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Post by foxley on Sept 7, 2015 16:58:16 GMT -5
In an issue of the 1980s series of Red Sonja, there is a story where a teenaged Valeria encounters Red Sonja and is clearly very impressed by the red-headed Hyrkanian. The implication is that she chooses to model herself on Sonja to some degree, which would neatly explain the similarity of their personalities and temperaments.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 8, 2015 12:48:21 GMT -5
In an issue of the 1980s series of Red Sonja, there is a story where a teenaged Valeria encounters Red Sonja and is clearly very impressed by the red-headed Hyrkanian. The implication is that she chooses to model herself on Sonja to some degree, which would neatly explain the similarity of their personalities and temperaments. Quite correct, that's the two-issue miniseries I referred to up there and in this post; it was a direct sequel to Red's appearance in the second Conan Super Special, in which she destroys the statue of her patron goddess and turns her back on her. Val was prepubescent at the time, though. Strangely enough, when Valeria and Sonja met again as adults in SSoC, no mention was made of them having ever met before. They even seemed to despise each other. Such is continuity in the Roy Thomas-less Conan mags! |
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Post by foxley on Sept 9, 2015 4:55:40 GMT -5
In an issue of the 1980s series of Red Sonja, there is a story where a teenaged Valeria encounters Red Sonja and is clearly very impressed by the red-headed Hyrkanian. The implication is that she chooses to model herself on Sonja to some degree, which would neatly explain the similarity of their personalities and temperaments. Quite correct, that's the two-issue miniseries I referred to up there and in this post; it was a direct sequel to Red's appearance in the second Conan Super Special, in which she destroys the statue of her patron goddess and turns her back on her. Val was prepubescent at the time, though. Strangely enough, when Valeria and Sonja met again as adults in SSoC, no mention was made of them having ever met before. They even seemed to despise each other. Such is continuity in the Roy Thomas-less Conan mags! Thanks for the clarification. I'd forgotten about the earlier post.  Maybe there is untold story of a subsequent meeting between Red Sonja and Valeria where they had a falling out that would explain their later antipathy. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 9, 2015 15:55:50 GMT -5
The savage sword of Conan #139, August 1987  Cover by Joe Jusko. Don’t mind what seem to be brown eyes on Conan: it’s all a trick of shadow. They’re actually blue. Table of contents The garden of blood, an adventure on the high seas The caravan, a tale about Kull, taxes and banditry Pin-ups by Chan and Eaglesham.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 9, 2015 16:06:34 GMT -5
The garden of bloodScript by Chuck Dixon Art by Gary Kwapisz and Ernie Chan When famous characters are the subject of pastiches and derived material, it is not infrequent that their legend will be enriched by some additions that feel so right, so fitting, that one may wonder how they are not part of the original material. Sherlock Holmes may never have said “elementary, my dear Watson”, but it is a phrase now firmly attached to the character. Weissmuller's yodelling is a far cry from whatever a bull ape’s roaring would sound like, but really… it is the ONLY Tarzan cry that we would recognize as being the real one. In this issue, Chuck Dixon introduces such an addition to the Conan mythos, an addition that I wish had taken root. It is Conan's new war cry, “ Crom, count the dead!” (Unless I missed something in my recent reviews, this is the first issue in which we see the phrase… I hope I’m not mistaken). “Crom, count the dead!” is just so excellent. Much better than the “Ay-haaa” battle cry of the Snowhawk tribe that we will see later on. It is succinct, grim, and very much in accordance with the Cimmerians’ views on life and death: their god will not help them and it’s better not to draw his attention onto them, but at the same time the grim warrior god might be impressed by a high casualty count. It’s like saying “see, Crom? I don’t need your help to pile up a mountain of corpses at my feet! But feel free to be impressed by my prowess”. I really like it!  The story follows last month’s crossing of the Pictish wilderness by Conan and Valeria (even though Conan doing such a crossing in the opening pages of The Black Stranger was supposed to be a first by any person who wasn’t a Pict). The pair reaches the coast where Valeria’s ship had been waiting for her. Valeria proves to be a good judge of her crew’s loyalty, as she fully expects it to have mutineered in her absence. As she dives from a high cliff and swims to her boat, Conan remains behind, his bow at hand. Sure enough, when Valeria is hauled aboard, an old and loyal sailor named Shad is a little embarrassed, not knowing how to give her the bad news. A bunch of sailors claiming to speak for the rest of the crew made its bid for leadership while she was gone, and now threatens Val with rape and murder. The mutineers’ leader gets a swift kick to the gonads for his trouble, but Valeria is still attached to the main mast. That’s when Conan starts shooting arrows, killing two pf the pirates and putting a swift end to the unpleasntness. As Valeria observes when Conan joins her on the Sea Fox, “like any mutniy, it collapsed with the slightest nudge”. The Cimmerian is happy to find himself at sea again and almost cracks a smile when he smells the salty air. He and Valeria are enjoying each other’s company in an intimate setting when the Sea Fox is abruptly intercepted by “an Aquilonian warship”. Now that is pretty surprising. Yes, Aquilonia is the greatest military power of the western part of the continent… but it’s also very landlocked. This is like hearing about a Mongolian battleship or a Swiss aircraft carrier, or even a Nemedian Navy! A Nemedian navy! Ha! Ha! Ha… er… actually, we will meet a Nemedian navy later on. In any case… The Aquilonians are chasing the Sea Fox to punish it for its infamous deeds or piracy (a mission I’d have thought better suited for Argos, Zingara or Stygia, countries with an actual sea trade). A sea battle leads to the Aquilonians retreating after their ship is set aflame by oil bags thrown by the Sea Fox's catapults. After this uplifting victory, the Sea Fox reaches a strange island where no island should be.  Its crew goes ashore to pick fresh fruit and water, but the fruit proves very toxic and a sailor collapses after tasting some, complaining that his innards are on fire. The plant life on the island is soft and squishy, and filled with a milky substance. Also odd, the absence of animals of any kind. The island is completely silent.  Conan and Valeria get away in the bush to have sex (again!!!) and during their absence from the beachside camp its lone sentry is enticed away by a silent and naked woman who leads him on a merry chase. The hot-blooded sailor should have stayed where he was, for the girl leads him to a large assembly of her brethren, who take him to a large tree-like structure from which emerge man-sized pods.  (Anyone having seen Invasion of the body snatchers knows that this must mean very bad news). The sentry is quickly entwined in the thing’s barbed tendrils, and he screams in pain when a certain blossom shaped like the Aliens’ tongue pierces his skull. Most of the crew of the Sea Fox returns to the ship, leaving only two men to wait for the wandering sentry. When he finally shows up, he is no longer himself; he's in his birthday suit and his fingers now end with nasty looking suckers. He kills his two erstwhile comrades, and then he and hundreds more naked bodies leave the island in direction of the ship. Climbing aborad, the creatures start killing pirates. Conan and Valeria (who were going at it AGAIN, the feisty little bunnies) join the fray and quickly realize that they are going to be overwhelmed by the plant zombies and by the huge tendrils that suddenly grow from below the sea.  Conan pellets the plant with whatever oil-containing bags are still found on the ship and sets the monster on fire. The zombies don’t all die at once as they tended to do in similar circumstances in other stories, and so Conan and Valeria find themselves fighting an entire army of monsters as their ship goes up in smoke! And then as if it wasn’t enough, the Aquilonian ship shows up again, ready to finish the earlier skirmish! It rams the burning Sea Fox, and Conan sees that their only chance of avoiding a dire fate is to take over the Aquilonian ship and escape aboard it!  The newly arrived ship’s slaves are freed from their chains, helping the pirates in their fight. With such help, the pirates defeat the Aquilonians and get the ship moving away from the burning and sinking hulk of the Sea Fox… just in time for the entire island to explode, the flaming oil perhaps having reached its centre.  (I suppose the island floated thanks to some sort of inflammable gas, maybe methane). As the island monster dies, so do the naked zombies. The tale ends with the surviving Aquilonians now chained to the oars of their own ship, and a smiling Shad saying of this new craft: “it shows signs of being maintained by slaves rather than freemen. With some work we can turn that around. But it will do… it will do”. For Conan, Robert E. Howard and Jack Sparrow, as well as Dixon, it seems that the sea is all about freedom. Something I can’t but agree with!  Notes: - As noted above, this is the first time Conan says “Crom, count the dead”. - Conan is still 39. - The Aquilonian captain looked like a Shemite or even a Turanian. I suppose it’s entriely possible Aquilonia would outsource its navy to some city on the Shemitish coast. - Aquilonia is once again referred to as an empire while it is a kingdom. - Valeria is far more efficient than in the previous issue, and her cheerful recklessness in the face of danger is a lot of fun!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 9, 2015 16:07:25 GMT -5
SSoC #139 ------------- The caravanscript by Chuck Dixon Art by Fraja Bator (the credits page also adds Ken Penders on the art, perhaps as inker?) An elderly caravan leader is teaching his son the fine art of smuggling as he leads his animals on a trail that allows him to circumvent Valusia’s border posts and the high taxes that they impose. The caravn is attacked by bandits, who demand half of what the caravan carries for the right of passage. Just then King Kull and some soldiers show up and disperse the bandits. Kull explains how he managed to arrive in the nick of time: “I was once a bandit in these very hills,old one. I know everywhere a snake might lie in ambush and everywhere a wolf might choose as a lair…and everywhere an old buzzard might travel to avoir paying his tariff”. The old man might agree that Kull did save his life, but he still tells his son that it’s just a crown and an army that make Kull just in his banditry.  |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 12, 2015 10:01:11 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #140, September 1987  Cover by Joe Jusko, dramatizing a scene from the main story (the girl with the medallion is actually very nice). Table of contentsThe girl of the haunted wood, a ghost story starring Conan Nightmare, in which an old enemy returns to haunt King Kull Plus pin-ups by Docherty and Salmons.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 12, 2015 10:06:12 GMT -5
SSoC #140 ------------- The girl of the haunted woodScript by Chuck Dixon Art by Gary Kwapisz and Ernie Chan This is a haunting (pun unintended) and beautiful story, one that definitely shows that Dixon is not a one-note writer. It conveys an authentic sadness that even a righteous vengeance cannot relieve. When the bad guys get their comeuppance we do not feel triumph, but melancholy. A caption box makes clear that this story is set after Conan's return to the sea with Valeria depicted in the two previous issues. Having tired of Valeria, the Cimmerian had her ship drop him off in the Vanir sea town of Lireigh, far from the Aquilonian western border where he should be for continuity's sake. (There was a Lireigh in Vanaheim in a flashback tale published in Conan the barbarian #69, but that particular Lireigh was a village chief, not a town). Conan travels south toward the civilized nations, and his road should take him through Cimmeria eventually. I guess he'll make it back to Aquilonia in time for Beyond the Black River (adapted in SSoC #26-27). As our story opens, Conan warms himself by his campfire when a band of Vanirmen show up. (Like all the Vanir and Aesgaardians from this run of issues, they're all resolutely black-haired and of rather short stature. They really should be tall and fair or red-headed). The newcomers reassure Conan: they have money aplenty and aren't trying to rob him; they just want to warm themselves by the fire too. Conan remarks that they're pretty shabbily dressed for such wealthy individuals, and it becomes clear that they're robbers who just pilfered a rich merchant's treasury. Said merchant has sent hired thugs to track down the culprits and these guys abruptly show up, shooting arrows. In the melee that follows, Conan doesn't have a chance to explain that he's not a member of the thieves' gang and he has to run for dear life, an arrow through the shoulder. Escaping his pursuers, the Cimmerian rests in the ruins of a small cottage. He pulls out the shaft from his body and bandages the wound as best he could, but still collapses in a feverish sleep.  His dreams take him to a sunny valley where he is greeted by a gentle young girl wearing a pentagram-shaped medallion. She explains that the Cimmerian is now in a place between life and death, and she points to a certain "city of light" that shimmers just beyond the horizon.  She also explains that she cannot yet go to the city; the trauma of her brutal murder keeps her in this in-between world and will do so until her murderer has been punished. The twilight world is not without its own dangers and the girl runs away as dark clouds cover the skies and a couple of young children (with a dog) show up. These transform into demonic creatures that try to kill Conan, who wakes up after fighting them for a while. Shaken by the dream, the Cimmerian finds that his fever has abated. Exploring the ruins of the cottage, he finds the desiccated body of the girl he saw in his dream, missing her medallion.  A violent vision then reveals her terrible end: she was raped and slain by a man whose face Conan clearly sees. Burying her under a cairn, the Cimmerian then resumes his journey, haunted by what he's seen. Vanaheim is apparently a more organized country than I gave it credit for, for Conan next finds a fairly large city besieged by an army entrenched in its own fortifications. I suppose that it's consistent with a mid-XIX century Scandinavia, which makes a lot of sense. Offering his sword to the assaillants, he is hired as one more mercenary. (I confess that I am very pleased when people call him "Cimmerian" here, as Vanirmen should obviously know what a Cimmerian looks like. This was not the case in countless previous stories by some other writer, where people from Turan, Zamora of Stygia should have had no idea that Cimmeria even existed). Recurring dreams about the girl keep him from finding any respite. The girl claims that Conan has undertaken the task of saving her, and to help him in that mission she shows him a hidden tunnel that leads into the besieged city. Back in the waking world the Cimmerian finds the tunnel right where she said it would be, and he leads his allies through it. One of the first attackers out of the tunnel, Conan learns that the city's ruler is none other than the girl's murderer: the face is the same, and he wears her medallion.  Conan goes all berserk on him and kills him after an epic fight, all while the city is being conquered. Conan's new boss is very upset since he wanted to kill his opponent himself, but the angry Cimmerian tells him to go stuff himself and departs with nothing more than the medallion. The Cimmerian travels back to the girl's cairn and leaves the medallion there, enjoining her to complete her journey to the city of light.  He then rides off once more, a vision of the smiling girl visible in the clouds behind him.  A very solid tale, by Crom, and one made better by (a) not shying away from the horrors than men do, and (b) not showing it in graphic details. Conan's empathy and the rage he feels at something that was done to a complete stranger are admirable traits. Notes: - Conan is around 39. - It's a bit surprising that Valeria's ship would have any business that far north, but not completely improbable. There must be some sea trade in dried fish and narwhal tusks off the coast of Vanaheim, and we know that the Zingarans trade Kushite ostrich plumes and jewelry for Pictish animal skins, copper ore, and gold dust. - Everyone swears by the proper god: here, in Vanaheim, it's mostly Ymir. Such a relief after years of characters using any god's name at random! |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 12, 2015 10:08:50 GMT -5
NightmareScript by Chuck Dixon Art by Vincent Waller Waller’s art has a very distinct look, but I can’t help feel that he’d be better as a finisher than as a penciller-inker; some of his figures look a bit rough. Nice rendering, though, with a lot of small clean lines. While a young girl is being murdered in the benighted streets of Valusia’s city of wonders, Kull has a very vivid dream in which the Serpent Men attack him. Waking up, the king is convinced that the Serpent Men have returned, which is sort of confirmed by the final image showing the body of the girl with whom we opened the tale.  I find this return of the Serpent Men unfortunate. These fellows were the single greatest menace of the Thurian Age, and history tells us that their power was broken by King Kull (which is the point of the very first King Kull story, “the shadow kingdom”, adapted in Kull the conqueror #2). Bringing them back like this dilutes the first story and does not restore their earlier ominousness. Surviving Serpent Men had been seen as late as during the Hyborian Age, so we know they hadn't been wiped out; however, they were pretty much like nazis in modern superhero tales: annoyances, echoes of an ancient and powerful evil defeated long ago. Still sinister, but not as great a threat as before.
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Post by senatortombstone on Sept 12, 2015 20:45:00 GMT -5
Roquefort Raider, I cannot wait until I read of your opinion of SSoC #190-195, when the serpent men make their greatest stand in this universe.
RR, I acquired my love of Conan from watching the apocryphal and blasphemous Conan the Adventurer cartoon series. My favorite depiction of Conan is that of SSoC, but still, there is something of the CtA lore that appeals to me. That series was actually as faithful to REH and Marvel as it could be, considering that it had to meet the standards of the censor of the times. Most of Conan's companions had a corresponding Marvel or REH character (Snagg > Fafnir or Sigurd, Jezmin > Red Sonja or Valeria, Zula > Zula/Zula, Greywolf > Wizard from Phoenix on the Sword, Wrath-Amon and Ram-Amon > Thoth-Amon and Xaltotun). Anyway, I truly love CtA and wish it would have lasted longer. Conan and the Young Warriors was a complete and total abomination.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,183 
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Post by Confessor on Sept 13, 2015 6:14:32 GMT -5
SSoC #140 ------------- The girl of the haunted woodScript by Chuck Dixon Art by Gary Kwapisz and Ernie Chan Great write up, Roquefort. Really makes me want to read this story. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 13, 2015 8:11:47 GMT -5
Roquefort Raider, I cannot wait until I read of your opinion of SSoC #190-195, when the serpent men make their greatest stand in this universe. Those issues were naturally the answer to many years of wishful prayer, since they saw the return of Roy Thomas! As for the Serpent men we saw in that adventure, I thought they were used just the right way (as they would be later in Conan's life and earlier as far as publication goes, in King Conan #4): the remnants of an ancient and once terryifying evil, but not one that still plays a global role. The competition between Thoth Amon and Thulsa Doom for the control of Serpent men and Men serpents was also a clever idea, but one I felt was bordering on fan fiction... Too many links between too many concepts and characters within the series. I'm just glad Roy used the opportunity to stress once and for all that the Thulsa Doom seen in the Conan mags was not the one from the Movie, and that after this story he'd never, ever, ever be seen again (so take that, Dynamite comics!) Heh! Why not? That's the cartoon with the talking bird and the Cobra Emperor Thoth Amon clone, right? I haven't seen more than a few excerpts but I'd take that over the John Milius movie any time. I really wish we'd get to see the animated adaptation of Red Nails that was in production a decade or so ago. (I think Ron Perlman voiced Conan in that). No idea what became of that project. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 13, 2015 8:13:05 GMT -5
SSoC #140 ------------- The girl of the haunted woodScript by Chuck Dixon Art by Gary Kwapisz and Ernie Chan Great write up, Roquefort. Really makes me want to read this story. Thanks, Confessor! Chuck Dixon's timeline of Conan's adventures may be hard to reconcile with the comics' previous continuity, but his stories are pretty much all worth hunting down and this particular one is especially moving. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 26, 2015 8:19:54 GMT -5
Savage sword of Conan #142, November 1987  Cover by Joe Jusko. It looks dramatic, but if Conan had really been struck by lightning like that he’s have been turned into one big slab of Cimmerian bacon. (But perhaps it’s a sorcerous bolt more than actual lightning. Table of contents:Blind vengeance, in which justice truly is blind. Several pin-ups by many artists. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Bling VengeanceScript by Chuck Dixon Art by Gary Kwapisz and Ernie Chan The setting is southeast Aesgaard, where a warlord named Haradi fails in expanding his territories and sees his armies crushed by the people he meant to conquer. Conan was working as a mercenary for Haradi’s side, and is one of the few survivors of the invading army. The story starts when a few survivors meet among the bodies of the recently dead, deploring their defeat and wondering what could have gone so wrong. The four of them come upon Conan, who has been pinned under a dead horse and is busy defending himself against a gang of corpse robbers. The soldiers make short work of the cowardly vultures and the four Aesgaardians (plus the Cimmerian) decide to make their way south after realizing that their own lands will soon be overwhelmed by the victorious armies, Haradi having been slain. I suppose that by going south they mean to eventually find work in the Hyborian lands, for immediately south of Aesgaard is Cimmeria, a country where I doubt there is much employment for mercenaries. The quintet of warriors enter a village where every adult has been blinded: only children retain their eyes, and these guide their elders in their daily agricultural tasks. The village’s leader, the only adult retaining one eye, explains his people’s plight upon meeting the strangers. A cruel warlord named Wonangus recently came into their lives, demanding that the village serve him during the winter season. The peasants would feed and host his troops, and he in return would abuse them as he saw fit. When the villagers rebelled, Wonangus had them all blinded; all but the children, so that they could help their parents continue harvesting the fields and keep feeding the bandits. As the warlord is expected to return from this years’s campaigns soon, the villagers are busy amassing as much wheat as possible. Conan and his friends are touched by the villagers’ situation, especially as they are shown warm hospitality. One of the warriors, young Brallic, even falls for the chief’s daughter - a maiden who has been blind from birth and is more used to the condition than the other villagers.  Nevertheless, Conan decides to leave, trying hard to be realistic about it all: “the world is full of misery and troubles, but I do not seek them out. If these dirt farmers were not under the heel of one warlord, it would be another. It’s their lot in life”. Brallic decides to stay with his newfound love, but the others depart -all of them grumbling about not doing the right thing. However, when Conan and his partners come across a cottage where lies the dead body of a raped girl, one bearing the mark of Wonangus carved on her forehead, the Cimmerian allows himself to be convinced to go back.  Many are amused by this turn of event, having guessed from the start that Conan would easily be won over to their cause.  The five mercenaries then train the blind villagers for combat. Teaching them to aim for the sound of little bells, Conan manages to make decent archers out of them. The village is also booby-trapped in expectation of Wonangus’s return.  The warlord’s attack has something of a Kurosawa feel, resembling as it does the plot of “Seven samurai”. Several of Conan’s comrades perish in their valiant defence of the village, and the blind peasants defeat the villains. Wonangus himself, after being disarmed by Conan, is thrown into a pit where the villagers pepper him with arrows.  Conan departs, leaving his friends behind; the two surviving mercenaries have decided that they had had enough of war.  A good adventure story. I like how Conan is made to change his mind when the world’s cruelty gets too much even for him. Notes: - Chronologically, since no reference is made to previous stories, this could be placed at any time Conan was in the north. I think that it’s quite parsimonious to leave it in that interlude that Dixon put in between Conan’s first arrival on the western Aquilonian border and Beyond the Black River. He’d therefore be 39. - The Aesgaardians are uniformly black haired, which looks very odd; they should all be fair. But at least they swear by Ymir and refer to their chiefs as “jarls”. - Wonangus calls Conan “Cimmerian” even if they haven’t been introduced, but as in previous issues set in the north this makes sense: an Aesgaardian would be expected to recognize a Cimmerian on sight. (This would however work better if Conan had been the only black-maned character in the story, since that’s one of the differences between a Nordheimer and a Cimmerian).
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Post by senatortombstone on Oct 2, 2015 20:07:24 GMT -5
Any reason you skipped issue #141, RR? I rather enjoyed Conan's priestly companion, Vitelus.
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