Bob Powell's Complete CAVE GIRL - the hardcover collected edition

Honestly, I had never heard of Cave Girl until I happened across the hardcover collection edition for sale on Amazon while looking for other things.  Now, it used to be, I had no interest in the old "jungle" comics of the golden and early silver age.  Characters like Sheena, Nyoka, Lorna, Shanna, and the like never really caught my attention (which, you would think is odd, since I've always been attracted to the female characters in comic books ever since I started reading them way back in 1979...).  However, in recent years, I've found a sudden appreciation for the older comics geared towards females - the old romance comics, the nursing comics, and more recently - the girls of the jungle comics.  So, I added this to my Amazon watch-list, and as chance would have it, the book was given to me as a Christmas gift this past year (from someone who obviously keeps an eye on my wish list!).

Bob Powell's Complete Cave Girl is a beautifully bound hardcover collection of all of the character's appearances - from her first appearance in the Magazine Enterprise ("ME") title, Thun'da, to her solo bak-up stories in that same book, to her own four-issue series self-titled Cave Girl, to her final appearance in a one-shot title called Africa: Thrilling Land of Mystery.  Cave Girl has a total of twenty-one (21) stories in all, which is not a lot when you think about how long comics have been around and how many appearances characters like Nyoka, Sheena, Shanna, and the such have made over the decades.  Yet, it seems that Bob Powell's character made quite an impression at the time, and after reading this collection of stories, I can certainly see why.

The character of Cave Girl was introduced in Thun'da issue 2 (1952), in a story titled "The Ape God of Kor."  The story stars Thun'da and Pha, who stumble across a young woman who is fighting to escape to clutches of a cruel high priest.  Thun'da helps her, but in so doing, he gets captured and forced to fight in an arena against three large sabretooth tigers!  At the last moment, the young cave girl swoops in and speaks the language of the tigers to save Thun'da's life.  Together, they defeat the high priest and escape to their lives in the jungle.  I love the fact that in just seven pages, a complete story from beginning to end is told with plenty of excitement and danger, as well as the uncomplicated introduction of Cave Girl.  What is interesting to note is that Cave Girl never introduces herself to Thun'da and Pha anywhere in the story.  In fact, the only reason the reader knows her name is that the narrator refers to her as simply "Cave Girl" in the captions.  Other than the fact that she lives in the jungle is able to speak the language of the animals in the jungle, and she is referred to as "Cave Girl," there is absolutely nothing about who she is, where she comes from, or how she came to be Cave Girl.  And, quite honestly, that's okay.  Back then, it was not necessary to have a 6-issue, drawn out origin story that gives every minute detail of how a character came to be.  This seven page story is more than sufficient to introduce readers to Cave Girl and whet their appetites for more adventures of this jungle queen!

Cave Girl appeared as back-up stories in the next four issues of Thun'da before striking out in her own magazine.  In two 6-page tales and two 7-page tales, readers follow the exploits of Cave Girl as she defeats a vicious man who aims to steal from the people of the jungle (and meets anthropologist Alan Perkins; reveals the truth about a shadow god to the suspicious natives of the jungle; outwits three criminals determined to get past her and steal the gold hidden in the jungle; and aids the smaller than average pygmy, Bobo, in his quest to rescue his beloved's mate.

In 1953, a year after she first appeared, Cave Girl graduated into her own comic magazine - which lasted a whole four issue (two being published in '53 and the last two being published in '54).  Oddly enough, the issues were numbered 11, 12, 13, and 14 rather than 1, 2, 3 and 4.  And it is in that first issue of Cave Girl (or issue 11, if you must) that readers finally learn the origin of Cave Girl and how she came to live in the jungle.  An expeditioner and his wife are exploring the depths of the jungle, with their little blond-haired daughter, Carol, in tow.  When natives attack, the parents are killed, but poor Carol is swooped off by a giant eagle to its nest, where a wolf attacks and kills the eagle.  Thinking the wolf is nothing more than a dog that saved her, young Carol befriends the wolf, who takes her to his pack - and thus, the beginning of Cave Girl's life in the jungle, learning the language of the animals around her and picking up the skills of the natives who live here and there around her.  Flash-forward to the present, where a millionaire, with his young guide Luke Hardin, are seeking the fabled fountain of youth.  They find it, and the millionaire shoots Luke, hoping to keep the location a secret.  But the only secret he discovers is that the fountain of youth does more than pull back the years - it takes its drinker back to beyond when he was born, so that he no longer exists!

The four issues of Cave Girl provide readers with 14 exciting adventures of the jungle adventuress, beautifully drawn by the super-talented Bob Powell.  Cave Girl's trademark tiger-striped animal-skin mini-dress barely keeps her covered, and Powell's scenes of Cave Girl bathing in the ponds and rivers certainly must have been titillating to the readers of yester-year when these first came out.  Powell doesn't shy away from depicting the violence and death that jungle has to offer, and many times, the villains in the stories do not make it out alive!  By today's standards of sex and violence, these stories properly seem rather tame; but when you consider the stories were published in the early 1950s, just before the whole Seduction of the Innocent fiasco, it sheds a whole new light on just how risque these stories really are!

The final book in this collection is Africa, Thrilling Land of Mystery issue 1, published in 1955.  This featured the last three stories of Cave Girl, and according to Powell expert Ed Lane (writing in Alter Ego #66, March 2007), "should have been Cave Girl #15 but was released with a new logo."  The cover of Africa features the huge "Approved by the Comics Code Authority" stamped next to the logo, and so the stories inside feature a Cave Girl who is much more modest, less bloody violence, and no sex appeal whatsoever.  However, the stories are just as thrilling and adventurous as her previous appearances, and as Cave Girl says in the final panel of that last story in that issue, "Good! Then my jungle world will be at peace for a long time!"  Little did she know that the "peace" would last for more sixty years until Dark Horse/Kitchen Sink would re-publish these stories of old.

While there is a part of me that would love to see new stories of Cave Girl, there's a part of me that wants to keep her in the past.  If she were revived in today's comic market, she would either be overly sexualized or would be caught up in the drawn-out storytelling of today's writers and artists.  The only way I could see her coming back successfully, while remaining true to her character, is if an independent published picked up the rights and told stories in the same vein as these in this collection - three or four short stories in each issue, with self-contained stories (barring one or two subplots that might carry from one story to the next once in a while).  But, since I don't really see that happening, I will be content to enjoy these stories of the past, where Cave Girl could be the jungle queen she was meant to be!

RATING:  10 plastic-rubber skull masks out of 10 for preserving the stories and art of the good girl comics of the past for readers of today to enjoy!