Conan The Slayer #12 - Dark Horse Comics

CONAN THE SLAYER No. 12, August 2017

Whether or not “Dark Horse Comics” knew that “Marvel Entertainment” and “Conan Properties International” had agreed “to bring Robert E. Howard’s famed pulp hero back to the comics publisher” at the time this particular twenty-two periodical went to print isn’t clear. But what is arguably evident is a palpable lack of appetite on behalf of the book’s creative team to print either a fitting end to its multi-part adaption of “The Devil In Iron”, or indeed, any sort of satisfactory conclusion to the series whatsoever.

For starters, Cullen Bunn’s script makes very little sense and whilst inspired by Conan’s exhilarating battle with “the seemingly indestructible Khel”, doesn’t actually add anything to the August 1934 pulp adventure other than to drag the eighty-year old short story out well beyond its natural ending. This unwise decision creates no end of problems for the Cape Fear-born writer’s narrative, as it resultantly relies entirely upon the comic’s audience to believe that having survived “the cursed isle of Xapur”, both Ghaznavi the Wise and the “savage barbarian” would merely ‘flee’ “through yet another of the Vilayet islands” rather than escape the place entirely by sea. Worse, Conan also brings the utterly useless Nemedian Princess Octavia with him on this perilous mission simply because he feels she “should want retribution as much as I do” against the royal advisor for using her “as bait for the snare.”

Sadly, such illogical lapses in the GLAAD Media Award-winner’s narrative are just the beginning, as the Cimmerian soon finds himself embroiled in a bizarre fight-to-the-death against a tribe of cannibal dwarves whose mission in life appears to be to corrupt children into drinking human blood. Quite how this tale supposedly brings a resolution to Howard’s original work is mystifying, especially when the titular character would have been ‘gutted’ on the Sin-Eater’s sacrificial altar if he hadn’t been rescued by the Ghul; a creature who Bunn would have his 7,230 readers believe forever follows (and protects) Conan in order to feast upon the bronze-skinned warrior’s bloody victims.

Equally as alarming as this magazine’s abysmal storyline is Dheeraj Verma’s ill-disciplined artwork. Having been depicted as a brawny, thick-set, steely-muscled barbarian in this adaption’s previous instalments, the “internationally renowned Indian comic book” creator’s decision to sketch the Cimmerian as a fresh-faced adolescent is utterly bewildering... Unless of course it was his hope to imply that the barbarian’s inexperienced youth was the reason behind why the “sword and sorcery hero” was so easily out-fought by a rag-tag group of pygmies; “How could this fool have caused us so many problems?”

Script: Cullen Bunn, Artist: Dheeraj Verma, and Colors: Michael Atiyeh