REVIEW: Cavewoman: Freakin' Yetis one-shot

Story & Art: Devon Massey
Created by: Budd Root
Review: Will Dubbeld

I love the jungle girl stock character. I'm not sure if it started with the Shanna the She-Devil serial in early Marvel Comics Presents or watching Jane get imperiled in old Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films but I've always had a predilection for these strong ladies of the primeval forest. I'm sure there's some sort of psychosexual response that was triggered in the reptile part of my brain as a lad, considering jungle girls are almost universally represented by healthy amounts of exposed flesh poured into leopard print, but that's a discourse for another time.

From Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, to Dhalua Strong, jungle girls have been pouncing through comic books for as long as they've been printed. Though not as popular or as prevalent as masked vigilantes or becaped supermen, they've remained a consistent minority and have even felt a twitch of resurgence in sporadic Shanna the She-Devil appearances as well as in Avatar Press' fairly pornographic Jungle Fantasy comic. Splitting the difference between superheroes and sexploitation lies Cavewoman.



The titular subject of Cavewoman is a young lady named Meriem Cooper, displaced through time to the Cretaceous period and artificially enhanced to be super-strong, fast, tough, and (I'm sure) a host of other abilities. She's the protector of a similarly-time displaced community and, from what I've gathered, spends her time bouncing about and fighting dinosaurs.  In a twist, Freakin' Yetis finds our buxom heroine fighting, clearly, yetis.

The one-shot opens with a full page black & white scene depicting Meriem, slain yeti at her feet, beset upon by a couple of the decedents' fellow yetis. The only color is the red-spatter of blood covering the combatants, which I enjoy as a visual storytelling mechanism. The following pages are dialogue-free and consist solely of Meriem fighting yetis.
That's all.

No dialogue, just sound effects, blood, and gratuitous t & a.
That is IT. Meriem punching a yeti so hard his eye pops out, Meriem eviscerating a yeti with a knife, Meriem impaling a yeti with a giant icicle, et cetera, et cetera. 24 pages of this.
The yetis get their licks in as well, punching, squeezing and throwing our heroine all about the mountainside, causing her to without fail land in one of the following positions:

*vulva-first
*spread-eagle
*ass-up
Or my personal favorite:
*chest-thrust-out-like-the-figurehead-on-the-prow-of-a-ship

Gratuitous, my friends. Shameless. Also entirely unapologetic, which I appreciate. The whole issue is essentially a setup for a "womp-womp" joke on the last page. Is it good? Nah. Did I like it? Kinda. Do I feel fleeced out of $3.99 minus 30%? Ayup.
There's really zero redeeming story aspects to the book. It literally is a 23-page setup for a 1-page gag. I'd be furious if I didn't appreciate the audacity...

If the lack of plot doesn't discourage the reader, the caliber of the art may. While series creator Budd Root is an excellent artist with an Art Adams-influence, Devon Massey is nearly sub-par in comparison. His style is reminiscent of Underground Comix art, but not in a Spain Rodriguez sort of way. In a poor way. In a filler story from 1977 Heavy Metal sort of way. The story you always glossed over on the way to the Richard Corben story.
You know the one.
Presumably the ability to draw pendulous breasts counts for a lot 'round these parts.

I've not picked up very many Cavewoman comics, and I'm not entirely sure I'll pick up any more. Not to say I won't be tempted by a lascivious solicit promising hot tyrannosaurus-on-jungle girl combat, but I'll attempt a bit more discretion.
No promises, though.
The reptile brain wants what the reptile brain wants...