Yesterday we met Tuk, caveboy of the year 50 000 BCE. Today we meet all the various humanoids and hominids that populate his world.
Shaggy Ones:
The Shaggy Ones are a kind of Missing Link-style ape man species that we don't really get too much of a sense of because Tuk's foster father Ak is the very last one. If we extrapolate the whole species out from him, Star Wars-style, they were a fairly altruistic species, if a bit given to mysticism. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)
Hairless Ones:
"Hairless Ones" is not exactly a species, but a catch-all category for human-style hominids used by ape-style hominids like Ak, and therefore by Tuk. The first Hairless Ones we meet are Tuk's parents Phadion and Rhaya, exiles from the fabulous city of Attilan and therefore retroactively Inhumans. For our purposes today we will count them as Hairless Ones, however.
Phadion is almost immediately skewered while defending his family from a woolly rhinoceros. Ak takes Rhaya and Tuk back to his home and worships Rhaya as a goddess for several years until she is killed by a lion.
Hairless Ones also encompasses other hominids such as Tuk's Cro-Magnon companion Tanir. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)
Goreks:
The Goreks, who "worship stone and eat brains" are somewhere between Shaggy and Hairless, I suppose. They serve as low-level antagonists for Tuk to overcome with the help of his new friend Tanir. I really dig their Caveman Viking aesthetic - sadly they only show up the once. (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)
the Hairy Ones:
A different kind of man-ape than the Shaggy Ones, the Hairy Ones very briefly menace King Amir and his subjects (yet another population of Hairless Ones, natch) in the landlocked city of Crete (!!!) before being routed by Tuk and Tanir. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)
the Witches of Endor:
Yet another group of Hairless Ones, the Witches of Endor live in a valley that is naturally filled with soporific vapours and add to their numbers by scarring captives' faces with acid. As with the city of Crete, this is another interesting example of a thing from moderate antiquity (the Biblical Witch of Endor is historically tied to c.1100 BCE from what I can gather) transposed into comic set in 50 000 BCE.
Given my experience with Jack Kirby's later work, I imagine that this is intended to be a kind of pre-legendary ancestral origin story for these things rather than a flattening of history in which everything sufficiently old existed at once, but filtered through the limits of Golden Age comic storytelling and Kirby's own inexperience. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)
Atlanteans:
Speaking of which: after escaping from the Witches of Endor, Tuk and Tanir escort their fellow former captive Princess Eve back to her home, the City of Atlantis. The first time I read this I thought that it might have been the place that Tuk's parents came from, but no, just like the contemporary Marvel Universe, both Atlantis and Attilan are extant.
The Atlantean people are yet another group of Hairless Ones. They're running around in at least the Bronze Age while the rest of the world is just coming to grips with stone. They are also an absolute monarchy, which Tuk and Tanir have to help Princess Eve wrest back from her evil uncle. (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)
Cave People:
Finally, we have some traditional, full-on cavemen. These guys are oppressed by the wicked Bonzo the Brute until Tuk and Tanir take a hand and slay him. (Captain America Comics 004, 1941)
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