Queen Of The Black Coast!

The beauty of the Conan comic is that it was always headed somewhere despite the tendency of the main characters to wander. We know the broad outlines of Conan's life and it is being told in mostly chronological order. So, it's exciting to see that we're just about to meet the Queen of the Black Coast, one of Conan's true loves and one of Howard's most savage females. But it will take some time to get there. 

As I read the Conan stories this time, I consulted the recent books by Roy Thomas where he once again illuminates from his perspective how those stories came to be shaped and how they fitted into the larger Marvel publishing scheme. It was a hectic time for comics in the early 70's and the eventual success of Conan the Barbarian helped shape it to no small degree. 

This Epic volume begins of all places in the pages of The Savage Sword of Conan. Marvel was seeing the sales success of the color comic and decided the Cimmerian was worthy to front his own full-fledged black and white magazine, where the color was gone but the violence could be amped up. But in typical Marvel fashion this was done with limited planning, so Roy had to shift a story co-starring Conan and Red Sonja from the color comic to this mag. It's based on a non-Conan fragment and has the two swordspeople battling a wizard who comes back from the dead for vengeance. 

For his next story, Roy went looking in the amateur market and fished out a story titled "Tower of Blood" by a chap named David English. This story had appeared in the magazine Witchcraft and Sorcery.

In a rousing two-parter Red Sonja and Conan elude a posse by ducking into a mysterious canyon where they stumble upon a brother and sister vampire act. The vampiric duo had been breeding their stock for blood for centuries and look to Conan to help invigorate the herd. There is quite a bit of tomfoolery in this one, but eventually our heroes escape where Red Sonja goes on her own way. The first half of this saga was inked by Ernie Chan and the second by Neal Adams and his Crusty Bunker boys. 

It seems Ernie Chan left Marvel at around this time to head to DC where he became the regular artist on DC's Conan knock-off Claw the Unconquered. He went on to become for  DC what Gil Kane was for Marvel, a regular cover artist. 

Chan was replaced by the Crusty Bunkers for the forty-fifth issue of Conan. The Crusty Bunkers were in fact Neal Adams and his assistants and students working in tandem. The story in this one is "The Last Ballad of Laza-Lanti" and it has Conan come across a tragic balladeer who is in fact related to a villain in a later Conan story. In the grand Lovecraftian tradition these twins were born of the union of a woman and demon. There are also a few of REH's poems used in this one. 

By most accounts the first effort to adapt Conan to comics was done by Gardner Fox and John Giunta in a 50's science fiction comic. The produced several of the "Crom the Barbarian" comic stories. 

When the Lancer books took the world by storm, other publishers were interested in joining the parade and so it came to pass that Belmont Books hired Gardner Fox to create and write another Conan clone of sorts, this one named Kothar. There are several Kothar books, but it was Kothar and the Conjurer's Curse which Roy Thomas decided to adapt to the actual Conan the Barbarian comic. The story is about a barbarian hero who saves a damsel in distress and then learns she has all manner of sorcerous connections. There's a quest with a gem and we have some bizarre feral women who get involved. 

The loss of artwork in the mails caused the story in issue forty-seven to be printed incomplete. The extra space was taken up with a Wally Wood story from Tower of Shadows eight.

This poster-style image of a young Conan by Tim Conrad is the first published of the character by the artist. It would not be the last. It also was included when the issue ran short. as well as an essay by a fan about Conan. 

 Sadly, the Red Sonja story which filled out this issue is not contained in this collection. 

But happily, the story by Roy and Dick Giordano is included in this collection from Dynamite who have the rights to the character now. This tome also has Sonja's debut featuring alluring art by Esteban Maroto from The Savage Sword of Conan and will later host a crossover with the Conan color book itself. 

Because of the loss of artwork (ostensibly) the five-part adaptation actually ran six when one chapter was divided into two parts. Joe Sinnott begins inking the first installment and is followed by Dan Adkins, but it is Dick Giordano who takes the reins and embellishes most of this adaptation over Buscema's pencils. I'm not that crazy about this story which seems a tad overly complicated and introduces an avalanche of new characters, almost all with strange and bizarre names. It's hard to keep the record straight and all in all this doesn't really have the same gritty feel that REH brought to the Hyborian Age. 

This begins a Roy Thomas original story, but one inspired by the King Kull story fragment "The Altar and the Scorpion". Tom Palmer becomes the new regular inker. Conan also hooks up with Murillo, his old ally from the classic adaptation of "Rogues in the House. A nimble young girl named Tara also gets into the mix at this point. 

If the three baddies in Conan the Barbarian #53 seem a tad familiar, it's intentional. Roy specifically wanted to create a Hyborian version of his "Triumvirate of Terror" from the page of The Avengers #39 with his "Brothers of the Blade" in this issue. Frank Springer is the inker for one issue while Palmer recovers from a bad back. 

Tom Palmer is back in full force in one of the weirder Conan stories in a particularly weird storyline. This image of Conan confronting his evil self is one of my favorite covers from the Gil Kane era. 

This story wraps up with Conan saving the day and the city by realizing that the monstrous shadow could only be stopped by the scorpion which had guarded it for so long. After it's all done, Conan and two companions, the girl Tara and a youngster Yusef leave the city to find more adventures. I have to say while they were a cute couple, I never got that interested in these particular companions for the Cimmerian. It was a bit too much like Conan meets Gidget. 

Under this Jack "King" Kirby cover was the classic two-parter which teamed Conan with Elric of Melnibone. It would've been fun to see Kirby do a full adventure. In this collection we only get the compelling cover art. 

Conan and his youthful allies find a city which ought not to be and a monster which becomes all too real. One does get the sense sometimes that Conan can't turn around without bumping into a monster. This is supposed to be a variation on Brigadoon, but the story falls a bit flat for me. 

Conan and his two youthful friends get to Messantia in Argo. Mike Ploog fills in on the art chores this time and turns in a remarkable story under a compelling if somewhat generic Gil Kane cover. Conan must part ways (against his will) with Tara and Yusef, who have each other at least, in a very dangerous city. When he kills a judge, it's time for him to get out of town. As it turns out this story is the actual beginning of "Queen of the Black Coast" as the events we follow are an amplification of the first few paragraphs of that REH tale. 

Roy and John and new regular inker Steve Gan begin their adaptation of "Queen of the Black Coast". This storyline will last until issue one hundred of the series, more or less. Belit is one of Conan's most important romantic encounters, one of the few women he actually loved and became committed to. Here savagery is on full display here as she woos the dour Cimmerian after killing his shipmates and sinking the ship he used to get away from Messantia. 

Roy creates a completely new back story for Belit and that's necessary because she's going to be around a lot longer than the single story in which Howard featured her. Belit and Conan are a great visual pairing, their black locks echoing one another. I'm really looking forward to reading more of these Belit stories in the next volume. 

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