The artwork by Riccardo Burchielli has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Whereas in previous months the pencils were competent, Burchielli's figures this month are so misshapen and over-detailed as to defy all the laws of basic aesthetics. His hyenas look less like slathering hell-hounds and more like a watercolor of a dog where the colors ran and mixed together into a brown misshaped mess.
Bad as the artwork is, I still find it preferable to the story. I said several months ago that Brian Wood's scripts butchered the original Howard text like Conan himself slashing through a horde of Stygians. I was too kind, for the term butchery implies some level of skill and precision.
What Brian Wood has done here is hack work. For he is a hack of the highest order. A butcher would have cut apart Howard's original text willy-nilly. Wood has completely missed the point of the story, removing the teeth and claws from one of Howard's most powerful and memorable heroines! No more does Belit defy death itself to save her beloved with a spectral attack on the same beast that killed her.. Now she just appears before Conan - a vision of loveliness to inspire him, with no sword in hand nor fight in her eyes.
This comic sucks. It holds no value save offering further proof of Brain Wood's misogyny. Please read the original story or Roy Thomas' much better comic book adaptation. Avoid this, whatever you do!
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