The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 15: Valley of Forever Night and Others Stories by Len Wein, J. M. DeMatteis, John Buscema Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Chronicles of Conan, Vol. 15: Valley of Forever Night and Others Stories
Book Review: A worthy entry in the series, includes the introduction of B?lit
Summary: 5 Stars
The only sensible way to read these books is to start with Volume 1 and read them in order, so if you're considering getting this one you probably have a pretty good idea what to expect. The artwork by John Buscema continues to be quality work and there is also one story very competently illustrated by Mike Ploog. The last two stories, which are probably the main selling point of this volume, introduce the pirate queen B?lit. As usual the stories are followed by Roy Thomas reminiscing and shedding some light on them for his readers, which is always entertaining. Book Review: CRUSH YEH ENEMEHS!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
Dark Horse continues with their reprints of the classic Marvel Comics series CONAN THE BARBARIAN with the trade paperback THE CHRONICLES OF CONAN VOLUME 6: THE CURSE OF THE GOLDEN SKULL, reprinting issues 35-42. These stories are written by Roy Thomas, with art by John Buscema and one issue each by Neal Adams and Rich Buckler. They primarily feature Conan's adventures in Turan as a member of King Yildiz' Turanian army, in spite of the fact that Yildiz' son Yezdigerd, who is off conquering new lands to the east, wants Conan's head. Animated statues, wizards encased in gold, and palace intrigue are just a few of the challenges facing our favorite Cimmerian as he makes his way in the lands of so-called "civilized" men in the Hyborian Age.
After a questionable start with earlier volumes, the re-coloring finally serves to make the artwork look even better than originally presented. Some of that could be due to the fact that Barry Smith's art on the early Conan comics were either just too detailed or reprinted directly from pencils. In those cases, the colors completely overwhelmed Smith's art and made it almost ugly at times. In contrast, Buscema's heavier lines work much better with the re-coloring; however, his style is more generic. In any case, the wonderful art is unfortunately countered by careless re-lettering which often transposes letters or entire words, or omits them altogether. It's difficult to understand just why Dark Horse is having these kinds of quality control problems this far into the series.
Anyway, Roy Thomas' detailed notes in the back of the book provide interesting information on the creation of these stories, as well as some hilarious insights (Neal Adams is a sneaky guy). Dark Horse is providing all types of comic fans with a great service by putting these original Conan comics back in print... they just need to proofread them more carefully.
Book Review: Conan and Belit on the road to serpent-riddled Luxor and Thoth-Amon
Summary: 5 Stars
"Chronicles of Conan, Volume 10: When Giants Walk the Earth and Other Stories," reprints issues #72-77 and 79-82 from "Conan the Barbarian." The gap in the continuity is issue #78, which reprinted "Curse of the Undead-Man" from "Savage Sword of Conan" #1, which teams up Conan and Red Sonja, albeit now in color. This is the point in the chronology of the character where Roy Thomas is milking the epic Conan story "Queen of the Black Coast" by Robert E. Howard for all it is worth. Conan first joined up with Belit in issue #58 and it would not be until #100 that we got to the death of the she-pirate and the end of the story. What made this work so well for the comic book was that Thomas was coming up with multi-part stories as key elements of the larger story. What we have here is one of the major stories within that epic, where Belit finds out that her father is still alive and wants to go rescue him. But in these ten issues Conan and Belit only get as far as starting to travel up the River Styx. Once they begin their travel there is an adventure in Harakht (#75-77) and a side trip that Conan has to take without Belit (#79-81). All of the stories are written by Thomas and inked by Ernie Chan, but the first set of reprints are penciled by John Buscema while guest illustrator Howard Chaykin shows up for the second storyline.
"Vengeance in Asgalun" (#72) begins with Conan, Belit and the Black Corsairs raiding a Shemite merchant vessel, but then heading to the royal palace at Asgalun to fetch a vial with a special herb to help old N'yaga's bones heal. There Conan and Belit pretend to be a bickering husband and wife to be able to get the vial. But along the way Belit learns that her father is alive and supposedly in Luxor. "He Who Waits--in the Well of Skelos!" (#73), freely adopted from a plot by Howard, starts off with the cowardly Kawaku, making his move against Conan and Belit to take over the pirate ship "Tigress." So Conan leads the traitor to the Temple of the Toad, knowing full well what is waiting in the Well of Skelos. "The Battle at the Black Walls" (#74) has Conan coming face-to-face with Thoth-Amon, albeit in a dream and is shown the "Tigress" burning at sea. Belit also has a dream that night, but it is of her father. When they raid a Stygian ship, its last defend walks forward onto Conan's words rather than tell what he knows of Luxor. They find a Zingarian girl named Neftha aboard, and she helps guide them on the long and dangerous road to Luxor.
"The Hawk-Riders of Harakht!" (#75) certainly strikes me as owing a dept to the tarnsman aspect of John Norman's novels about the counter-Earth named Gor, as our trio travel up the River Styx and encounter archers riding on giant hawks who attack the trade ship they are on from the skies. When one of the giant birds takes Belit, Conan tries to follow on another, only to edge up in a crocodile infested marshland fighting for his life. "Swordless in Stygia" (#76) finds Conan pursuing the captive Belit to the walled roofs of Harakht, city of the Stygian hawk-god. But when he finds Belit, he also finds the star that fell on Stygia, which is protected by a giant who wants to kill Conan just for touching the sacred stone. "When Giants Walk the Earth!" (#77) concludes this diversion on the road to Luxor as Conan makes sure there is somebody new sitting on the throne of Harakht.
"The Lost Valley of Iskander" (#79), freely adapted from another non-Conan story by Howard, has Conan agreeing to take the Eye of Set, a holy gem, to the village of Attalus in the rugged hills of Stygian exchange for safe passage to Luxur. On the way Conan is attacked by Stygian worshippers of Hun-Ya-Di and discovers a woman named Bardylis to Attalus, which is ruled by her brother, Ptolemy, king of the Valley of Kiskander. "Trial by Combat" (#80) has Conan being accused of being a wizard, believe it or not, by Ptolemy's henchman Ablah. After beating the king in the titular fight, King is not the de facto king of the valley just as three hundred Stygians storm the pass and enter the valley. In "The Eye of the Serpent" (#81) it turns out Hun-Ya-Di is leading the Stygians, which means another big fight, this time with swords, before Conan restores peace to the valley. "The Sorceress of the Swamp!" (#82), adapted from Howard's "Black Canaan," finds Conan hurrying back to Harakht to rejoin Belit, but getting side tracked by what is happening in a swamp between Stygians and Kushites. Conan is also threated with the Call of Damballa by a woman who may be a demon out of hell and he STILL has not yet made his way back to Belit.
Book Review: The early adventures of Conan and Belit on the Black Coast
Summary: 5 Stars
At some point Roy Thomas must have figured out there was a finite number of Robert E. Howard stories to adapt for the "Conan the Barbarian" comic book. Thomas was using most of Howard's original Conan stories for the slightly larger and longer venue of the black & white "Savage Tales"/"Savage Tales of Conan" and taking pretty much anything Howard wrote about other characters and turning them into Conan stories. But when Thomas got ready to adapt "Queen of the Black Coast," the Conan story about the she-devil Belit, he had a masterstroke and decided to create a comic book epic. Belit was introduced in "Conan the Barbarian" #58 and did not meet her death until #100. The breakdown of "The Chronicles of Conan" reprinting these Marvel comics written by Thomas and drawn (with one exception) by John Buscema means that with Volume 9, "Riders of the River-Dragons and Other Stories" we have just missed the introduction of Belit. But we do have the first multi-part Conan and Belit adventure and clear evidence that we have entered the pirate stage in the history of Howard's barbarian warrior:
In "Riders of the River-Dragons" (#60) the pirate ship "Tigress" travels up the river Zarkheba to take her rightful tribute from men who ride on the back of huge crocodiles. When the riders take Belit, Conan agrees to lead the local tribe, the Watambis and the Black Corsairs to get her back. "On the Track of the She-Pirate" (#61) includes a two-page splash panel of the women Conan has loved as he pursues Belit through the jungle, but the pirate queen is now dealing with a giant killer moth. "Lord of the Lions" (#62) is Amra, the Tarzan like figure who was shipwrecked as a boy and was raised by a pride of lions, the companion of Sholo, a cub whose fur was dark as the shrouding jungle night. Amra wants to make the goddess Belit his queen, which does not make Makeda, mistress of the Lair of the Lions, happy. In "Death Among the Ruins" (#63), Conan finally catches up with Belit and Amra as they are fighting a horde of the unbound ones. At that point, we have the fight to the death between Conan and Amra. This four-part story is a good indication of how Thomas and Buscema were taking their time telling stories because Conan and Belit are separated for over two issues and it works just fine.
"Fiends of the Feathered Serpent" (#65), freely adapted from Howard's "The Thunder Rider," again has the "Tigress" stopping for supplies and discovering the seven-foot giant Ahmaan the Merciless, pygmies wearing brightly dyed feathers, and Tezcatipoca the self-proclaimed Mist-Lord. Val Mayerik is the illustrator (along with The Tribe) on "The Demon Out of the Deep" (#69), adapted from Howard's "Out of the Deep," which is actually a flashback story the Conan tells Belit about making his way back to Cimmeria after the events in "Conan" #2, when he was captured by a Vanir war party. "The City in the Storm" (#70), based on Howard's "Marchers of Valhalla," welcomes back Ernie Chan (formerly Chua) as embellisher-in-residence. The storm swept "Tigress" comes upon the great-towering city of Kelka. Although Conan and his comrades defend the city from Argossean pirates, they are betrayed the priest Akkheba, to be sacrificed to the great goddess Ashtoreth. "The Secret of Ashtoreth" (#71) is discovered by Conan and Belit, who meet the "goddess" face to face. What is nice about this one is that for once the sorcery part of the equation is pretty much gone and it is just the sword part.
The missing issues are a reprint in color of "The Secret of Skull River" from "Savage Tales" #5 and a cross-over story from "Red Sonja" (in which King Kull appears as well), which explains why the "Conan" issues are not reprinted here. There is nothing in these eight reprinted comic books that is a true Conan classic, but they are almost all above average, which is enough to justify rounding up on this volume. Besides, this was the point where the comic book was getting back to the level it was at in the Barry Windsor-Smith days. By this time I had really come to like the way Buscema was drawing Conan, especially when Chan came back as inker. Thomas and Buscema would spend over four years with Conan and Belit raiding ships and kingdoms up and down the Black Coast creating a true comic book epic.
Book Review: conan rules
Summary: 5 Stars
rule 1 thank dark horse comics for reprinting these classics. rule 2 buy these trades. rule 3 ENJOY