A week ago, we took a look at Marvel Feature #6, the first installment of what will eventually turn out to be a five-part crossover between that title and Conan the Barbarian. Today, we’ll be dealing with the second chapter of this event — although, in fact, Conan #66 can just as easily (and perhaps more accurately) be described as the second prologue to the crossover “proper”, which won’t really get going until the next month’s Conan #67. That’s because this comic, like Marvel Feature #6, is entirely concerned with getting the storyline’s three principal characters — i.e., Conan, his lover and partner-in-piracy Bêlit, and Marvel Feature headliner Red Sonja — all on the same page. And I mean literally the same page, in more ways than one; since, as regular readers will recall, MF #6 ended with a full-page splash panel depicting Red Sonja facing down Conan and Bêlit over a priceless magical artifact: a single page from the Iron-Bound Book of Skelos. Our story’s first prologue told us how Sonja got herself into that situation; now it’s time for us to check out the second, the better to learn what path Conan and Bêlit have followed to arrive at the very same place as Big Red.
Turning past the Gil Kane-Dan Adkins cover, we begin with the return of Conan to the Argossean capital of Messantia — a city we’d seen him leave in a really big hurry in the opening scene of Conan #58’s “Queen of the Black Coast!”, the partial adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s 1934 novella of the same name that had inaugurated the current sequence of stories chronicling Conan’s years spent adventuring with Bêlit…
Our storytellers for this episode are the regular, long-running team of writer/editor Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, with inks provided by “The Tribe” — a group of Filipino artists working under the direction of Tony DeZuñiga — who had recently come on board the series following the abrupt (and somewhat mysterious) exit of their colleague, Steve Gan, after issue #63. (In his 2019 book Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian, Volume Two, Thomas shares a story about Gan supposedly having “fallen in love” with an issue’s worth of Buscema’s pencilled pages so deeply that he insisted on tracing them prior to inking them, causing him to miss a deadline and for the title to have to go reprint for Conan #64. On the other hand, comics historian David A. Roach states in Comic Book Artist (Vol. 2) #4 (Sep., 2004) that Gan’s departure was due to nothing more or less than “a dispute over payments”. Your humble blogger has no idea which of the two accounts is closer to the truth, though he thinks the second one sounds more plausible.)
The two guards keep making with the jokes — proving that so-called “ethnic” humor has been around since even before the dawn of recorded history — as Conan and Bêlit continue to creep up stealthily behind them. But the yuks stop cold when Conan’s hand comes down on one of the guard’s shoulders, and it looks like bloodshed may be about to ensue. Still, looks can be deceiving…
Cover to Conan the Barbarian #63 (Jun., 1976). Art by Gil Kane and Vince Colletta.
About that “Sorry, Amra.”: In a couple of Robert E. Howard’s original Conan stories set during the time of the Cimmerian’s kingship over Aquilonia, we’re told that in his younger days, when he was committing acts of piracy along the Black Coast, Conan was known as “Amra, the Lion”. Roy Thomas had in recent months taken that bit of information and, in the first true multi-part storyline to appear in Conan the Barbarian since the series star had hooked up with Bêlit, created a completely new character called “Amra, Lord of the Lions”. That loincloth-wearing, jungle-dwelling fellow tried to take Bêlit as his unwilling mate in issue #63, only to have Conan slay him in a duel — after which, his name got passed on to Conan in the manner of a title. To be honest, I’m not sure that Conan’s piratical sobriquet really needed a secret origin — but the whole business allowed Thomas, John Buscema, and Steve Gan to offer one (completely arbitrary) answer to the eternal question of who’d beat who in a fight — Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian or Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes — so at least there’s that.
Returning now to our present story… after leaving the guards to count their ill-gotten gains, Conan, Bêlit, and their crewmen make their way to the one place in Messantia that the Black Corsairs are welcome: the waterfront shop of the merchant Publio. But even as they come in sight of that establishment, Conan hesitates, recalling aloud how the last time he encountered Publio (in issue #57), the man had tried to sell him as a galley slave…
Bêlit, Conan, and their surviving companions must set aside any further speculations while they defend themselves against the rest of their assailants. Finding the resistance they’ve encountered more than they can handle, most of the attackers run away, but one wounded man remains. Grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, Conan drags this unfortunate individual the rest of the way to the door of…
Panel from Conan the Barbarian #57 (Dec., 1975). Text by Roy Thomas; art by Mike Ploog.
Panel from Giant-Size Conan #4 (Jun., 1975). Text by Roy Thomas (adapting Robert E. Howard); art by Gil Kane and Vince Colletta.
As has already been mentioned, Conan first became acquainted with Publio in Conan the Barbarian #57. But readers of Marvel’s full line of Conan comics had actually been introduced to him some months before that, in Giant-Size Conan #4. In that issue, which featured the fourth chapter in Marvel’s serialized adaptation of R.E. Howard’s one and only Conan novel, “The Hour of the Dragon” (which, incidentally, is also one of the only two published Conan stories where the name “Amra” appears), King Conan comes calling on his old “friend” Publio — who has clearly come up in the world since the disreputable days of our current narrative, set some two decades before “Hour”.
By working Publio — a minor, but authentic Howard creation — into his own stories taking place earlier in Conan’s career, Roy Thomas continues his project of tying the disparate threads of the hero’s fictional life together wherever possible, strengthening the sense that we’re dropping in on individual episodes from Conan’s complete biography, and not just reading a series of unrelated, standalone adventure stories.
On further reflection, Publio figures that none of his rivals will try to rat him out to the city council, since they still have no actual proof of his dealings with the Black Corsairs. That said, those same rivalries have made times hard for the merchant of late (or so at least he says)…
We went through the provenance of the Book of Skelos in the Marvel Feature #6 post, so I’ll simply note here that it’s another piece of authentic Howardiana that, by being included here, helps the Marvel version of Conan’s world feel more coherent and convincing.
Cover to Conan the Barbarian #13 (Jan., 1972). Art by Barry Windsor-Smith.
This is a callback to Conan #13, in which our hero did indeed fight, and severely wound, Omm, the Spider-God of Yezud. (The reason why Conan can’t be 100% certain he actually slew the giant arachnid is that the last time he saw it, it was still alive, but tumbling into a very deep pit. And now you know.)
Dagon and Derketa/Derketo are both referenced in a couple of Howard’s Conan stories; they’re both also drawn from real-world antecedents, with both having been worshiped in ancient Syria. (Just for the record, though Howard used both the “-a” and “-o” versions of the latter deity’s name, the “-o” appears to be the standard, correct spelling; as best as I can tell, Bêlit’s explanation of how the god Derketo got gender-swapped into the goddess Derketa is Roy Thomas’ invention.
Conan and Bêlit are soon fighting desperately for their lives, their attention so focused on their respective foes that they can’t spare even a glance to see how their partner is doing. Before long, Bêlit calls out to Conan that her sword-arm is beginning to tire; he answers that he hears her, even if he can’t see her, and encourages her to keep fighting until he can come to her aid. Meanwhile, the nameless priest just watches, and smiles…
I’m sure that there must have been fans in June, 1976 who felt a little cheated that Conan and Bêlit had been fighting each other for the last few pages, rather than god-possessed statues; who knows, I may have even been one of them. These days, however, I find this a pretty clever twist.
And now we’ve come back around to… well, not where we started, exactly, but rather, where we ended at the finale of Marvel Feature #6, right down to the characters’ dialogue.
Given that Marvel Feature was published bi-monthly, while Conan the Barbarian came out every month, the next chapter of the crossover would, by necessity, appear in the following month’s issue of the latter title. That’s where we’ll be picking things up, as well — so I hope you’ll join me some four weeks from now to find out if Conan, Bêlit, and Red Sonja all manage to make it out of the first scene of Conan #67 alive. (And no, I’m not taking any bets.)
I’m a huge Robert E. Howard and have no enthusiasm for the prose pastiches, but always considered the Roy Thomas scripted Conans to be an alternate world version of the character – the Marvel Universe incarnation, if you will, and, as such, immensely enjoyable. The way Roy tied up the various REH continuity threads ( as he did for superhero continuities) helped to enrich the stories. Wnen he left Marvel in 1980, I quickly lost interest in the Conan books. In ’76, though, this was still one of Marvel’s finest books.
Robert E. Howard fan, that is. (Didn’t have my glasses on this morning).
That approach is what I use when viewing adaptations to video like True Blood, etc. I called them all ‘the Earth 2 version’.
I love that the simple but effective convention is that a character is whispering when the speech bubble has a dashed line but we’ve later got some rare directional arrows to push the reader through the page. Looks like Big John really wanted that full height panel to make a visual point.
Those arrows, at least according to Tom Brevoort, I think are usually called ‘arrows of shame’. Essentially, that means the page wasn’t laid out clearly enough for the reader to know which order to read the panels in, meaning that Big John B messed up (unlikely), or the writer decided to run the dialogue contrary to the way you would normally view the pictures. They’re generally regarded as not a good thing.
I have never had a problem with the arrows if the layout is creative and interesting.
Yeah, I’ve never been a fan of the “arrows of shame.” But complaining about them in a 70’s comic is akin to complaining about humidity in Florida.
The number one problem with those arrows is that they take the reader out of the rhythm of words and pictures flowing from panel to panel. Can you imagine watching a dramatic film, and suddenly some arrows appear onscreen, telling the viewer to look here or there?
I love the perspective shift on that last page. In Marvel Feature, readers saw Conan and Belit’s full faces, as they were the guest-stars. Here, it’s Sonja’s. Fun too to see how two different artists depict the same scene.
The Kane-Adkins cover is of far lesser quality than the interior art by John Buscema and “the Tribe.” Gil Kane even made a rare anatomical error with Conan’s right shoulder looking strangely dislocated (and too far away from his head; more foreshortening was needed).
I’ll have to sit down and actually give the story a proper reading, but my overall impression from other issues of the Conan comic and mag which I have read is that Roy Thomas certainly had a handle on the character.
Haven’t read the actual comic but during Conan’s fight with the “Goddess” I thought it seemed he was having too easy a time of it — I’d have thought she’d have some supernatural powers to make things much more difficult for Conan. But then, when it was revealed that he had actually been fighting Belit all along, yeah, it made sense then! I know there have been at least a few other instances of that sort of thing happening, although the only one that comes to my mind just now was when the Yellow Claw tricked Captain America into nearly beating Nick Fury to death in CA&TF #165) while thinking he was fighting Y.C. himself. In this case, I think Thomas & Buscema gave enough clues that it didn’t feel like a real cheat, particularly as the “goddess” wasn’t shown to be doing anything that Belit herself couldn’t do. Writing that, though, did make me ponder how Conan would fare in a battle against Thor. Even if Thor wasn’t using any of his mystical powers and laid down his hammer, he should be able to win the fight with one well-landed punch – after all, despite his tremendous strength, Conan is still a mere mortal, without muscles supercharged by typical Marvel weird radiation science or magic, ala Hulk or the Wrecker. Just a random thought. Anyhow, an entertaining enough tale to show how the path taken by Conan & Belit led to their encountering Red Sonja as she took a separate path to that same point in search of the same McGuffin!
I take it that you are aware of the What If..? issue that has Thor meeting Conan?
A fun story, one of the high points of the Belit years. I really enjoyed the touch of bringing in Publio as a supporting character.
I agree an origin for “Amra” wasn’t necessary but that made a good yarn too — though I think the real Tarzan would take Conan in a fight.
While I was never a big fan of Conan, I didn’t mind picking up an issue if I had an extra quarter back in the day. Reason for that is while there could be a “sameness” to those comics, they also maintained a strong consistency that was unfortunately lacking in too many other series. What I mean by that is look at the past several issues Alan’s reviewed. Reprints in Avengers #150. A complete change of creative teams and direction in Dr. Strange #19. Meandering stories in the Defenders. While I was never quite sure what would happen with my favorite heroes, I knew that Roy Thomas and John Buscema would give me twenty-some pages of an entertaining story and quality art with no shortage of hacking and chopping.
As for Conan vs. Tarzan, that’s simple. Whoever has the better artist drawing him wins. And if it’s the same artist, then we have a tie!
Thanks again, Alan, for a delightful start to a beautiful Saturday near my alma mater in Oregon!
For a period just a year or so hence, John Buscema would be drawing both Conan and Tarzan. As far as I know, the two characters never officially met – they were living in different millennia, after all, but I suppose the winner of any fight between them would have depended on whose mag it was and in whose issue the fight started and ended. A bit like the crossover with Dracula and Dr. Strange – Stephen appeared to fled the mortal realm for good at the end of the first chapter in Tomb of Dracula while ol’ Vlad seemed to have perished for good by the end of the 2nd chapter in Dr. Strange, but, naturally, just as Doc got much better in the pages of his own title, Drac’s condition improved considerably in the next issue of his title – a tied match! Everyone dies and gets born again!
I gave up following every issue of Conan around this time because of the ‘sameness’ that Rick mentions above. I didn’t originally see most of the BWS period but I loved the early Buscema/Chua(Chan) episodes. By the time these issues came out I’d read the REH original paperbacks and ‘Queen of the Black Coast’ was a clear favourite, all fire and passion and (to my pubescent self) loaded with hot sexual imagery (‘I am a queen by fire and steel and slaughter, be thou my king!’ ‘I’ll sail with you!) – and I didn’t look that up to quote it.
What Roy the Boy gave us instead was a sometimes bickering married couple, and Belit didn’t look anything like my imagined version, nor was I impressed with the plot that pitted her against an old ‘girl’friend, and I didn’t in general feel any of the fire of the original story.
Quite taken with the idea of a Conan/Tarzan duel though. Loved them both in their original stories and it feels like it would come down to who your favourite is?
I disagree on Roy’s handling of Belit. He understands that under her sexy exterior she is a ruthless, murderous woman, in contrast to one Conan book (Poul Anderson IIRC) that shows her as very girly.
Less sexy, true, but given he was fleshing out three years described in one paragraph of Queen of the Black Coast, he did a solid job.
Like our esteemed host says, that’s what makes horse races. I never felt like RT’s Belit was the same character that REH described, for all their similarities.
I did jump back in for the issues leading up to #100, which was very, very good.
I enjoyed the Belit stories quite a bit when I first read them fifty years ago. Roy did an amazing job, taking what little REH gave him to work with (powerful though it was) and turning it into a full history over 43 issues of the comic. There were other women in Conan’s life; certainly a few I liked even better than Belit, but there’s no doubt that Howard intended her to be the love of Conan’s life, and in Roy’s hands, it shows. Not sure how history remembers it, but I think Roy’s care and handling of Belit and her relationship with Conan is one of the greater achievements of Roy’s storied career.
A week or so ago, I think (I’m very old-it could have been a year ago), I complained about the predictable nature of these stories, but in this case, first by telling Red Sonja’s side and then telling Conan’s and Belit’s, Roy finds a very creative way to shake up the narrative and find two ways into the same central story. Again, kudos to Roy. As for the art, Big John drew Conan and company like he was born to the job, and he might very well have been. Only Windsor-Smith had a more creative approach to the Cimmerian and the world he lived in. Thanks, Alan!
I was gone again by this issue and not liking sword and sorcery much at all, Conan specifically, or Frank Thorne’s Sonja, I can say I would have disliked this issue immensely had I bought it. I think I’ve mentioned I realized decades later I like comics because of enjoying heroic fiction and Conan was no hero by my standards. I think by this point the only other Conan story I ever read again in my life was when Belit bit it.
To my mind, by this point, John Buscema’s art had fallen off from its peak of roughly 1968-1972, and The Tribe were a poor substitute for Joe Sinnott, but, even with the sketchy pencils and scattershot inking by several different hands, Buscema’s talent shines through here.
Here as in DC’s All-Star Squadron Roy Thomas made good use of his love for referencing and expanding on ancient continuity.
Roy Thomas and John Buscema on Conan were a form of Comfort Media there in the 1970s and 1980s. Somewhat formulaic and predictable, sure, but that is not always a bad thing; there is something to be said for the merits of knowing what to expect inside the pages of a comic book. Niches can work.
Reminds me a bit of Michael Fleisher and Tony DeZuniga’s work on Jonah Hex during some of those same years and a bit later. It may well have been the last holdout of the cowboy heroes, and it was handled with a lot of craft and care by Fleisher.
I disagree a little with John H as to Big John’s heyday ( although not by much), and at this stage his art was still very strong, depending on subject, whether it was full pencils or not and the quality of the inking. Big J did full pencils I believe here. and DeZuniga et al do a decent job on the inks, although Chan would do better once his sojourn to DC ended. Final page is excellent. Overall the comic is a bit flat though, from the awkward cover, to too much standing around with log-winded explanations in the middle of the issue; the Savage Sword magazine was better, with adaptions and the exquisite Buscema-Alcala combination, the exception being the disaster of #14, with its misalignment of Adams and the Tribe. Great story though. Hey Alan, are you going to cover that one?
Log-winded 🤣
would love to say that I wrote that pun on purpose…but alas my writing abilities are not on a par, or as eloquent, as that of many true Alan believers here.
“Hey Alan, are you going to cover that one?”
Coming your way July 11th, Spirit!