Comics Review: Wonder Woman, X-Men, and Conan Part 2

Part 1

Conan the Barbarian Epic Collection Vol. 3, The Curse of the Golden Skull

I saw this at Zia Comics the last time I was there and balked at the $40 price tag.  After my last disappointing trip for comics, I decided I wouldn’t screw around next time and I’d just buy what I really wanted.  So, I basically went into the store for this.

 

I have some relationship with Conan.  I had a couple of random issues that I liked as a kid, before getting a subscription in the 80’s, which I enjoyed.  I later got a couple of large black and white reprint volumes of the Savage Sword of Conan magazine.  Thrillingly, two issues featured spectacular bare-breasted women.  (Apparently, somebody caught on after that and told them to stop.  Curses!)  I’ve also read some of the REH stories (which are in public domain) and seen the movies (even the most recent one).   

This volume features 16 issues in full color, mostly written by Roy Thomas and drawn by John Buscema.  There is continuity between the stories.  Conan is nominally working for a Turanian king, though mostly really for himself.  Late in the book, Conan wearies of the courtly intrigues and leaves.  (Would that we could all do that at our jobs.)  Some of the stories are REH adaptions, there’s a couple of fantasy stories repurposed as Conan stories, and the rest are originals.  

 

 

The steely-eyed New Mexican keyboard warrior took up his favored instrument of literary criticism.  The writer and the words were one as he swung into battle.  He knew that one misstep on the Internet could be his last, but he only heard the song of trolling in his heart.

 

I hope you like breathless descriptive captions in your comics, because you’re GD gonna get them in this volume.  Unlike a modern comic, which takes five minutes to read, you will have to chew through each page of these text-heavy comics—the way God intended.  The stories all kind of ring familiar, though.  You can freely mix the elements of women, treasure, wizards, lost cities, monsters, rivals, random warriors, sidekicks, and bandits and come up with a plot.        

  

Sometimes the women are victims and Conan’s protecting them.  Other times, they’re bad, or goddesses in disguise, or man-eating aliens.  Doesn’t matter, he doesn’t get any of them in the end, even the ones he rides off with at the end of some of the stories.  I must complain here.  Most of the covers feature a fainting damsel.  #35 does, but there were no women in that issue.  That was false advertising.   

He also doesn’t get rich here, even when confronted with a multitude of treasures.  This is a more experienced Conan.  He’s learned better than to try and make off with cursed jewels.  So, he doesn’t get rich or the girl in these stories, but things turn around for him later in life.

 

The centerpiece story was a four-part trip to Khitai.  It was a fantasy story adapted for Conan.  In this, he’s tasked to scout a city for future invasion.  It goes poorly and he’s even badly cheated in the end.  However, my favorite story was by guest artist, Neal Adams (pictured above), issue #37.  It’s a lively mad wizard/monster/rescue the princess tale.   

 

Overall, it was a bit too much of the same thing for each issue.  It might have been the desert setting for most of the stories that made it feel a bit less exotic.  There wasn’t quite enough variety in the types of stories.  I’d like to think Conan is a bit more than a one-dimensional character, though he is mostly shirtless and wearing kind of a loincloth wherever he is, no matter how out-of-place or inappropriate the wardrobe.  I recommend the character of Conan, but not so much this volume.          

 

I don’t understand where I went wrong on this trip to buy comics.  The other times, I knew I was taking a risk with some new weird comic or even a new mainstream comic (and I’ve done this over-and-over again and keep getting disappointed), but I thought surely the older comics I was getting this time would work out.  At least the Conan would have to be entertaining, right? 

 

I’d swear off buying more comics at this point, except I actually have an Archie trade coming in the mail.  (It should look good with some classic material.)  I keep considering getting those $100 Kull and Conan hardbacks at Zia Comics, but this trade really makes me rethink that.  (Kull is a somewhat more interesting character than Conan, frankly.)  It’s almost not the money spent on the comics; it’s being disappointed by them that’s hurts more.  I will have to be more circumspect about what I buy in the future.  I’m tired of writing bad reviews.