In this post, we’ll be looking at the third chapter in Marvel Comics’ 1976 five-part crossover between Conan the Barbarian and Marvel Feature, featuring Red Sonja — though this issue’s status as such is completely ignored by the cover, which, nice as the illustration by Gil Kane and Pablo Marcos is, gives no indication whatsoever of the She-Devil with a Sword’s role therein, either by image or blurb-text. 

On the other hand, one of Conan’s word-balloons (previously a rarity on CtB covers, one might note) does mention another woman’s name — that of “Tara”.  And those of us who’d been reading the book for a while would recognize that as the name of the daring young acrobat whom our barbarian protagonist had first encountered back in issue #52, and whom he’d last seen in #57, right before taking up with Bêlit, the pirate queen of the Black Coast.  Was the typically underdressed, generic cover girl featured in Kane and Marcos’ illo supposed to be the same Tara?  If so, her fashion sense had certainly changed since the old days, when she’d preferred to rock a green-and-purple jester-type outfit (see right).

As we’d learn from the story contained within, this was indeed the same Tara — and things had definitely changed for her, although the impression made by her cover attire was more than a little misleading.  But we’ll get to all that soon enough; first, however, let’s turn to the comic’s opening splash page, where regular readers — whether of Conan the Barbarian, Marvel Feature, or both — found themselves looking upon a familiar scene:

The tableau we see on this first page, with Conan and Bêlit confronting Red Sonja over a page from the iron-bound Book of Skelos, had already appeared twice — once as drawn in Marvel Feature #6 (not, as the credits box rather amusingly misstates, “RED SONJA #6“) by Sonja’s regular artist, Frank Thorne, the other as drawn for Conan #66 by this book’s current art team, John Buscema and the Tribe (the latter of whom were comprised of Filipino artist Tony DeZuñiga and such other illustrators as were working in his studio at any given time) — and all three featuring identical dialogue from writer/editor Roy Thomas.  Even so, given that some readers might be coming in late, one can see why, as Thomas puts it in his 2019 book book Barbarian Life: A Literary Biography of Conan the Barbarian, Volume Two, “it seemed advisable, almost inevitable” to open this third chapter with the very same scene that had ended the first two.  And it’s not as though the three renditions of the scene aren’t very distinct artistic compositions from one another — as will hopefully be made clear by our comparative presentation of all three together, here.

But now, to continue with our story…

And so Red Sonja launches into a tidy recap of the events of Marvel Feature #6, explaining how she was hired by Karanthes, priest of Ibis, to travel to Messantia and acquire the precious page from the Book of Skelos for him.  She relates how she came through the sewers, fighting and slaying a trio of albino crocodile men along the way, then “found the long-neglected doorway which led to this very temple.  I heard voices beyond…”

And now, of course, it’s time for another recap — this time of Conan the Barbarian #66 — as Conan tells Sonja the tale of how he and Bêlit were themselves charged by the Messantian merchant Publio to assay the theft of the page; and also how, soon after arriving at the temple, they almost mistakenly killed each other thanks to the magical illusions cast by its priestly caretaker, though fortunately (and obviously) they escaped that dire fate…

Yeah, Bêlit versus Red Sonja!  This is what we wanted to see (and what should have been the cover scene, in my humble opinion).  Alas, it’s over all too quickly…

By the time Conan recovers the sliced-off but still-flaming head of the torch, Red Sonja is gone — and what’s more, she’s bolted the door to this chamber from the other side.  So Conan leads Bêlit back out the way they came, through the front entrance — and soon, near one of the sewer system’s large pipes, they find a waiting horse which Conan is certain must be Sonja’s.  Bêlit doesn’t see what good this does them, since the Hyrkanian swordswoman surely won’t return for her mount as long as she and Conan are hanging around.  But her lover tells her she’s mistaken:  “Sonja is a horsewoman as well as a soldier. Without a horse, she’s like a legless centaur!”

In Barbarian Life, Roy Thomas describes how, when writing this issue, he felt impelled to tie up “a couple of loose ends” in regards to Tara and Yusef.  From this reader’s perspective, I’m not sure that move was at all necessary — or even advisable.

Back in issue #57, we’d seen Conan get himself in trouble with the Messantian criminal justice system for refusing to rat out Yusef.  As far as we knew at the time, Conan’s actions had been sufficient to keep his young friends out of trouble; if, as we now learn, the young soldier ended up being arrested and thrown into prison regardless, Conan’s gallant gesture (which, you may remember, Thomas derived from a passage in Robert E. Howard’s short story “Queen of the Black Coast”) looks in retrospect to have been fairly pointless.  Or so it strikes me, anyway.

Also, while I realize that Tara’s getting pregnant very soon after she and Yusef first started sleeping together, and thus having to trade in her green-and-purple acrobat’s costume for maternity wear in the same colors (!), is perhaps more “realistic” than a scenario in which Tara could keep kicking up her heels (and even occasionally kicking ass) as she and her lover got on with their adventurous lives, I can’t help but wish Thomas had just left well enough alone.  (Though I suppose it could have been worse; at least Tara has been spared the “scantily clad damsel in distress” fate that was indicated by this issue’s cover.  So I’ll try to be grateful for small mercies.)

The hill-bred Cimmerian easily scales the castle wall, takes out the one guard patrolling the parapet, and steals within… but remains completely unaware of the hooded Stygian with the striped cat, who has followed him here and continues to observe events from a distance…

The cat-man lands on his feet, then springs again to the attack; but even as he does, Conan retrieves his dropped sword and thrusts upward…

As anyone who’s read many Roy Thomas stories knows, the man loves his literary references.  I have to confess that this one would have escaped me entirely, had Thomas not called it out himself in Barbarian Life:

The man-tiger of the title… allowed me (in captions over the corpse of the beast, as it reverts to human form) to have fun paraphrasing a line from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: “And it really was a cat, after all.”

(Actually, the line is from Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, and the key word there is “kitten”, not “cat”.  Still, close enough.)

Conan’s luck continues to hold, as he and the weakened Yusef encounter just two more guards as they make their exit; a lucky one whom Conan merely knocks unconscious, and a less fortunate fellow whom he runs through with his blade…

As best as I’ve been able to determine, this is the last we’ll ever see of Tara and Yusef in any Conan comics, so let’s wish them and their little bundle-of-joy-to-be all the best, OK?  Who knows, Tara may even get to wear pants again, some day.  (Let your own headcanon be your guide.)

As for Conan, Bêlit, and Red Sonja — well, now that we’ve got this largely irrelevant little interlude out of the way, maybe we can get back to this storyline’s main business, i.e., the Quest for the Page from the Iron-Bound Book of Skelos.  We’ll see soon enough, when we take a look at Marvel Feature #7 (no, Roy, not “RED SONJA #7“, jeez), just a couple of weeks from now — and then, not long after that, we’ll be back to cover the wrap-up of the whole thing in Conan the Barbarian #68, as we see our Cimmerian star come face-to-face (and sword-to-sword) with… King Kull!?  Now how’s that going to work, considering that those two heroes are supposed to have lived many thousands of years apart?  I guess we’ll all find out together, sometime in August.