Conan The Barbarian #2 - Marvel Comics

CONAN THE BARBARIAN No. 2, March 2019

Penned as if Robert E. Howard himself had written a sequel to his 1935 short story “Beyond The Black River”, Jason Aaron’s narrative for Issue Two of “Conan The Barbarian” must surely have convinced the vast majority of this comic’s audience that the Alabama-born author had truly “been preparing for this gig for a very long time.” For whilst “The Savage Border” arguably depicts the Cimmerian’s grief for his dead friends at Fort Tuscelan being replaced by a primal respect for “the darker skinned race” a lot sooner than one would expect for a much angered warrior who had previously sworn to “claim the heads of seventeen Picts in honour of his fallen comrades”, the twenty-page periodical also portrays the Sword and Sorcery hero’s practically-minded acceptance of a situation where the enemy of his enemy is his friend, or at least very uneasy ally to begin with; “They hate and fear you, yes -- with good reason. But they hate and fear something else even more.”

In fact, Conan’s steady assimilation into the daily routine of the savage Pict and their begrudging respect for his Herculean efforts to keep their village safe from the persistent onslaught of giant Ghost Snakes actually provides an increasingly persuasive plot to the point where many a bibliophile must surely have been disappointed that the square cut-maned warrior didn’t accept the unnamed Shaman’s genuine offer to remain with his short, black-eyed brothers in their settlement… at least for a few stories more. Certainly, the Cimmerian’s sullenness once he has travelled “back across that border” and returned to Velitrium delivers an intriguing insight into just how complicated a character the scout has become as he enters his Forties, as well as perhaps just how tempted he truly may have been to have lived with “good women who would have you” and “men who would embrace you as one of their own” rather than the civilised Hyborians who currently find his “untamed nature” useful to them.

However, perhaps far more fitting for fans of this ongoing series is the sheer amount of sense-shattering action Aaron and artist Mahmoud Asrar manage to crowbar into so thought-provoking an adventure. Whether it be the blue-shirted barbarian’s brutal battle with a half-dozen well-armed Picts at the start of this book, or Conan’s titanic tussle towards the tale’s conclusion when he leads a thoroughly determined raiding party against the King Snake’s slithering horde, there are plenty of powerfully-pencilled blood-soaked panels to both catch the eye and spark even the most stagnant of imaginations.

The regular cover art of "CONAN THE BARBARIAN" No. 2 by Esad Ribic