guy, which is more than can be said for his nemesis Akkuru, another de-clayed caveman. And he has a magic axe for some reason. He kicks the Titans’ butts pretty thoroughly, and Akkuru defeats himself when he is buried by a dam that he destroyed. Later, the Titans would encounter another friendly caveman, Gnarrk, who still pops up to help them from time to time. Ka-Zar brings a wounded Daredevil to his cave and then leaves in search of a medicinal plant. This leaves our hero vulnerable to an attack by Maa-Gor, an “ape man” who tries to kill Daredevil. The comic makes it clear that DD would have been toast if another villain hadn’t scared Maa-Gor off with a gun — and then captured Daredevil. Not exactly a red-letter day for our hero. When Superman stops him from grabbing Lois, Gob-Gob goes on a rampage, even destroying a car. Superman then fixes the car to show off his power and demonstrate that creating things is always better than destroying them. This somehow works, and Gob-Gob surrenders. Following many, many more shenanigans, it transpires that “Gob-Gob” was an actor hired by a film company that wanted to promote their new caveman movie, but he got so into the role that he did actually believe he was a caveman for a while there. I know most Europeans have traces of Neanderthal DNA in them, but this is ridiculous.
