‘Conan The Barbarian’ #33 - Zub, Dagnino, Rodriguez (Titan Comics, Heroic Signatures)

 


This will be a much shorter post than normal… While you’re reading this, I’ll be doing ‘fun stuff’ like clearing my work locker out, shredding notes and making sure that I hand my work laptop in before I leave work for the final time. On the other hand, I will be making time for a bacon roll from my favourite cafe so, it’s not all bad ;o)

Anyway… It has been a difficult couple of days for reading (there are currently two books, on the comfy chair, that are exactly my kind of thing, I just can’t get into them) but I knew this was likely to happen so I already had a little ‘Conan’ set to one side, just in case…

Thirty three issues in and I’ve stopped looking for continuity between the stories; to be honest, I shouldn’t have started looking in the first place. I mean, there is an overall timeline for Conan (it’s his life…) but the comic seems to hop around that timeline and for me, that is the best way to experience Conan’s adventures, just jump in and see what he’s up right now.

#33 opens with Conan stood at the prow of ‘The Briney Wren’, ready to hurl himself at a Zingaran naval ship and sink it. He’s not on his own though, the Red Brotherhood stand with him and that means Valeria fights at his side.

But these are stormy seas, where an apparition stalks the decks of ‘The Briney Wren’ and a seemingly deserted island holds a dark secret. Could the two be connected…?

#33 is basically a lot of ‘set up’, for whatever is going to happen in #34 but at the same time, it was also a reminder that I enjoy reading tales of ‘Conan the Buccaneer’ just as much as when Conan is adventuring in the desert. Tales like this remind us just how much Conan is a force of nature and as such, can make himself at home wherever he ends up. Here, he fights like he was born on the ocean.

Zub and Dagnino combine superbly to deliver a deft mix of swashbuckling fights and ‘sword and sorcery horror’. If it’s not one, it’s the other and this issue really keeps you on your toes as it jumps between the two. Zub’s sure hand on the plot and the dynamism of Dagnino’s art was just a real pleasure to experience. And I just loved how the excerpt from Robert E. Howard’s ‘The Sea’ is used to add extra weight to the storm that ‘The Briney Wren’ must endure.

And while my memory isn’t great at the moment, I’m… oh… about 95% certain that this is the first time that I’ve come across Valeria in this run of ‘Conan’. There’s a ‘handy essay’, at the end of the comic, introducing Valeria and I found that useful. It was interesting though to see Zub’s take on her, someone confident enough in herself not to feel the need to prove herself in front of the Red Brotherhood. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a bit more of her but, this is a ‘Conan’ comic… ;o)

There was never a question of my not buying #34 but the final page of #33 made sure of it, I’m really looking forward to seeing where this story goes next.

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