Conan The Slayer #12 - A Preview/Review

Conan has triumphed over the demon giant Khosatral Khel and slain the conniving nobleman who tried to lure Conan to his doom on the cursed isle of Xapur. With the enslaved princess Octavia in tow, Conan seeks the last of his enemies - the teacherous vizier Ghaznavi The Wise! But even with Khosatral Khel dead there are still dangers aplenty in the jungles of Xapur...








Conan The Slayer #12 proves an uneven ending to what started out as the strongest Conan series in years. Most of that is due to the artwork, with Michael Atiyeh's colors being far blander and duller than usual. The chief problem however, is Dheeraj Verma's pencils and inks, which alternate between being too deep or too thin depending on the panel. To give credit where credit is due, the design for Conan here is a good one, depicting him as a warrior of speed and strength, more like a wolf or panther than the bear he is usually depicted as.

Cullen Bunn's story seems strong enough, though it does fly in the face of the end of the last issue, where Conan was ready to quit Xapur. As this chapter opens, Conan has become stupidly focused upon revenge, needlessly endangering the woman he's taken under his protection - something truly out of character for the surprisingly chilvaric Conan. Also, despite his skill as a writer, even Bunn cannot find an angle to make Octavia - widely considered the weakest of Robert E. Howard's female protagonists - into a figure capable of anything but stating the obvious and screaming.

 It remains to be seen what will happen in the next Conan comic or indeed what it will be called. It is worth noting, however, that the next issue would be the 150th monthly Conan comic since Dark Horse took over the license. Hopefully they are planning something big for the occasion.

The Final Analysis: 6 out of 10. It's not bad, but it should have been better.

Conan The Slayer #8 - An Preview/Review

Conan's newly forged alliance between the Kozak tribesmen and the Reavers of the Vilayet Sea has succeeded! Indeed, Conan's leadership has proven as profitable for his roguish allies as it has been aggravating for Jehunigir Agha, keeper of the coastal border of Turan. Lord Agha proves unwilling to wait for his men to deal with the barbarian, however, and sets a trap on a remote island using an enslaved noblewoman named Octavia as bait.










Conan The Slayer #8 seems a fairly straight-forward adaption of the first few chapters of Robert E. Howard's The Devil In Iron at first glance. Cullen Bunn has built on the original story, however, displaying the full action of events that were only referred to in the classic tale. These additions are well within the spirit of Howard's oeuvre and serve only to enhance what was already a ripping yarn. The artwork by Sergio Davila and Michael Atiyeh is of similar high quality, evoking the memory of Frank Frazetta as easily as Bunn resurrects Howard.

Conan The Slayer #8 releases on April 26, 2017. 

Ask for it at your local comic shop or purchase it on Comixology.com.

Conan The Slayer #5 - An Preview/Review

Hunting the treacherous kin-slayer Kyrylo, Conan stands ready to defend Taraslan - rightful ruler of the Kozaki clan that saved his life. But Kyrylo and his demonic patron are not defeated yet. Soon, the Cimmerian and his comrades in arms will find themselves facing undead monsters both physical and ghostly in their quest for justice!









Conan The Slayer is easily the best Conan comic in recent memory. Cullen Bunn's scripts perfectly capture the spirit of the weird horror integral to Robert E. Howard's original stories. The artwork by Sergio Davila proves a worthy match to Cullen's prose. And the color art by Michael Atiyeh seems to both glow and shade the finished art of the spectral monstrosities at the center of this issue's action perfectly.

Conan The Slayer #4 - An Advanced Review

Held hostage by a family of trolls, Conan has escaped a gruesome fate as either the trolls' dinner or the troll mother's lover. Of all those in the Kozaki scouting party who rode with Conan, only the warrior woman Oksana and the hetman's inexperienced son Taraslan have survived along with the Cimmerian. Yet their homecoming may be a tense thing, as the hetman lies dead and his other son - the treacherous Kyrylo - has declared himself the new leader! And when word of Kyrylo's betrayal is not enough to sway the hearts of the Kozaki, Conan will find himself defending the rightful prince with steel and strength!


Conan The Slayer continues to amaze with every passing issue. The artwork by Sergio Fernandez Davila and Michael Atiyeh is some of the best to come out of Dark Horse Comics since they won the Conan license. The story by Cullen Bunn is worthy of Robert E. Howard himself. Even those who don't usually enjoy the sword-and-sorcery genre may find themselves searing by Mitra after reading this issue.

Conan The Slayer #4 releases on October 26, 2016. 

Ask for it at your local comic shop or purchase it on Comixology.com.

Conan The Slayer #3 - An Advanced Review/Preview

Ambushed by Turan soldiers, Conan and his new Kozak allies found themselves betrayed by their own Prince! Yet that concern pales to their current plight, as both groups were assaulted and captured by a band of monsters whose magic beguiles the senses and masks their true form. Now, as Conan's allies consider their traitorous brethren and an unlikely alliance with the Turan soldiers who wish them dead, Conan must contend with an amorous troll witch who has mating on her mind.









This latest Conan series from Dark Horse Comics continues to impress me. Cullen Bunn's stories are worthy of Robert E. Howard himself. Sergio Fernandez Davila's artwork perfectly captures the weird horror and vivid detail necessary to visually portray Hyboria. The color art by Michael Atiyeh proves perfect throughout the book. By Mitra, Conan hasn't been this good in years!

Conan The Slayer #3 releases on September 28, 2016. 

Ask for it at your local comic shop or purchase it on Comixology.com.

Conan The Slayer #2 - An Advanced Review/Preview

Rescued from certain death in the desert by whims of a Kozaki chieftain, Conan now finds himself serving as mentor and bodyguard to the chieftain's chosen heir. This displeases the chieftan's son, who seeks his father's position and is willing to bargain with dark powers and his tribe's enemies to claim it. Can Conan keep his new allies alive when they are blind to the treachery plotted by their own blood?






The second issue of Conan The Slayer continues the fine work lain out in the first issue.  Cullen Bunn's action-packed story is worthy of Robert E. Howard himself. And the artwork by Red Sonja artist Sergio Davila is some of the finest this series has seen in years. It is a must read for all fans of quality comics and the sword-and-sorcery genre.

Conan The Slayer #2 will be available for purachse on August 24th, 2016.    

Conan The Avenger #3 - A Review

Conan The Avenger #3 finds our hero in a conflicted state of mind.  His father taught him to never trust a wizard, yet Conan now finds himself in the employ of one - a so-called witchunter who uses his powers against evil sorcerors.  The witchhunter has promised to rid Conan of the ghost that haunts him in exchange for his help but Conan is uncertain whether he wants to be free of it, since the ghost in question is his beloved Belit and she seems to be protecting him from harm.  These thoughts and an empty purse weigh more heavily on Conan's troubled spirit than current events in the city of Punt, where a panicked populace blames the king's sister for the witchcraft that deforms their children and curses their lands...

This book has many problems but the greatest of these is a severe lack of Conan.  Our favorite barbarian doesn't show up until well past the halfway point of this issue.  Even then his story seems to be an afterthought compared to the politics of Punt and the growing civil unrest.  This presents another problem - why should the reader care about the political struggle when Conan can't be bothered to give a damn?

Fred Van Lente's fails to capture the spirit of the Conan mythos.  I've written before of how Van Lente's scripts thus far have lacked the sense of weird mystery that is a large part of the Howard oeuvre.  That problem is also present here.  For all of Conan's waffling regarding whether or not he can work for a wizard, he seems remarkably at-ease with the idea that the love of his life is haunting him or is unable to rest because of his own conflicted heart.  This seems terribly out of character for Conan, who is far more passionate about those he cares for and is usually depicted as being ill at ease with anything that smacks of the unnatural.

I've also written about their being certain logic problems with the scripts in this series so far.  Previous issues brought us slavers who seemed more interested in stealing from passed-out drunks than selling them for a profit.  As one would expect from a slaver!  This issue sees Conan having the good fortune to find the only two prostitutes in Punt who are willing to indulge in a threesome and let him crash at their place without requiring any payment in advance.

The good news is this is artist Brian Ching's last issue.  The bad news is that he delivers his worst job yet in this issue.  This does not look like professional quality artwork.  This looks like a poor first attempt at a quick-sketch for a storyboard.  Ching has somehow managed the trick of delivering artwork that is indistinct yet still cluttered with line-work!

Only the most devout of Conan fans need bother with this issue.  The rest of you would do better to wait until next month.  I don't hold out much hope that the story will improve, but at least the artwork should be better.

Conan The Avenger #2 - A Review

I savaged the first issue of Conan The Avenger in a review for Kabooooom.com and was honestly ready to call it quits on this book for a time.  The artwork was terrible in several respects.  The dialogue was decent, though the actual story of the book was rife with plot holes.  About the only thing the book had going for it was that writer Fred Van Lente had clearly done his homework researching Robert E. Howard's Hyboria and had chosen a solid foundation on which to build a unique story.


Sadly, this second issue has done little to justify what little hope I had that things might improve.  If anything, the artwork has become even worse.  Brian Ching manages the impossible, creating figures that are vaguely defined yet somehow rendered with overly complex line-work.  You can see some attempt at detailing but you can't see any of the details!  Colorist Michael Atiyeh also does this book a disservice by painting everything with a washed-out palette that holds little aesthetic appeal.


Astonishingly, it was the story that vexed me most this time around - specifically the revelation that the ghost of Belit is now haunting Conan and frequently jumping in to aid him in battle.  While this is somewhat more welcome than Brian Wood's treatment of Belit in his adaptation of Queen of The Black Coast, it almost seems that Van Lente is over-correcting in trying to right Wood's mistake.

Wood depicted Belit's famous manifestation as a protective spirit as a hallucination on Conan's part.  By contrast, Van Lente eliminates all mystery regarding Belit's appearance, depicting her as a ghost who cannot rest until Conan finds peace with her death.  Neither of these ideas seem true to the Howard cannon, which deliberately kept the details of any sort of life after death vague excepting those forms of undeath that resulted in monsters being created, such as the Lost Women or the victims of The Pool Of The Black One.

Regardless, this is the worst Conan story since his return to comics under Dark Horse's aegis.  I'll likely keep reading this book for the sake of keeping my collection complete and warning you good people away.  But there's no reason for casual Conan fans to waste their time on this book.