The Hour Of The Dragon!

One of my favorite stories has a very long last been collected under one cover and treated with the respect it deserves. Robert E. Howard created Conan the Barbarian and wrote many short stories and short novelettes featuring the brooding Cimmerian, but he only ever wrote one novel -- The Hour of the Dragon.

The story was published a few times over the decades, but I first came into contact with it and with Conan himself in the pages of Conan the Conqueror. This was Lancer's run of the hero (later reissued by Ace and added to) and they changed the title to fit the pattern established by Lancer with its earlier collections Conan the Freebooter and Conan the Usurper and suchlike. I found a copy in my local library and scuttled home to read it and was swept away by the imagination of REH as he described a bloody king who was ferocious but loyal and above all loved his woman. It was the very atomic structure of heroic adventure in a tiny paperback package.

Soon thereafter Marvel got hold of Conan (after failing to get Thongor of Lemuria for gosh sakes) and turned the comic book industry upside down. Roy Thomas became Conan's shepherd in the new four-color territories and had the heft to see to it that Howard's brawny hero got good service by and large in a regular series as well as a lusty black and white magazine variation.

For a short but glorious period of time Marvel created quarterly "Giant-Size" versions of some of their better selling books and Conan was easily in that category. So what to do? The Hour of the Dragon had arrived and Roy and Gil Kane (his first choice to draw the regular book) began to adapt the longest Conan story ever told.

It's a winding tale of how Conan the King of Aquilonia is plotted against by his enemies both within and without and who work together to raise from the long dead a mystic named  Xaltotun of Python. This lion-faced fiend has his own plans for Conan so doesn't kill him but makes him prisoner and of course he escapes with the help of a harem girl named Zenobia who has loved him from afar. 

His escape is not enough and he must find a jewel called the "Heart of Ahriman" which is seems is the only thing the ancient sorcerer fears. Getting that jewel is not mean task as it slips just between Conan's grasp time and again as he chases it across the Hyborian landscape. 

This saga wound its way through four full "Giant-Size" issues before that little fad faded and the story was left without a venue.

Eventually it took up residence in the black and white magazine The Savage Sword of Conan and John Buscema took over the art chores. Despite the lack of color, I was delighted to see the story continue.

And then it ended as it must. But the novel established a somewhat different status quo for Conan and his new queen Zenobia and there seemed to be more stories to tell. REH had told no stories beyond this point, so the creators of the comics had full range to do as they deemed proper. 

Those stories were revealed in two Conan annuals and though not part of the original novel add some luster to its complex doings. Why this tale had never been collected was an absolute mystery to me. At one point it seemed everything with Conan's dour mug on it was getting recolored, revised and reprinted, but not so The Hour of the Dragon. I've ached to have it all under two simple covers and earlier this year it happened at last. If you want to read a hearty Conan tale, one that makes the Cimmerian do more than hack and slash, one that makes him change see this story. It's a honey.

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