Savage Sword of Conan #132, January 1987




Cover by Joe Jusko. It is inspired by this issue's main story, but with an amusing continuity error that we'll come back to later on. For the nonce, just notice the white-haired lady with a Flock of Seagulls haircut.

The frontispiece is by French artist Henri Bismuth, inked by Walt Simonson. Walt overwhelms Bismuth's Buscema-like style, here, but it's still a nice image -even if I loathe any reference to the Conan movie, which this clearly is.




Table of contents


Master of the broadsword, with Conan in the faraway land of Khitai
The sea king, where Kull indirectly faces an old enemy once again.

...and a few assorted pinups by Chan, Garcia and others.

SSoC #132
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Sennan deplores Conan's rude and ungrateful manners until he makes his identity known. The Cimmerian is very happy to see his old master again, and the two make camp and talk of the old days.



Sennan gives Conan a pair of sais to replace his broken sword, explaining that they'll have to do while he tries to mend his pupil's weapon. As the two men share a meal, Sennan tells of the road he has followed since parting ways with his student. Famous and full of himself, Sennan spent many years traveling around the world and challenging anyone he deemed worthy of his skills. Only one man could resist him: a warrior from Zembabwei, with whom he had to settle for a draw after a bout that lasted a whole day. Ready to do anything to further his skills, Sennan then signed a pact with the dark gods... and he became unbeatable. The second fight with the warrior from Zembabwei ended in seconds, and since then Sennan realized that there is no honour and no fun in being magically better than any contender. The old man goes to sleep, hinting that there is something he must ask Conan to do for him in the near future.

Let's move on to a bucolic scene, the next day, as Snow raven is bathing in a hot spring. Much to her dismay, she is surprised by lord Zembu and a few more of his bodyguards, who are clearly not motivated by the best of intentions. Luckily, there's always a helpful Cimmerian around when you need one and after hearing the girl's cry for help Conan mows down the bad guys, slamming the nobleman's face into a tree for good measure.



Zembu is badly disfigured by his encounter with the tree's rough bark and he calls upon Akema to help him get revenge. The demon agrees to help, and the Khitan is transformed into a hideous mantis-like creature.



Snow Raven tells Conan that she knows where to find the ursine equivalent of the elephant cemetery, the place where old bears go to die. Joining the girl, the Cimmerian manages to get more bear liver, but the pair is then attacked by the transformed lord Zembu. The nobleman may look terrifying, but he's still an idiot and Conan skewers him but good.

Later, Sennan asks Conan to put an end to his days, which have become a burden. Conan initially refuses and begs his master not to impose such a burden on his conscience, but Sennan is adamant. Conan steels himself and prepares to do the deed when Sennan pulls an Obi Wan Kenobi on him and vanishes just as the barbarian's sword strikes. Perhaps the old master, in the end, took pity on his pupil?



Conan and Snow Raven say their goodbyes and the barbarian starts the journey back to Ophir.

---


I liked this story, even if it closer to A Chinese Ghost Story

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Chinese_Ghost_Story

than to a Robert E. Howard tale. A bit of variety is good, provided we don't get into flying cities and winged horses territory!


Notes:

- Sennan will be seen again in SSoC #184, also set in the far east.

- One of the Khitan men at the beginning makes fun of Crom. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that anyone in Khitai would have heard of that obscure western god worshipped by only one people, and one that doesn't tend to travel a lot (Conan being a notable exception).

- Sennan swears by Ishtar. I guess we can make some allowance to the fact he has travelled widely; perhaps he's like Conan and picks up swear words wherever he goes.

- How old is Conan in this story? It's damn hard to say, except for the fact enough time has elapsed between his training with Sennan that he does not recognize the man's face at once. Roy Thomas places it a short while before "the slithering shadow", in which Conan is said to be reaching 35.

- Some swiping once again. Snow Raven imitates Bêlit's moves from CtB #73.

Didn't Conan have a brother who was also trained by Sennan? Did that character ever make another appearance?

There was indeed a character who was hinted to be Conan's brother, and who was a trained sorcerer from Khitai... I can't remember if his teacher had been Sennan, though. (For the life of me, I can't imagine how he could have possibly been Conan's brother. Like much of Larry Yakata's Conan continuity, it's a feature that's pretty hard to reconcile with the established canon. )

Savage sword of Conan #133, February 1987



Cover by Dave Dorman, misattributed to Doug Beekman on the table of contents page. Nice work, in a different style from what we're used to.

Table of contents:

Winter of the wolf, Chuck Dixon's first full Conan story in this mag (but far from the last)
The totem, a King Kull quickie

Plus several pin-ups by Andy Kubert, Rey Garcia and others.

SSoC #133
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The totem
Script by Charles Dixon
Art by Val Semeiks and Pat Redding

Kull, Brule, Alecto and a few others are hunting on the Valusian plains, and after an offhand remark by the king, Brule explains to Alecto what a totem is (both Picts and Atlanteans have one; an animal that a person will not hunt, in exchange from getting some of the animal's qualities. Kull, s totem is naturally the tiger, while Brule's is the panther. Alecto politely remarks that such concepts seem a bit archaic, to which Brule replies that it doesn't make them any less true.



A huge razorback then erupts upon the scene and scatters the riders, throwing Alecto to the ground. In a haze, the Red Slayer has a vision of a tiger and a panther attacking the tusker before he loses consciousness. When he comes to, he asks about the two big cats; he is told that there was neither tiger nor panther upon the scene and that it was Kull and Brule who savec Alecto's life. Chastened, the soldier goes to his two saviours.

SSoC #134
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Cursers of the light
Script by Chuck Dixon
Art by Val Semeiks and Ernie Chan

We open with a humorous sequence in which Conan is hired by a certain innkeeper to rid his establishment of a boisterous, gigantic Northerner (I suppose he's Aesir, Vanir or Hyperborean since he swears by Ymir) who has been pummelling his customers. After some haggling, Conan agrees to intervene in exchange for two bags of coin. Naturally, the giant refuses to listen to reason and an altercation ensues. In the process of getting rid of his opponent, Conan fairly wrecks what's left of the inn, resulting in the innkeeper's refusal to pay him his dues. The ungrateful wretch ends up in a pig trough.

Witnessing the Cimmerian's prowess, a kindly nobleman named Kronar asks if Conan would be interested in a job as a bodyguard for his ward, princess Ilyana of Ravengard. You see, the giant Conan just put out of commission was their erstwhile bodyguard, and the two of them are now left without protection!



Conan accepts the deal and the trio gets on its way. Ilyana is a feisty and beautiful girl who is reluctantly on her way to marry some old and gouty lord; this match was arranged to help her own impoverished home. Since the story is set in the Border Kingdom, it would be very tempting to think that the Ravengard Ilyana hails from is the same as the one we visited in CtB #48-50; however, that particular Ravengard was filthy, filthy rich and ruled by a brigand baron... and Conan makes no reference to having been there. So perhaps it is just a popular name in the Border Kingdom.

Signs of conflict on the horizon send the travellers on a different road than the one they had meant to take. A chance encounter with a family escaping the fighting is another opportunity for some humorous dialogue.



But trouble is never far behind in this mag... As Ilyana is picking berries, she is assaulted by a band of ruffians. She puts up a valiant struggle, but it takes Conan's intervention to save her virtue. The Cimmerian's kills all of the attackers but one, a one-eyed toad who escapes when the girl gets in Conan's way and prevents him from using his bow.

Ilyana, Kronar and Conan seek hospitality in a run-down castle they espy from afar. This is the home of Lord Hathar, a shifty-looking fellow who is very happy to receive the visit of nobility, even if his own manners are decidedly uncouth.



Hathar's castle seems to have its own problems: dead and dismembered bodies are discovered in a room shortly after the visitors' arrival. A member of the castle's staff suggest that this grisly work is the doing of the "cursers of the light", a comment that sends Hathar flying in a rage.

The lord next shows the trio around and points out his father's armour, a great golden thing that has remained on a stand since its owner mysteriously disappeared decades before.

A bit later, over dinner, Hathar explains that the servant's earlier comment refers to a local legend. The "cursers of the light" would be creatures living underground, in the dark, who are said to have horribly murdered the castle's inhabitants a very long time ago. Ilyana grows increasingly uncomfortable in the presence of the overbearing Hathar and suggests that the trio should be on its way, but the lord will have none of it and insists on keeping them as guests overnight.

(I should mention here that we readers learn that the one-eyed rapist seen earlier is in Hathar's employ... Clearly the man is not above hanging out with thugs, thieves and assorted scoundrels).

Conan insists on standing guard at the princess's doorstep overnight, but he is nevertheless taken by surprise when Lord Hathar decides that he's been playing nice long enough. Having learned that Ilyana was on her way to get married, he insists on being given her dowry! Refusing to accept that Ravengard is a poor principality and that Ilyana does not have a dowry, Hathar has poor old Kronar flayed alive by his tanner. Conan is chained in a deep dungeon, right beside the servant who had imprudently mentioned the cursers of the light earlier.

Strange noises coming from a hole in the dungeon walls herald the arrival of the aforementioned cursers, who turn out to be monkey-like creatures with a craving for human flesh. The servant is dragged away through the wall while Conan fights off a few of the creatures, and eventually all the cursers retreat to share in the feast, leaving the Cimmerian for later.

Out from behind the wall next comes another individual, very much like Abbé Faria in the Count of Monte Cristo.



The newcomer is a scrawny and shaggy old man, apparently more than half-crazy. He frees Conan from his ankle iron and leads him through the hole in the wall, crawling through a narrow tunnel.

The old guy calls the cursers of the light his children, children who are more loyal than his actual offspring ever was, and he reassures Conan that as long as they stay together the creatures won't attack. He also explains that he's been haunting the catacombs below the castle for decades and knows all the secret passages that riddle the place.

Conan declines to leave through a tunnel that leads outside and has his new companion bring him to the castle's kitchen via a passage that comes up through its floor (the old man uses it frequently to pilfer the castle's larder). Tiptoeing to Ilyana's room, Conan finds her naked in her bed (hinting at sexual abuse on Hathar's part, although it is not made explicit) but otherwise unharmed and as determined as ever. The pair is spotted before making good its escape, and the two of them mean to sell their lives dearly in what seems to be a hopeless fight.

Luckily, the old man decides right then that it is time to settle a few accounts. He sends his cursers of the light up from their underground domain and, donning his old armour, goes to face his renegade son (for, you will have guessed it, the old man is none other than Hathar's own father; a father who was betrayed by a cowardly and ambitious son and left to die in the tunnels under the castle). The simian creatures wreak havoc, and the old man suggests that Conan and Ilyana should leave as even he would be unable to contain his children when they're in a feeding frenzy. The two readily agree and are on their way, with the girl deciding that she'd rather ride with Conan than go marry some old nobleman.




Notes:

- At the beginning of the story, Conan wears a wolf fur cap and has many wolf pelts on his horse. We can assume that this issue directly follows the preceding one ("Winter of the wolf"), and that more wolves fell to the Cimmerian's arrows.

- If we place this story after the previous issue and before the following one (in which Conan is a scout on the Pitish border of Aquilonia), he'd be 39.