Roy is also way too busy for another book project. He's had to reduce Alter Ego to 7 issues this year instead of the usual 8 so he can get the Stan Lee book out, and then the 2 1940s books he's doing with Kurt, and the Taschen and PS books he consults on, and the Spider-Man newspaper strip. Besides, you've already written the book. Your reviews in this thread could be published as is. Some anecdotes from Roy would be icing on the cake.

SSoC #96
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The ape-bat of Marmet tarn!
Script by Michael Fleisher
Artwork by John Buscema and Rudy Nebres

I learned a new word, thanks to this issue: "tarn", which is a mountain lake or pool. That's not quite how it's shown in this issue, where it looks like a large lake far away from any mountain, but I'm still grateful for the addition to my vocabulary. The artwork is very nice; Nebres is an inker I was really fond of in the 80s when it came to fantasy stories. (Remember his John Carter or Weirdworld work?) I'm sure Buscema would have said his inking ill-served his pencils, but in my opinion the combination gives something beautiful.

This story packs a particularly strong emotional punch with its dramatic denouement. Good job on Fleisher's part! Its female protagonist may have the look of a generic Hyborian age woman, but she shows a personality more original than what we're used to in these pages.

The tale is set right after SSoC#90, "Devourer of souls", the story that introduced the otherworldly Wrarrl, that ebon-clad inhuman giant who turns men's souls into worms and eats them. We thought he had been slain at the end of issue 90, but here we learn how he escaped that final fate. (Can't keep a good villain down in comics!)

Conan has apparently given up leading mercenary armies for the time being, and as the story opens he enters a very quiet Corinthian town. As he waters his hard-working mare, the Cimmerian is abruptly attacked by a giant winged ape equipped with fangs a foot long!



Managing to cause the beast to retreat thanks to a vigorous defense, the barbarian collapses, exhausted. The local townsfolk eventually come out of hiding and explain that the flying creature has been preying on them for a long while, slaying people to assuage its unholy appetite. Since the Cimmerian managed to hold his own against it, they hire him to hunt it down.

Meanwhile, Wrarrl the devourer reappears on our plane of existence. Instead of dying in a flash of light, as we thought had happened at the end of SSoC#90, the demon had briefly transferred himself to a parallel world before returning to our own, severely weakened. Quickly recovering by turning anyone he encounters into soul worms and consuming them, Wrarrl sets on a new mission.



As you may recall, his goal last time had been to use a certain magical gem (in collaboration with a wizard) to open a gateway between his world and ours, heralding an otherdimensional invasion. The problem last time was that the door could only be opened every ten years, and that the jewel was necessary to do so; but at the end of SSoC#90, Conan had smashed the magical gem.

No worry! Apparently there's a spare gem in a cavern not too far away from where the events of SSoC#90 occurred; and from what we'll learn later on, the "once every ten years" limitation seemingly no longer applies. (Readers may wonder why, if there was a spare jewel so close at hand, Wrarrl and the wizard bent themselves out of shape when they lost the first one in issue #90. Perhaps they were just extremely annoyed to see their plan foiled, and didn't want any delay).

Using the second magical jewel, Wrarrl opens the door between worlds and allows a handful of his brethren through. Shall we be forgiven for not being as impressed by these lumpy-looking guys dressed like serfs as we were by the dragon-helmeted and armoured Wrarrl? There's no mistaking who's the boss in that crowd.

Meanwhile, Conan is "tracking" the flying ape. This is not the first time in recent months that people are "tracking" flying creatures. How the hell do they do it, I have no idea. Getting near a vast lake, the barbarian must take care of the unavoidable "monster of the month" episode; this time, a giant mantis is intent on making its repast of a lovely young woman.



Conan decapitates the arthropod, which doesn't appear to be out of place in the Corinthian landscape; the Cimmerian refers to the beast as "a giant cliff mantis" as he would have said "an Aquilonian boar" or "a Shemite donkey". In the past, I've expressed my dislike of these fantastic creatures that are introduced willy-nilly as if it was perfectly natural to encounter giant insects in Conan's world.

Conan leaves some instructions to Lia, and goes to face his demonic adversary. Wrarrl's sword is still filled with eldritch energy that shocks the Cimmerian again and again, but when the devourer zaps Conan to turn his soul into a worm... nothing happens! Taken aback, Wrarrl says that it's as if the Cimmerian had no soul, something Conan confirms as he runs his sword through his surprised opponent. Lia, using the magical grimoire, had indeed temporarily removed Conan's soul from his body!



Wrarrl falls dead, but his brethren gang up against Conan. His desperate defense wouldn't have saved him due to the numbers he faces, but then he receives help from an unexpected source: the drowned sailors walk out of the lake and tear the invaders to pieces! Conan collapses, exhausted, and Lia explains that she would have done anything to save his life, including striking a bargain with the dead sailors... She used the grimoire to call them and strike a bargain: she agreed to gop back with them to their lonely and watery grave. Conan tries to protest but is knocked out by one of the ghosts; when he comes to, Lia is taken below the lake, victim of her own courage and passion.



A superb ending to a very good tale.




Notes:

- Conan is about 27 at the time.

- The winged ape he faced here must have reminded him of the one who killed Bêlit, something like a year before.

- Likewise, it's not the first time Conan has sex with his diving partner right after facing an underwater monster: the same scene occurred in SSoC#37

- Wrarrl appears to be dead at the end of this issue, but he'll be back in SSoC#109.

That looks much more impressive than some of the other Kwapisz samples I've seen online. I'll feel more encouraged to give some of the Kwapisz SSoCs a try if this is indicative of the bulk of his Conan work. These artist portfolios seem to have been one of the strong points of the later SSoC (i.e. after I stopped reading the series), based on this and the Pablo Marcos ones posted earlier.

I like Jusko's covers much of the time, though even at its best it(edit: Jusko's style, that is)'s a bit too slick and shiny to ever be a favourite with me, but his cover to SSoC #96 looks pretty terrible, to my eyes. One of the worst I've ever seen from him.

Some of the dialogue in the main story sounds hilarious: "The pincers! The pincers!" Somehow that doesn't strike me as a likely choice of words for the victim in that predicament! And yes, the giant Preying Mantis and Conan's casual reference to its presence do seem entirely misplaced in REH's Hyperborean world.

(edit:) forgot to add that I'm fully in agreement with benday-dot and Rob Allen that RR'S reviews in this thread would make an excellent book-form SSoC Companion, with minimal editing.

That is true of several examples of dialogue in the Fleisher issues of SSoC. Prepare for downright hilarious statements in the next issue (unfortunately involuntary ones). Not that Fleisher's dialogues are always bad; in fact, quite often, I admire the humour he manages to slip in. But very often, characters do talk like characters in a story and not like real people.

I hope I can change your mind about Kwapisz in future issues; I wasn't overly fond of his style at first, apart from his gorgeous backgrounds, but he grew to be a favorite. His work ethics in particular seemed to have been impeccable, as he always provided a TON of art in his stories - a sharp contrast with later artists in the 90s, who would be content to draw a close-up of a hero bouncing in the air, gritting their teeth, with no background (or ankles) to speak of.

Sword and sorcery never really seemed to click with Fleisher. His run on The Warlord never really gelled either. While there are decent stories in the run, nothing approached the brilliance of Mike Grell.