Editing 1554: Spice Girls

{{comic
| number    = 1554
| date      = July 22, 2015
| title     = Spice Girls
| image     = spice girls.png
| titletext = The Earth's five major mass extinctions were the Posh Extinction, the Sporty Extinction, the Scary Extinction, the Ginger Extinction, and the Baby Extinction.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are apparently playing a game in which they name all of the elements in some category. Cueball asks Megan to name all of the {{w|Spice Girls}}, a pop group whose nicknames were
*Posh Spice ({{w|Victoria Beckham}})
*Sporty Spice ({{w|Melanie C|Melanie Chisholm}})
*Scary Spice ({{w|Mel B|Melanie Brown}}),
*Ginger Spice ({{w|Geri Halliwell}})
*Baby Spice ({{w|Emma Bunton}})

Instead, Megan winds up making up names by tacking "Spice" onto words from other, completely unrelated categories:
*First guess: The {{w|Sense#Traditional senses|five human senses}}: {{w|Hearing}}, {{w|Visual perception|Vision}}, {{w|Olfactory system|Smell}}, {{w|Touch}}, and {{w|Gustatory system|Taste}}.
*Second guess: The {{w|Kübler-Ross model|five stages of grief}}: {{w|Denial}}, {{w|Anger}}, Bargaining, {{w|Depression}}, and {{w|Acceptance}}.
*Third guess: The {{w|Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse}}: {{w|War}}, {{w|Famine}}, {{w|Infection|Plague}}, and {{w|Death_(personification)|Death}}.
*Fourth guess: Words that are phonetically similar to the actual names: {{w|Pogs|Pog}} (Posh), Story (Sporty), Sarah (Scary), {{w|Gender}} (Ginger), and {{w|Baleen}} (Baby).

This seems to be a continuation of [[1417: Seven]], where Megan asks Cueball to name the seven dwarfs. Apparently Megan confuses different sets of five (or four when she is not trying) which may be compared to the way Cueball mixes items from different sets of seven, thus not mentioning a full set, but just seven items from seven different sets of seven.

The title text has the correct "first" names of the Spice Girls, but replaces the "Spice" part of their names with "Extinction" to associate them with {{w|Extinction event#Major extinction events|Earth's five mass extinctions}}. The [http://www.endangeredspeciesinternational.org/overview.html five actual worst mass extinctions] are:
*The {{w|Ordovician-Silurian extinction}},
*The {{w|Late Devonian extinction}},
*The {{w|Permian-Triassic extinction}},
*The {{w|End Triassic extinction}}, and
*The {{w|Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction}}.

Randall previously referenced the Spice Girls in [[1511: Spice Girl]] (more specifically, using "Which Spice Girl Are You?" as an example of online personality quizzes).
And already in the next comic [[1555: Exoplanet Names 2]] he suggest to give five exoplanets around the same star the five nicknames. On the other hand, he suggests he mixes up different sets when they each consist of [[1417: Seven|seven members]].

==Transcript==
:Cueball: Your turn: Can you name all of the Spice Girls?
:Megan: Hmm... Hearing Spice, Vision Spice, Smell Spice, Touch Spice, Taste Spice?
:Cueball: That's senses.
:Megan: Denial Spice, Anger Spice, Bargaining Spice, Depression Spice, Acceptance Spice.
:Cueball: Stages of grief.
:Megan: War Spice, Famine Spice, Plague Spice, Death Spice?
:Cueball: You're not even trying.
:Megan: No, wait, I can get this for real. Uhh... 
:Megan: Pog Spice, Story Spice, Sarah Spice, Gender Spice, Baleen Spice?
:Cueball: ...Close enough.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Spice Girls]]