Conan Reviews: Conan the Barbarian 7, Conan the Barbarian 8

Conan the Barbarian #7 – “The Lurker Within” – Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor Smith/Dan Adkins, Sal Buscema

This one starts with Conan on the Road of Kings outside Numalia, second-largest city in Nemedia. He saves a high-born lady (Aztrias) from wolves and agrees to drive her chariot to the city (since he probably would’ve been refused entry otherwise). Inside the teeming city, Conan runs the chariot into another, driven by Kallian, owner of the Hall of Relics. A guard captain (Dionus) intervenes and Conan is ready to fight until Aztrias smooths things over. (She’s the governor’s niece, so the other two defer to her.) Aztrias tells Conan that she has some heavy gambling debts and needs money quickly. She mentions a great golden bowl that was sent from some Stygian priests as a gift for Karanthes, a priest of Ibis. The bowl lies in the Hall of Relics and Kallian is burning with curiosity to know what’s in it, but Aztrias wants the contents for herself to clear her debts. She asks Conan to break into the Hall of Relics and steal the bowl’s contents and he agrees. He gets in easily, but finds Kallian dead beside the empty bowl. Conan is discovered by Arus (Kallian’s nightwatchman), who assumes Conan killed Kallian and calls the city guard. The chief inquisitor (Demetrio) shows up with Dionus, who still bears a grudge against Conan from their altercation earlier that day. Demetrio is more open-minded and sends Arus to look for any other intruders while he questions Conan. At first Conan lies, but ends up telling Demetrio the truth about why he’s there. That confuses Demetrio, since Stygians worship the evil god Set, an enemy of Ibis, so they’d hardly be sending a gift to a priest of Ibis. Before they can sort things out, Aztrias shows up. But instead of backing up Conan’s story, she hints that he’s guilty which pisses him off. Arus’s screams interrupt them and he staggers into the room before keeling over dead. Demetrio leads the party into the next room, where they’re attacked by a serpent with the head of a man which grabs Aztrias in its deadly coils. Most of the guards flee in terror, but Demetrio and Conan stay to fight the man-serpent. Demetrio is crushed by the coils and Conan has to fight desperately to avoid the same fate. He finally kills the beast, but everyone else is dead. Conan realizes the man-serpent was hidden in the bowl as a deadly trap for the priest of Ibis. Conan looks into the empty bowl and sees the face of Thoth-Amon, high priest of Set, who must’ve sent the man-serpent. Conan is so freaked out he leaves the Hall and drives a chariot out of the city as fast as he can. This story was based on an unpublished Conan tale by Robert E. Howard called “The God in the Bowl”. Roy and Barry made a few changes, notably adding a lot more action to the original story, which was apparently rather dialogue-heavy. They also changed Aztrias from a man to a woman, since every Conan story needs at least one beautiful woman in it.

Conan the Barbarian #8 – “The Keepers of the Crypt” – Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor Smith/Tom Sutton, Tom Palmer

This one starts in Corinthia, with Conan being tracked by soldiers led by a captain named Burgun. It seems the Nemedians have been accusing Conan of looting the Hall of Relics and want their Corinthian allies to bring him in. Conan gets tired of being followed and dumps a rockslide on his pursuers, but Burgun escapes unscathed. As they face off, Burgun recognizes Conan as someone he saw a couple of years ago at the Battle of Venarium. (Burgun is a Gunderman, but fought at Venarium as a mercenary for Aquilonia.) Conan defeats Burgun and heads east, stumbling upon a deserted city in the middle of nowhere. Searching for water, he runs into a dragon … well, Conan calls it a dragon, but it’s basically a giant gila monster. After a tough fight, he kills the beast and heads for the temple in the middle of the city, his mind now on plunder as well as water. Burgun catches up to him and they agree to explore the temple together. (Since Burgun saw the dragon Conan killed, he’s wary of pissing the barbarian off.) They find a room crammed with treasure in the temple and both of them lay claim to a jewelled jade serpent carving. They dice for it and Conan wins, taking the serpent and leaving Burgun to fill his pockets with other riches. But the temple guardians—some undead mummies—don’t like them looting and attack. Conan and Burgun fight back and manage to get away, pursued by the skeletal guards. The mummies crumble to dust in the sunlight, but an earthquake shakes the city to its foundations. Conan makes it through the devastation, but there’s no sign of Burgun. Conan heads to the nearest village, where he runs into Jenna (from issue 6). He forgives her for stealing his gold (not much choice, since she’s spent it all to buy a tavern) but rather stupidly mentions that he has even more riches now. But when he tries to show her the gems he took from the jade serpent, the bag contains only dust. And when he pulls out the bag containing the jade carving, it moves. Before Conan can ponder this, a magistrate shows up with some guards to arrest him and ship him back to Nemedia. The magistrate sees the sack and opens it looking for stolen booty, but is bitten by a viper. Conan wonders momentarily how the jade snake could have come alive, but doesn’t waste time worrying about it. He and Jenna take off while Jenna’s patrons block the guards from chasing them. This story was based on a Robert E. Howard story synopsis; L. Sprague De Camp wrote a Conan based on that synopsis (“The Hall of the Dead”), but Marvel didn’t have the rights to use it so Roy came up with his own story based on Howard’s original outline. Jenna’s return gives the story some nice continuity (and despite how it looked when the city collapsed, we’ll be seeing Burgun again too).