Conan Volume 20: A Witch Shall Be Born' – Fred Van Lente, Brian Ching, Jose Luis, Andy Owens, Michael Atiyeh (Dark Horse)

Marvel's new 'Conan' stuff doesn't feel like it's been round long enough for me to really be able to form an opinion on just how good it could be. Let's just say, for now, that I'm quite enjoying the Conan titles but anything where Conan gets lumped in modern day Marvel heroes... Not so much. And yes I'm looking at you 'Savage Avengers', put Conan down and then go to your room and think about what you've done...

Thank Crom then that we will always have Dark Horse's 'Conan' run, a series that really shows Marvel how it should be done. I had to duck out of collecting the books partway through that run (because of particularly boring reasons that would add nothing to this post) but have read enough to be able to confidently say that the Timothy Truman and Tomas Giorello partnership on ‘Conan’ is the best that I’ve come across. Until now…? Well, let’s see what ‘A Witch Shall Be Born’ gives us with it’s combination of Fred Van Lente writing and Brian Ching, Jose Luis and Andy Owens providing the art.

Taramis, the beloved queen of Khauran, was born with a twin sister, Salome - but by an ancient doom placed on their bloodline Salome's chest bore a scarlet half-moon birthmark: the mark of the witch! Left to die in the desert, Salome survived instead, and grew up to embrace her malevolent destiny. and now she's back, to take vengeance on all of Khauran! Can Conan stop her? Does Conan even particularly want to stop her… ? Either way, Conan’s and Salome’s ambitions are about to cross in a flurry of swords and blood…

‘A Witch Shall Be Born’ was originally written for ‘Weird Tales’ and published way back in December 1934. Fred Van Lente opts for the ‘safe adaptation’ approach, with the comic book, by sticking very closely to Robert E. Howard’s original and the resulting read is understandably stripped back, to the essentials, but still reads very well. The bones of this story are still more than enough for Ching, Luis and Owens to build upon and it’s a tale that’s very readable and that keeps the pages turning smoothly. There may not be any big surprises, that keep things fresh, but you almost don’t need that here as the art is striking enough to hold the attention and Van Lente’s adaptation is a good one.

‘A Witch Shall Be Born’ is one of the more straightforward ‘Conan’ tales (a little too linear in fact…) but what made it interesting for me was to see how much of it didn’t actually involve Conan at all and, not only that, how much of it appeared to be about something else entirely (Conan taking over the desert tribes). The whole Salome plot feels a little bit misleading then, at least to start off with, but everything manages to hang together as a cohesive whole. The climactic fight with the monster Thaug also feels a little off, and rushed. Normally Conan kills these things, over a couple of pages at least, as a matter of course but this was over and done with in a flash.

‘A Witch Shall Be Born’ won’t be threatening any of my favourite Dark Horse ‘Conan Reads’ any time soon but is fun enough, in a ‘read it and move on quickly’ kind of way. If you want something a little more engrossing…? Well, there’s an idea for a post right there. I’ll get back to you on that one.