Conan the Slayer

Dark Horse Comics revamped Conan the Barbarian in a powerful way several years ago.

For decades, Marvel Comics had the rights to Conan, the 1930s creation of writer Robert E. Howard. Conan lived in a savage world called the Hyborian Age set 12,000 years in the past. 

In the 1970s, Marvel created a landmark line of comic books for Conan: “Conan the Barbarian,” “The Savage Sword of Conan,” “King Conan,” etc. 

The popularity of the comic book stories and Howard adaptions led to the Conan movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ironically, the introduction of the movies was about the same time the quality and popularity of the Conan comics waned.

Marvel revamped the comics several times then let the character languish.

Dark Horse picked up Conan and created a stunning series, which mixed new adaptions of the Howard tales with and within new story arcs.

But after several years of masterful issues, the Dark Horse series also weakened.

Until the more recent revamping, “Conan the Slayer,” the first six issues are now collected in a trade paperback. Here, Conan is the character of the old Howard creed, a man of gigantic melancholy, etc., “a thief, a reaver, a slayer.” 

Readers meet Conan after the army he led has been destroyed in battle and he is adopted into a tribe of hill people. There’s intrigue, combat, monsters, etc., all of the stuff readers have come to expect from a Conan tale. 

This Conan series fully grasps the “Slayer” in its title. The violence is graphic. So, readers be warned.

But the Dark Horse Conan once again takes readers to an “age undreamed of.”