A Franco-Belgian School comic, it follows the adventures of Rahan, a prehistoric caveman who wanders the earth, encountering a wide variety of tribes and challenges on his way.

Wherever he goes, Rahan carries his trademark ivory cutlass, and his collar - one comprising five claws, each one representing a virtue he tries to live up to: courage, loyalty, generosity, resilience, and wisdom. Nearly Once an Episode, Rahan figures out a new primitive technology to deal with with this issue's challenge.

Tropes used in Rahan include:
  • Abhorrent Admirer: At one point Rahan is kidnapped by a tribe of hyena-women (really, really ugly women). He saves himself for the hideous fate of sleeping with all of them.
  • Animated Adaptation: Done in France in 1987, lasted one season.
  • Badass Normal: Rahan, while still only human, is pretty much at the top of his game, being smarter and a better fighter, tracker, hunter, runner, swimmer and all-around human being than most of the people he encounters.
  • Bamboo Technology: Often literally. Including a phone network.
  • Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: Most animals are called by their physical characteristics, such as fourhands for monkeys and longteeth for saber-toothed cats.
  • Doing In the Wizard : Rahan often debunks superstitious beliefs he comes across, be they merely misinterpretations of natural events or the acts of manipulative shamans.
  • Doomed Hometown : By a volcano no less.
  • The Hero : Rahan himself, very much so.
  • Loin Cloth
  • Mighty Whitey: Rahan is the only pale-skinned blond man.
  • Rousseau Was Right
  • Science Hero : Windmills, bridges, rafts, and so many more...Rahan seems determined to single-handedly get humanity out of the stone age.
  • Somewhere a Paleontologist Is Crying: Rahan regularly encounters dinosaurs. It's made even weirder by the fact that he also comes across regular paleolithic fauna such as mammoths and cave bears.
    • The writers try to Hand Wave the dinosaurs by repeatedly stating that they're leftovers from a bygone age, but iy really just comes across as Did Not Do the Research and Rule of Cool.
  • Thou Shall Not Kill : Rahan himself takes pride in never having killed a human being. In one issue, he suffers a Heroic BSOD when he believes he broke his own code.
  • Walking the Earth: Rahan is the prehistoric analog of The Drifter, wandering from place to place and righting wrongs.
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