CONAN RECAPTURES THE SWORD & SORCERY DAYS OF OLD

By
Ricky Burke

*** ½

Conan #50
The Hand of Nergal
Dark Horse Comics
Truman, Giorello, Villarrubia, Harris, Starkings

I kind of gave up on the Conan franchise. It just didn’t do it for me anymore, didn’t hold my interest at all. The love was sadly gone. A faded memory of the past, a kid with the covers over my head, flashlight in hand, turning each page with great anticipation. But Dark Horse’s series just left me all bored and yawning big-time, falling asleep, waking up to find that I drooled all over the nifty artwork, the soggy pages sticking to my face–not good at all. There was something missing, and I just didn’t have the time to figure it out. I just stopped reading them altogether. Credits roll. End of story. And then, Conan #50, The Hand of Nergal comes along just in the nick of time: 64 pages of blissful, that’s the way, ah-huh-ah-huh, I like it, epic blood n’ guts. I’m a die-hard fan again. It was the “heart” that was missing all along.

Remember the early Conanan the Barbarian days? Sure… when Conan art and story really made you feel as though you were reading something so visual, almost cinematic that you felt as though you were standing right next to the hulking Cimmerian. Knee-high in the bloody aftermath of his manic slice n’ dicing you looked up at your hero with a big thumbs up. Until one of the bodies dying on the battlefield impaled you on their sword. Oh well, well worth the fantasy. I’m happy to report that the great barbarian and all the awe and wonder he deserves has returned! Ten-fold. Thanks in large to the splendid artwork by Tomas Giorello. His drawings are all so traditionally eye-popping, that you can first attack the 64 pages taking in the visual aspects of the tale alone, just like in the old days. The writing by Timothy Truman is also quite good, so tight in fact that I can safely say that this breath-taking finale is the best of the Dark Horse bunch–hands down. And now that the story arc has departed from harping on his endless days of thieving, what has emerged is a drama of wonderful emotional nooks n’ crannies that I finally finished thinking, what’s next? I can’t friggin’ wait. This is the beginning of something good.

And that’s not all! You get the original telling of The Hand of Nergal by Roy Thomas & John Buscema. The complete tale to insert into historic context is presented at the end of the book. The Thomas Giorello scetch gallery is way cool (a few more pages wouldn’t have hurt, but hey…) and all for a measly 5 bucks! Not bad at all. Thank you Truman, Giorello, Villarrubia, Harris, and Starkings for keeping me awake until the wee hours of the morn. I once again envisioned I was standing next to one of the heroes of my youth as he winked, and in a gruff voice barked, “you ain’t seen nothing yet!”