King Conan #1 - Marvel Comics

KING CONAN No. 1, February 2022

Bravely boasted by “Marvel Worldwide” as being “an all-new adventure that takes the story of the Cimmerian further than has ever been revealed in any media to date”, Jason Aaron’s script for this super-sized, thirty-page periodical certainly contains most of the elements which caused Robert E. Howard’s creation to become so popular during the Thirties in “Weird Tales” magazine. Indeed, the prospect of the barbarian having one last battle, ‘mano a mano’, with his arch-nemesis Thoth-Amon on an island packed full of zombies, killer apes and deadly white tigers must have had many within the comic’s audience salivating in anticipation of “On Maggot-Infested Waves”.

But whilst the Alabama-born author definitely provides bibliophiles everywhere with a sense-shattering clash of swords between Aquilonia’s recent king and the snake-worshipping Stygian wizard, the sheer implausibility as to just how these two particular playing pieces of the gods arrive simultaneously upon an island which “was barely the size of a boil on the ocean’s hindquarters” arguably takes any reader’s willing suspension of disbelief a little too far.; “Tell me… You’re really here. And not some madness brought on by this miserable isle."

In fact, Issue One of “King Conan” is absolutely packed full of all manner of such contrivances which persistently suggest the entire narrative is perhaps one of the grey-bearded adventurer’s fevered dreams, rather than a true account of his exploits following his willing departure from the throne. Naturally, a small land mass encircled by sharks is just the sort of fantastic location a shipwreck survivor might find themselves at following a ‘storm which came out of nowhere’, and other less fortunate travellers may well have brought both weapons and rum onto the shores in their death throes. Yet that doesn’t explain the Red Apes from the Lava Hills of Khitai, nor the Polar Tigers from the white woods of Hyperborea somehow co-existing with one another on the barren, foodless island.

Ultimately therefore, this book’s success lies squarely upon the shoulders of Mahmud Asrar, whose superbly atmospheric pencils really bring the titular character and his seemingly deadly predicament to glorious life. The Turkish artist’s ability to stage a series of short-lived fight scenes between this yarn’s sole two protagonists is absolutely mesmerising, whether the combatants are exchanging blows amidst a cadaver-covered landscape, or beneath the waves whilst being worried by a pack of hungry sharks.

The regular cover art of "KING CONAN" #1 by Mahmud Asrar & Matthew Wilson