A Spoiler-Heavy, Conflicted Review Of ‘Conan The Barbarian’ #8

Welcome to the table,

I’ve been a really big champion of the Titan’s Conan The Barbarian series since its launch. I’m not going to lie, though, issue #8 had me a little worried. I waited a bit to get to this review so I would not risk spoiling anything for anyone who may be keeping up with the series. I don’t want to put people off of purchasing if they just read my initial thoughts. The series still has a ton of potential, and Jim Zub and the team are doing the character justice. But… I really love Conan, and this issue feels really out of pocket for me.

Let’s get into it…

First off, Cover A by Ashleigh Izienicki may be my favorite cover of the series so far, and that icludes the slew of alternate covers that have dropped.

The gold glow on the jewelry and accents plays so well on this piece and the painterly style of the waves gives such an energy to the piece. I normally lean hard into Conan art being more in the classic pulp style but this really works on all levels.

Okay, band-aid off time. I don’t think Conan should be able to be possessed by anything. Demon, god, elder thing, Thulsa Doom, it doesn’t matter. Conan (and this is my subjective opinion) is an entity that has a will that does break.

The fact this happens at the end of the last issue makes no sense to me. And I get it. It would not make sense for Conan to be an unstoppable god killer like some drunk jerk at the D&D table bitching every time he failed an attack role. But you can have risk and reward and keep your protagonist in danger without messing with the core “power,” for lack of a better word, of the character.

Anyone who has been reading the book up to this point knows Conan has been emotionally compromised since the beginning of the arc. I get that this fact can be seen as a reason to call into question his will to live or his mental strength. I also get that forces at work in this make-believe setting are not currently under my control, and if I ever get the opportunity to write Conan I can do what I want with the character. So this choice, while I don’t agree with it, was made by someone that was trusted with the IP, and is what the character should be able to do, because that is what the character is doing.

All that being said, I really don’t like it. It’s not really sitting well with me, no matter how many times I have read this issue. The ability of Conan to push through via his will alone often pushing through pain and a broken body has always been a hallmark of the character that has made him such an important figure in my life.

The story continues to dance back and forth between Conan’s past and his journey after Bêlit’s death. It gives fans of the Cimmerian’s lore some nice nods to well-known locations and across a handful of panels brings us a younger Conan fighting with an ancient Pict sword to selling it for drink and petty vice in the city of Shadizar.

This issue is written immaculately and the art is spectacular. If this was another sword and sorcery character, I would be out here trying to get as many of you as I could to read it. I still think you should because I’m probably from the very a small school that still that thinks that Conan shouldn’t be possessed. From from a structure, art, and entertainment perspective, it’s a great issue. This is a 10 out of 10. I am not going to underrate the book just because I have a subjective view of the character and their ability to be possessed.

I’m going to keep talking about it, though, so if you care to keep reading as I rant, let us continue this journey together.

Conan wanders the city cutting of limbs, stabbing, and in some cases murdering those who have handled the sword he has sold. This is where this thing falls apart for me.

Again, I know this is the kind of thing where someone is going to argue which is a better weapon, the Sword of Omens or He-Man’s Power Sword, but this just feels off to me.

This story could have been Conan going through each of the people who handled his sword, to the next person doing odd jobs and strange tasks for them in a very Labours of Hercules sort of way. This would have let the Conan’s personality come out and  would have also kept him from having his will bent to outside forces in a way that does not feel true to the character.

Conan continues his trek, finding himself in a museum of relics with priests of Mitra and some guards. They have the sword, and as they are scrambling to get it, they have to try not to run, screaming into the night. Possessed Conan has cut the arm and leg off a museum guard, and in Conan’s mind Bêlit shows up.

She looks very deity-like, and then Conan, after seemingly finding his anchor and taking himself out of the equation rather than being a tool for Thusla Doom, takes the sword and plunges it through his chest. Conan dies, and then some really crazy magic stuff goes down, and we see some ancient Cimmerians, and then the issue ends in magic and ash and dust.

I get it, and from a subjective perspective, this is still one of the best sword and sorcery stories out there right now. I am not going to cut down the 10 it objectively deserves because it does not fit into the character that I, personally, have idealized since childhood.

My hope is that in next issue some stuff goes down, it’s super rad, and I am back up on the top of the mountain with Crom, being content.

Until next time, through countless surgeries and procedures as a kid, one of the driving forces I held fixed in my brain was ‘Conan powered through.’ While I was being hit, cut, and stitched. When I was relearning to use my limbs time and time, again, I held fixed in the center of my mind the grim determination of Conan.

I needed his will to be unbreakable so I could push through. I still think some part of me needs his will to be unbreakable. Heroes fill that role of showing us what we can be even in the face of ‘unbeatable odds.’

For all of the problematic issues that came with Robert E. Howard‘s writing, and trust me, there are a shit ton of them, there are few passages written that inspire strength in me, like this one:

Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet.