Savage Sword Of Conan #3 - Marvel Comics

SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN No. 3, May 2019

In some ways it is interesting that before “Marvel Worldwide” resurrected this “classic title showcasing the exploits of Robert E. Howard's burly nomadic warrior”, the “Syfy Wire” website referred to it as just being a “five-issue mini-series”. For despite containing plenty of pulse-pounding pugilism, as Kheshatta’s literal fork-tongued city guards are brained and a snake-loving necromancer is battered, Gerry Duggan’s screenplay for Issue Three of “Savage Sword Of Conan” moves at so frightening a pace that it arguably appears to be desperately trying to make up for the sedentary nature of its previous two instalments; “Conan lifted his enemy’s blade. It was forged with cruel edges. Fashioned to prolong suffering. That is not how Conan wielded a weapon.” 

Of course, such sense-shattering shenanigans provide this twenty-page periodical with the perfect opening, courtesy of the titular character bludgeoning the facially-disfigured acolytes of Koga Thun with a massive stone column, his formidable fists, a vicious-looking blade and finally, an entire ruined tower. Yet sadly, the instant this excellently story-boarded sequence has drawn to an end, the New Yorker’s narrative rather contrivingly makes several disconcerting leaps so as to ensure that by the publication’s end his three heroes have both found where “the ancient Valusians hid their treasure”, and established it will be a tense race-against-time against “The Cult Of Koga Thun”.

Such disjointed story-telling really does do “The Siege Of Kheshatta” something of a disservice, especially when it is done in such a bizarre manner as having the Cimmerian and his friends simply encircled by an impenetrable fog, within which the tale’s main antagonist is able to not only securely bind the barbarian, but then read his mind “like an open book” in order to find “what Conan tried to hide away in the deepest recesses of his mind -- The Map!” Perturbingly, just how the lizard-skinned Thun knew of his prey’s precise whereabouts is never explained, nor why the bloody-handed villain waited until after the adventurers’ battle with his minions before striking, and this manufactured omnipotence debatably dwells like a minor irritation at the back of the reader’s consciousness for the rest of the comic.

Significantly more successful than this 27,329 copy selling magazine’s pacing is the stunningly animated life with which “veteran penciller Ron Garney” imbues its action. The Bachelor of Science (in illustration and graphic design) adds an extra element of ferociousness to the Hyborian Age hero, which has perhaps seldom been seen before, whilst his depiction of Koga’s glowing-eyed triad as an enormous serpent and the undead-laden catacombs beneath the streets of Kheshatta are superbly rendered.

Writer: Gerry Duggan, Artist: Ron Garney, and Colorist: Richard Isanove