This review originally appeared at Grimdark Magazine on August 30, 2024.

The Savage Sword of Conan #3

By Frank Tieri (Writer), Cary Nord (Artist), John C. Hocking (Writer), Patch Zircher (Writer & Artist), and Alan Quah (Writer & Artist) – Titan Comics – July 10, 2024

Review by Robin Marx

The Savage Sword of Conan returns for its third issue with another eclectic selection of black and white comics, prose, and full-page pinups.

The cover story for this issue is “Wolves of the Tundra,” written by Frank Tieri with art by Cary Nord. After Conan stops to rest at the wrong tavern, he finds himself afflicted with an unfortunate case of lycanthropy. Enraged by the curse, Conan immediately dedicates himself to wiping out his fellow werewolves. Despite its extended page count, the plot is very straightforward, even simplistic. The idea of Conan as a lycanthrope is goofy fun, but I can’t help but feeling that garden-variety werewolves are a bit too banal to serve as stimulating Hyborian Age monsters; Conan is usually pitted against more unique threats. It’s nice to see Cary Nord work on Conan again, however, as his work was one of the highlights of the 2004 Dark Horse Comics Conan run. Perhaps it’s due to the monochrome presentation, but his art feels like it has evolved since those days. His rendering of Conan’s face is pleasantly reminiscent of Ken Kelly’s depictions: scarred, squarish, and mean.

The opening comic is followed by an excerpt from the prose novel Conan and the Living Plague by John C. Hocking, published as part of the recent Conan: City of the Dead omnibus. The included passage follows Conan and his companions as they seek entry to a barricaded city via its ghoul-infested catacombs. Accompanying the prose is a brief autobiographical section by Hocking detailing his early encounters with the character and how he came to write his two Conan novels. His enthusiasm for the character is palpable and his journey to publication (particularly for Conan and the Living Plague) a rocky one. While one could dismiss it as mere cross-promotion between Titan Comics and Titan Books, publisher of Conan: City of the Dead, I applaud the inclusion of prose works in The Savage Sword of Conan. It’s entirely plausible that Conan comic readers outnumber those of the prose stories and more crossover in readerships should be encouraged whenever possible. Conan comic fans are potential Conan prose fans in the making, and vice versa.

With this issue, Patrick “Patch” Zircher’s three-part Solomon Kane tale “Master of the Hunt” comes to a close. Searching for an abducted boy, Kane is confronted by the youth’s supernatural captor. The artwork for this miniseries has been fantastic; Zircher’s visual presentation of the fanatical Puritan Solomon Kane is perfect, no notes. I was left disappointed by the narrative, however. The climax leaves Kane a passive bystander in his own adventure, which is a major sin. And where earlier in the issue werewolves felt too prosaic a menace for Conan, “Master of the Hunt” has the opposite problem. “Welsh mythology is literally true” feels too high fantasy to comfortably fit with Solomon Kane’s relatively grounded milieu. While I was ultimately let down by this miniseries, I absolutely want to see Zircher return to the pages of The Savage Sword of Conan.

The final comic contribution to this issue is Alan Quah’s “Lure of the Pit Creature.” This is a wordless Conan adventure, in which the barbarian follows an alluring temptress underground only to be set upon by an immense chitinous beast. Like “Wolves of the Tundra,” this is another straightforward entry that boils down to a single extended fight scene. Inoffensive, but not particularly memorable, either.

Bonus materials include a King Kull pin-up by Alex Horley and a Conan-themed poem by Jim Zub accompanied by a striking Roberto De La Torre illustration. The King Kull pin-up is fantastic, but would have had even more impact in color. Zub’s poem “Call Thee to Crom” is brief, but succeeds in evoking a nicely grim mood. This issue does not feature a Jeffrey Shanks essay or the Chainmail letters page.

While The Savage Sword of Conan #3 is the weakest issue so far, it’s encouraging to see the bimonthly magazine continue to experiment and take risks that we would be unlikely to see in the pages of the flagship Conan the Barbarian comic title. Not every sword swing strikes its target, but The Savage Sword of Conan remains one of the most exciting dark fantasy comics around.

#ReviewArchive #ComicReview #SwordAndSorcery #FrankTieri #CaryNord #JohnCHocking #PatchZircher #AlanQuah #TitanComics #ConanTheBarbarian #TheSavageSwordOfConan #GrimdarkMagazine #GdM