Conan The Barbarian #13 - Titan Comics

CONAN THE BARBARIAN No. 13, August 2024

It’s difficult to imagine that many who bought Issue Thirteen of “Conan The Barbarian” would agree with “Titan Comics” boast that the book continues the publisher's “triumphant new era” based upon the exploits of Robert E. Howard’s iconic sword and sorcery creation. For whilst Jim Zub’s narrative definitely contains plenty of tense, action-packed moments of ferocious close combat and desperate last minute gasps of barbaric bravado. The twenty-two page plot also depicts a titular character so disenchanted with his people’s belief in the grim and gloomy god Crom, that he foolishly wanders off into the winter wasteland of the North to almost suicidally test his mettle against the savage beasts found there.

Admittedly these ‘trials by combat’ are definitely entertaining, thanks to the Cimmerian repeatedly overestimating his ability with a sword, and subsequently having to resort to feats of supernatural strength so as to save his skin from the likes of a hungry wolf pack. But such displays as the future King of Aquilonia quite literally tearing a fully-grown Canis lupus apart with his bare hands or somehow surviving a murderous mauling by a huge bear when his blade fails him, is arguably the stuff of amateur fan fiction. Not what a bibliophile would ordinarily expect to find within an officially licenced comic book; “Their prey is wounded and ready to fall. They’re wrong. Conan has claimed this territory.”

Quite possibly this periodical’s biggest bemusement though lies with the Canadian author’s flashback to when an infant Conan decides he’s had enough taunting from his father, and unconvincingly bests him in a sword fight. This ‘battle’ stems from the boy’s unwillingness to accept Crom’s existence on the say so of the villagers alone, and supposedly demonstrates that the lad has his deity’s fire inside him after all. Yet, the suggestion that a mere untrained child, no matter how angry, could disarm his significantly larger parent with just a couple of swings of a heavy hand weapon is far from convincing, and again disappointingly smacks of something to be found in a fanzine.

Luckily artist Doug Braithwaite is able to provide this comic with plenty of energetic eye-candy, with his prodigious pencils doing a first-rate job in selling all but the most implausible of the plot's predicaments. Of particular note is how well the British illustrator depicts the young barbarian’s increasing wounds, so by the time the understandably weary hunter has brought his latest prize back to camp, he looks incredibly dishevelled with gore and bloody cuts.

The regular cover art of "CONAN THE BARBARIAN" #13 by Dan Panosian