Conan the Barbarian #175 – “The Scarlet Personage” – Jim Owsley/John Buscema/Ernie Chan
This one continues from last issue, with Conan, Tetra, and Delmurio still on their quest for treasure. But the civil war in Zingara has made people desperate and they’re accosted by some fishermen who have turned to banditry now that trade has dried up. Conan and company (including Tetra, who starts out disguised as an old hag) make short work of the bandits and continue on to Cascan, a town built into the banks of the Thunder River. They ask around Cascan for a boat to take them downriver to Argos, but nobody is willing to make the journey since the last boat that tried was
attacked and everyone on board vanished. Tetra cuts off the hand of a guy who tries to put the moves on her and Conan decides to forget about diplomacy, but before another fight breaks out, a blind man enters the tavern and offers to take them down the river. Turns out the blind man (Bracca) was the one whose boat was attacked and its passengers disappeared. The villagers don’t like Bracca anyway, since they believe he may be a scout from the east, but he needs money and is willing to chance the river voyage again. They run into a fog bank and Conan sees the boat is going under a demonic face carved into the cliffs 
above the river, almost like they were sailing into its open mouth. Conan suddenly finds himself in Cimmeria, surrounded by the shades of the missing passengers. They warn him that the Scarlet Personage (some kind of demon) will come to fight him and claim his soul. They urge him to hide but naturally Conan refuses and calls out a challenge to the demon. It arrives and they fight, with Conan doing pretty well for himself. But he is only mortal after all and the demon breaks his sword and tries to take his soul. Conan resists, pulling the mask off the demon’s head and seeing its nightmarish visage. Instead of sapping his will, the sight of the demon’s true face makes Conan struggle harder, which actually saps the demon’s strength since it can’t feed on his fear. The demon lets him go and stumbles off to shelter, but Conan isn’t willing to let
it go. He follows and kills the demon and when he touches its ring, he finds himself back on the boat on the river. Bracca says Conan was having a dream, but Conan realizes the masked blind man is really the demon and pushes it overboard. That agitates the waters and he wakes Tetra and Delmurio to let them know they’re in for a rough trip. This is a pretty good issue that has Conan dealing with another supernatural threat. I’m glad to see Ernie Chan back on inking duties; his work has much more detail than most other inkers, although apparently John Buscema wasn’t really a fan.
Conan the Barbarian #176 – “Argos Rain” – Jim Owsley/John Buscema/Bob Camp
This one starts in Argos, with a guy named Feducio preaching a sermon about the holiness of Mitra outside a tavern where a rather spectacular brawl is taking place. Feducio goes on and on but the gist of it is that a statue of Mitra is coming to Argos on the Black Ship and they need to raise funds to pay for it. Feducio sends a bunch of believers into the tavern to sell flowers but we soon learn he’s not so holy as he appears. He’s basically a con man and when he spots Delmurio and Conan outside the tavern and learns they want to hire the Black Ship, he figures
they must either have a lot of gold or know where to find some. Turns out Tetra is the one kicking ass in the tavern—Conan’s created a bit of a monster by training her to fight—and when Feducio tries to interest Conan in renting a ship from him, Conan tells him to get lost. (It doesn’t help that Feducio is a condescending asshole, who assumes Conan is an idiot.) Unfortunately, it rains for days, delaying the arrival of the Black Ship, so Conan decides to see about hiring Feducio’s vessel. He finds it manned by converts to Feducio’s preaching, basically just a form of brainwashing. When Conan spots an old friend 
(Redondo, who appeared in one of the annuals), he decides to liberate him from Feducio’s grasp. Redondo resists (apparently Feducio’s line of bullshit is very convincing), so Conan decks him and wastes a bunch of Feducio’s guards, leaving Feducio pinned to the mast with a dagger. The rain continues, washing away half the city, while Conan keeps Redondo tied up in their inn room to wait for the spell on him to end. But Redondo insists he’s not under a spell, he’s just found inner peace. Meanwhile, Feducio has been spreading the word that Conan is a rain demon and is the cause of the unending rain. Redondo tries to escape and Tetra is ready to kill him, but Delmurio stops her. Redondo gets away and heads for the docks, where Feducio is preaching against not
only Conan, but Tetra and Delmurio as well. Redondo’s arrival threatens to screw up Feducio’s bullshit story, so he has one of his men kill Redondo. That pisses Conan off enough for him to waste Feducio and his chief henchman in front of their followers. That gets Conan and company chased by the mob into a dead end, but the rain suddenly stops and the Black Ship appears carrying the statue of Mitra. The fickle crowd forgets about Conan (and Feducio) and runs to worship the statue, leaving Conan and friends bemused. Elsewhere, we see the monster that used to be Keiv is still tracking Conan, planning to find him in Messantia. This is another good issue, with Owsley taking Conan and company on a tour of the Hyborean lands. The commentary on false prophets and the gullibility (and fickleness) of people is very apt.