Who's Anthro?

Who's This? The first boy on Earth.

The facts: Caveman comics are a thing. Not an especially popular thing, but the adventure subgenre has had its moments, I'd say most particularly in France's Rahan (a personal favorite that a lot of kids my age and culture grew up with). Joe Kubert originated Tor in the 1950s and would continue to do work on the character into the 2000s, but it it's a publication history that's patchwork at best. In a way, caveman comics are derivative of jungle comics, and pulps like Tarzan, but the opportunity to include prehistoric animals (and dinosaurs if you didn't care about history) was a plus, and I've always enjoyed the challenges associated with the era presented, one without technology even on an idea level. Anthro was DC Comics' first attempt, first debuting in Showcase #74 (March 1968) then spinning off into a short-lived series (6 issues, ending in June-July 1969), this was meant to be the first Cro-Magnon boy born from Neanderthal parents (in a later age, someone might have called him the first mutant), i.e. living by his evolved wits in a dangerous world. His creator Howard Post wrote and drew every appearance. His few appearances after that occurred in the 80s and beyond, to show the scope of DC's world in a Crisis or other, for example, and most notably in Doctor Thirteen: Architecture & Mortality, for comic effect.
How you could have heard of him: In more recent years, Grant Morrison made him an important part of Final Crisis, having him visited by Metron and at the end of his life, watching over Bruce Wayne after he is lost in time. He of course shows up in the Brave and the Bold cartoon, but more surprisingly rates a reference in the Arrowverse (the Reverse-Flash says he's been tracking the timeline "from Anthro the first boy to Kamandi the last." Neat.
Example story: Anthro #5 (May-April 1969) "The River of No Return!" by Howie Post

I guess Post was a fan of the Robert Mitchum-Marilyn Munroe movie.

I mentioned Rahan, and his schtick was that he was a primitive MacGyver. Every story, he would figure a way out of his situation with the primitive tools at his disposal, anything from making a rebreather out of an animal's stomach to starting a fire with a makeshift magnifying glass of melted sand. So one of the things I want to see from Anthro is if he was the originator of anything like that. At the dawn of humanity, there are plenty of opportunities to be FIRST. Let's get into it...

This is a rare continuing serial for the DC of the era, so issue 5 starts where the previous had ended, with Anthro and his family escaping from danger on a raft, coursing through even more dangerous rapids. So dangerous, in fact, that they lose Anthro! Oh man, did I accidentally pick an issue where Anthro is not involved? Nah, no worries, he landed on a favorite salmon fishing spot for bears, where he invents... sushi!

Who knew. Anthro escapes the hungry beasts and finds a cave filled with bear bones (so none of the modern amenities, ha) and... music? He follows the noises and finds dancing bears! Well, men dressed as bears, dancing, at any rate.

It's all very fascinating, with ritual hunting of a bear effigy, and of course the cave covered in primitive paintings. Obviously, we can't know what our prehistoric ancestors were up to exactly, but Howie Post seems to have done the research as to what paleo-anthropologists at least THOUGHT they were like. Anthro calls attention to himself and the chief of the Bear Tribe knocks him for a loop, but comes short of killing him when the First Boy groggily talks in the Bear language and mistakes the chief for his father.

It's a happy family reunion! Anthro's dad left the tribe long ago and this is his brother, Anthro's uncle! Bear hugs for all! Now if the boy can just find the rest of his family, they can all be together. Already, he has prospects among the Bear people.

But he's promised himself to Embra of the Horse people, if he can ever get back to her (that's the next and final issue). But sure, he'll take the necklace. I'm sure he's not suddenly betrothed to a third girl (no kidding, he gets around).

INTERLUDE TO TALK ABOUT THE ART: I really like what Post was doing on this series, with a kind of rough cartooning painted watercolor-style. And he understands the world he's working in. For example, the action moves back to Anthro's family via a salmon fraying up river, into the hands of either a bear or Anthro's kid brother Lart.

Nature is such an important part of caveman and jungle comics, it has to feature prominently in my opinion. And a sequence is like this isn't just a beautiful transition, but world-building as well. Young Lart will catch the fish, and the bear will come after him, because this is a world where everything is dangerous. Unluckily for the bear, humans are dangerous too.

I must admit I'm a little shocked at how gory this page is, with the bear's death stare lasting into several panels. At least they'll get two kinds of meat tonight, which is great because the family reunion requires a big dinner. As for Anthro, did he invent anything other than sushi (which is admittedly, kind of nature's invention the way he prepares it)?

Yes. Proverbs. Now you know.

So yeah, I quite like this, and at only 7 issues (Showcase+6), it's a quick read. I get that Ice Age comics aren't ever going to be popular, and Anthro was lucky to get as many as he did. When DC would try again, it would be with a new character called Kong the Untamed (we're a ways away), which had a very similar concept and a briefer run. Why not bring back Anthro instead? I'm guessing these are vanity projects, something their creative teams really want to do and that more or less belongs to them. DC may not have wanted to do Anthro without Howie Post (legit), and/or Kong was the brainchild of his own creatives (Jack Oleck and Alfredo Alcala). Personally, I'm a fan.

What's Next? A bad place.