‘Conan the Barbarian: The Life and Death of Conan, Book One’ – Aaron, Asrar, Zaffino (Marvel)



I’ve had the busiest weekend and none of it was about reading… That’s one of the reasons you’re getting another comic book review today, the other being… It’s Conan and I love reading Conan!

Marvel appear to be going all out to get their moneys worth from this licence with ‘Savage Sword of Conan’, ‘Savage Avengers’ (which I’ll talk about some other time) and ‘Conan the Barbarian’. I will always pick up a trade, over single issues, and the cover for ‘The Life and Death of Conan, Book One’ pretty much sold it to me. Just look at that cover, doesn’t it just encapsulate what Conan is all about? Of course it does…
Jason Aaron has done some amazing things with a half sci-fi, half fantasy setting in ‘Thor’ so I thought it would be interesting to see how he handled an established, and pretty damn iconic, setting like the world of Conan. As it turned out, pretty bloody well…

The greatest sword-and-sorcery hero of all returns to Marvel! From an age undreamed…hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet. Conan's travels have brought him to the far reaches of the unknown, from his birthplace in Cimmeria to the kingdom of Aquilonia and all in between. But as his fighting prowess lets him carve his way through life, so too does it attract the forces of death! And few are more deadly than the Crimson Witch. Robert E. Howard's legendary barbarian stars in an all-new ages-spanning saga as the destiny of Conan — and King Conan — are forever changed! Collecting: Conan The Barbarian 1-6

One criticism that I’ve seen levelled at Conan, in the past, is that his tales always follow the same lines and as such, are predictable in the telling. This criticism totally ignores what the reader can get from a character study of our ‘hero’ but colours every approach to a ‘Conan’ tale because, well… there is an element of truth to it.
Aaron gets round this by punctuating the main tale with little side trips into Conan’s past. Not only does this add a little variety to the tale (Conan may be doing what he normally does but he’s doing it in different places, a nice trick played by Aaron to spice things up a bit) but it also gives this tale a real sense that things are being built up to, which they are. There’s a lot at stake here for Conan and although you can’t get away from the sneaking feeling that things will all work out in the end (this is Marvel after all and you can’t kill the goose that lays golden eggs…) there’s enough of a hook that I suspect this is another comic book that I will make a habit of reading regularly to see how things pan out. It’s really clear that Aaron not only gets Conan but has the story telling skills to make this more than just another by the numbers ‘kill the monster/have the lady/steal the treasure (delete as appropriate) rip off.

Asrar and Zaffino get Conan as well; this is made abundantly clear in artwork that is brash and dynamic in all the right ways. Tomas Giorello is still my man for Conan comic book art but I will more than happily sit and just live the story through Asrar and Zaffino’s work; it’s that good.

So that’s two lots of ‘Marvel Conan’ that I’ve read now and I have to say that ‘The Life and Death of Conan’ is the book for me right now (although there’s not much in it). It’s got everything I need and that can only bode well for the future of the series. If you have to pick a ‘Conan’ book from Marvel, do yourself a favour and make it this one.

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