‘The Savage Sword of Conan: Volume 2’ – Various (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

 


Page Count: 208 Pages

My ongoing journey to read more of the books that I buy is going… Well… You all saw yesterday’s post :o) It’s not going brilliantly but not only do I really enjoy reading fantasy and horror, I’m also dogged and relentless with my TBR pile. Erm… Well, more the former than the latter ;o) I’ll get there, eventually…

Anyway. The other day, said journey saw me take a little trek through the Hyborian Age with some quick detours along the way to take in 16th Century France and Hungary, as well as 1930s Egypt. Yep, I finally read that copy of ‘Savage Sword of Conan’, that has been been giving me reproachful looks for far too long. Lets talk a little about it :o)

The second volume of ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’ collects issues #4-6 of the ongoing series and kicks things off with one of my pet hates about comic books… The humble ‘crossover’ event. That’s not the book’s fault, lets be clear, but here we are. I’m the kind of guy who settles on a title and sticks with it until I decide it’s time to stop. What I’m not is the kind of guy who enjoys having to remember to buy other titles, just so I can get the ‘full story’. I mean, I get why the publishers do this but it’s still annoying. Yep, I’m still sore about having to go a couple of months to find out the whole story of how Cable met the X-Man Nate Grey ;o)

Anyway, that’s what we get here, little prequel tales that set things up for the likes of Dark Agnes, Solomon Kane, El Borak, John Kirowan and Brissa the Pict to team up with Conan for ‘The Battle of the Black Stone’. And as much as crossovers still annoy me, each of these tales fill in a little gap and give us some context so… I’m not complaining too hard. I enjoyed the climactic book so it feels a little unfair to moan too much ;o) If I had to pick a favourite? Well, Patrick Zircher’s artwork continues to complement his writing very well (funny that…) and that was very much the case with his tale. ‘Blood From A Stone’.

Things settle down for issues #5 and #6 with Jason Aaron’s ‘The Ensorcelled’ taking the lions share of the page count and for good reason. I think half the fun of writing in REH’s Hyboria is speculating on the legacy that Conan would have left behind when the wanderlust took him again. A man of his stature would have left a mark and Aaron makes that very clear, albeit not in the way that I expected. Lets just say that Conan made for a pretty fair-minded king (based on this story at least) but some old habits either die hard or just plain don’t die at all. The best storytelling leaves you wondering what happened next and ‘The Ensorcelled’ has sown seeds for something potentially fascinating, if anyone ever decided to run with it.

‘The Ensorcelled’ is book ended by a selection of decent ‘stand alone’ tales. Okay, Matthew John’s ‘Madness on the Mound’ wasn’t a favourite although that was more down to the way it was presented rather than the actual content (which wasn’t bad, just nothing new). Turns out that ‘middle-aged me’ doesn’t deal so well with tightly packed text.

Jim Zub’s ‘Damn Thing in the Water’ was a lot of fun though. I’m finding that I have a lot more time these days for comic book tales with minimal dialogue that’s what we get here. Zub displays a keen sense of comic timing with the few words that Conan speaks and if you’re going to have a ‘Conan’ story where barely anyone talks, I can’t think of a better person to illustrate it than Rob de la Torre.

Michael Kogge’s ‘Forged’ doesn’t do anything new but is still a tale well told nonetheless. Michael Downs’ ‘The Head of St. Denis’ an odd choice of tale to conclude the book. I’d have swapped it with ‘Damn Thing in the Water’ (end a ‘Conan’ collection with a ‘Conan’ tale, that’s what I’d do) but that’s just me.

Not a bad read all in all; it’s not going to trouble my favourite REH comics but it knew what it had to do and more or less delivered; your mileage will definitely vary. That’s all I’m asking for, in a read (especially right now), and that’s exactly what I got.

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