Conan

For more than 20 years, Marvel Comics was the comic book home of Conan.

Marvel published several Conan comics at one point: “Conan the Barbarian,” “The Savage Sword of Conan,” “King Conan.”

Writer Roy Thomas and predominantly artists Barry Windsor Smith and John Buscema handled the majority of the issues featuring Robert E. Howard’s most famous character.

Howard wrote Conan short stories for pulp magazines published in the 1930s. Howard was prolific, writing fantasy, horror, Westerns, adventure, etc. His characters included Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, Red Sonja, King Kull — all of whom appeared in adaptations in Marvel Comics.

But Conan was his most famous character. A barbarian who dominates a pre-history civilization as a thief, a wanderer, an adventurer, a pirate, a warrior, a general, who rises to become king of the greatest nation of his Hyborean Age.

Howard died at the age of 30 in 1936. By the 1960s, his Conan stories were republished in paperbacks along with additional Conan stories by other authors fleshing out his life.

Yet, it was the Marvel Comics adaptations that led to increased Conan popularity in the 1970s, the sell and publication of more paperbacks, eventually leading to the Conan movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1982.

The first movie was the peak. Marvel had already adapted all of Howard’s stories and many of the 1960s-70s pastiches and created many original classics. Thomas left the comics. Smith was gone after the first couple of years. Buscema left after more than a decade. The quality suffered. Marvel tried a handful of Conan reboots until Marvel no longer had the rights to the character.

One would think that would be the end. Conan the Comic Book had been done.

But Dark Horse Comics gained the rights to Conan. Dark Horse started Conan’s story again from the beginning. The new comics provided new storytelling framed around the original Howard stories.

Dark Horse made the familiar Conan fresh again.

The Dark Horse comics are collected in a series of trade paperbacks collecting the various story arcs.

They are great introductions for new readers to Conan. They are wonderfully new to old Conan fans.