Robin Marx's Writing Repository

This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on March 7, 2025.

Conan the Barbarian #18

By Jim Zub (Writer) and Danica Brine (Artist) – Titan Comics – February 19, 2025

Review by Robin Marx

Having decided to spare the life of Tarnasha, the foolhardy thief that invaded their bedchamber in Conan the Barbarian #17, Conan and Bêlit allow themselves to be talked into a plan to rob a local antiquarian of a priceless treasure of Stygian origin. Conan has misgivings, as his last encounter with Stygia and its Set-worshipping snake cult was an unsettling one, but he’s swayed by his pirate queen’s talk of riches and her eagerness to pull one over on the hated Stygians. The trio immediately begins plotting a daring heist. Once their hastily assembled plan is put into action, however, bloodshed and betrayal ensue.

This issue concludes the two-part “Fangs and Foolish Thieves” storyline. All previous arcs in Titan Comics’ Conan the Barbarian series have run across four issues, so it’s perhaps inevitable that this particular story feels abbreviated. Indeed, the pacing felt rushed the first time I read through this issue, with several elements introduced late into the story and left unresolved. That feeling lessened upon revisiting the issue, however. Tarnasha will doubtless reappear in a subsequent plotline, as will the other dangling threads established herein. The 2025 Free Comic Day Issue of Conan the Barbarian is set to launch an event called Scourge of the Serpent, and a Solomon Kane series entitled The Serpent Ring is scheduled to arrive even before that, so it appears that readers have a decidedly reptilian year ahead of them. Appropriate for the Chinese zodiac’s Year of the Snake.

Issue #18 includes some entertaining references for knowledgeable Conan fans. The Stygian episode Conan flashes back to in the opening pages is, of course, a nod to the original Robert E. Howard prose story “The God in the Bowl.” The Stygian relic at the heart of the story is unmistakably the same intertwined serpent dagger wielded by James Earl Jones’ villain Thulsa Doom in the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie. The cinematic Atlantean Sword and Thulsa Doom himself (despite being King Kull’s foe in Howard’s work) have also appeared in previous issues of this comic, demonstrating Jim Zub’s fun willingness to embrace the Conan the Barbarian body of work in all its forms and expressions, rather than limit himself to strict Howard purism.

Judging from online commentary, Danica Brine’s artwork in the previous issue was a point of contention for some readers. While admittedly the art style does feel a tad on the “cute” side for Conan—Tarnasha and her truly outrageous pastel outfit would fit right in with Jem and The Holograms—I’d rather see a variety of representations of these characters than witness Conan the Barbarian stagnate and settle into dead-end “John Buscema Über Alles” conservatism.

While our reunion with Conan and Bêlit is regrettably a brief one, Conan the Barbarian #18 caps off a whirlwind caper. The shorter storyline and fresh artwork show that Jim Zub is still willing to experiment with the Titan Comics series, even as the title sprints towards its second anniversary.

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