For a while there, I was reading all the new Conan comics from Titan, as well as the new prose stories, and I read and enjoyed the first issue of the new SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. Then I kind of just stopped. Not intentionally. I just wandered away as I have a tendency of doing. But it’s time to get caught up on them again, so I started with the second issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.
Most of the pages are taken up by a long Conan yarn called “Leaving the Garden”
written by Jim Zub with artwork by Richard Pace. It begins with a badly wounded
Conan waking up after having been buried alive following a battle. Naturally,
he doesn’t stay underground. A flashback establishes that he was traveling with
a merchant caravan ambushed by inhuman attackers. The rest of the story deals
with him recovering and seeking vengeance for what happened to his companions.
This is a good story with plenty of action broken up by the occasional poignant
moment. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve read by Jim Zub so far. My only complaint
about this script is that “Leaving the Garden”, while it fits, isn’t the sort
of dramatic title I’ve come to expect on a Conan story. I also have to say that
the artwork isn’t to my taste at all. I suspect it’s the kind of art that
either resonates with a reader or it doesn’t. It didn’t in my case.
This issue also features the second installment of a Solomon Kane serial
written and drawn by Patrick Zircher, an adventure that finds Kane battling a
supernatural menace in his native England. Art and script are superb on this story.
So far it’s one of the best Solomon Kane comics stories I’ve read.
Despite the reservations mentioned above, there’s enough to like about this
issue of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN that I don’t hesitate to give it a strong
recommendation for Conan and Robert E. Howard fans. It’s available in both
print and digital editions.
3 comments:
I'll grant that "Leaving the Garden" isn't a very dramatic title, but neither is "Tower of the Elephant" when it comes right down to it. That said, it feels off compared to REH in part because it includes a verb in the title. When you look at the titles of Conan stories they just plain don't do that. Noun and adjectives, never a verb, without fail. It's a little thing, but you can't miss it once you see it and breaking with the pattern is a dead giveaway that you aren't reading REH.
Ironically, by including an action in the title, Zub not only failed to make things more dramatic, he created a slightly worse Conan pastiche as well. Which is a shame. Waking up in his own premature grave feels very much like something Howard would have actually done with Conan at some point. That, at least, is a very suitable bit of badassery. :)
Oops, a slight correction - "A Witch Shall Be Born" does include a modal verb. Forgot about that one. AFAIK it's the sole exception.
The story itself does have a Howardian feel to it, especially that opening. The business about the verb hadn't occurred to me, but you're right.
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