Review: The Cimmerian Continues To Slay In Titan’s ‘Conan The Barbarian’ #2

Welcome to the table,

Conan is a personal hero of mine. I am sure on some level that speaks to something negative about me, as he is kind of this hulking sullen survivor with deep melancholy and deep mirth. As a kid, I always liked that he survived.

Conan did not need to understand the horrors or wonders playing out before him. Giant Elephant Alien God? He dealt with it. Massive Toad Demon Thing? He dealt with it. Weird Skeletal Crypt Being? He dealt with it. Conan just sort of moved from moment to moment, only living in that instant and not worrying about what had come before or what would come later. The idea of not having that anxiety or stress of what happened or what would happen made his stories the ultimate escape. That, and the sword and sorcery of it all.

This new Conan The Barbarian comic from Titan Comics is everything you want from a Conan story. Conan lives, Conan loves, Conan slays, and this long-time fan is content.

The book kicks off in the thick of it, with Conan and Brissa silently trailing an army of the unliving as they cut a bloody and brutal path through settlement after settlement of the living. Regardless of the fighting prowess of these hardened barbarians, the merciless forces of the undead are too much for them to push back. Village after village falls to their might.

Conan as a passive observer is really interesting to me, as I did not expect to enjoy a story that sees him and his traveling companion spend most of the first two acts of this issue just watching these undead rip through guard posts and villages. There is a brief moment where Brissa and Conan hook up, and even in that there is a kind of somber almost sullen energy to the whole thing.

Jim Zub does a really fantastic job of keeping the tone of the story cold and distant without alienating the reader. I have many of his stories on my shelves, but this one feels even more elevated as he taps into some real melancholy emotions in both dialog and narration.

Rob De La Torre‘s artwork is grim and moody, and the colors that Dean White lends to the lines really make this book a standout. I was not a huge fan of what the publisher who had this before was doing, and I thought it would be a cold day in the pits of the damned before I was delighted by Conan’s work more than the Dark Horse books delighted me, but this team is conjuring up some powerful visuals that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the fan favorites of yesteryear.

Richard Starklings‘ lettering also deserves a callout here. There are those who letter comics and do a fine job, there are those who do a bad job, and then there are those who actually do the work and make things balanced and keep the kerning in check. Those talented letterers, of which Richard is one, elevate a comic to the next level. His dialog is clean but his narration boxes are so crisp and balanced that it really makes the whole book shine even more.

The third act of this issue has a beautiful double-page spread that, with any luck, speaks to the tone of this series going forward and firmly plants this incarnation of Conan into the eldrich and strange sword and sorcery realm as opposed to something a little sleeker and “knowable”.

The “unknown against the will of a man with a sword who will be prayed for when all science and magic is but dust” is the reason I come back again and again for these stories.

Until next time, I can’t wait to see what is in the Forbidden Fortress.