It was my younger brother Ken rather than me who kept picking up copies of CONAN THE BARBARIAN. I couldn’t have been less interested in sword and sorcery adventures back then, any more than I was interested in war or western or romance comics. But given that I was who i was and that Ken’s interest was a passing thing, I wound up absorbing all of the books that he’d bought over the years into my own collection over time. But I didn’t relate to them at all, and they were only of minor interest to me.
Writer/editor Roy Thomas put a lot of effort into his Conan adaptations over the years. He’d always been literary-minded, and during his tenure as Marvel’s Editor in Chief, he oversaw the company either licensing or freely adapting any number of works from outside the field, whether based on novels, short stories, plays, films or what-have-you. Roy was referred to by some within the field as the “Super-Adaptoid’ for the frequency of such projects and the fact that his plots for such stories would occasionally be just a copy of the prose work in question with a specific span of pages marked off as that month’s issue. But regardless of how he got there, Roy’s CONAN was one of the more literate series of its time, even if its subject matter wasn’t especially highbrow.
The story in this issue was adapted from one of Robert E. Howard’s stories. it concerns Conan, now allied with Belit of the Black Coast and her pirate crew, venturing into the territory surrounding the Dark Cliffs that inspired the name of the Black Coast in search of plunder. Coming across an intact but abandoned sailing vessel, Conan and Belit follow the trail of heavy chests being dragged away deeper into the cliffside itself. As they venture ever downward, they eventually come across the antagonists for this outing: a tribe of strange crab-men. What these creatures want with the chests of treasure is anybody’s guess–it’s not as though they could spend it, right?
Conan and his posse come upon an imprisoned member of the ghost ship’s crew: Florrianus. He tells them that his ship was set upon by the Crab-Men, and that they’ve been dragging the captured crew away one after another to perform hideous experiments upon them. The Crab-Men are also slightly telepathic, which allowed Florrianus to get a sense as to what they’ve been doing, even though he hasn’t experienced their cruelty firsthand. Conan swears that he won’t abandon these men to this fate, and Belit reluctantly agrees and commits herself to their liberation as well.
Conan has the captives all take off their leather shirts, which he then braids together into a strong rope. Winding this around a nearby boulder, he ties the other end to the bars in the window, then pushes the bounder off the side of the cliffside. As you’d expect, once the line goes taut, the side of the wall gives first, and the prisoners are released. But Belit isn’t about to leave without the treasure, and she gets Florrianus to show them where it can be found. But before they’re able to make off with it, the devil-Crabs attack, having become aware of what is going on.
Conan and company are woefully outnumbered by the Devil-Crabs, and Conan can feel the one he’s grappling with probing his mind. But he’s able to go berserker and break both of the Crab-Man’s arms, his mind reduced to an impenetrable blur while he does so. What’s more, Conan has a plan to rout the attackers. The area is dotted with fissures that emit scalding-hot steam. Conan has the men drop boulders on a number of these, plugging them up. The steam thus diverts to the still-open ones, which explode out with super-heated steam, effectively roasting the Devil-Crabs within their own shells.
And that’s about all she wrote for this installment. Belit even decides to split the plunder with the men they rescued in recognition for their help in plugging up the steam-vents and saving everyone. Conan, though, is a bit worse for wear from his encounter with the Devil-Crabs. He has a bout of lightheadedness, but waves off any talk of medical attention. This is clearly set-up for the next story to come, and it’s relatively unsubtly done in its handling. The next issue would be #100, a milestone by any reckoning, and so i was more interested in seeing it than I would ordinarily be.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I agree on Conan. I followed a short lived DC barbarian comic but at Marvel only Kull somehow won me over. I’d keep trying every few years but would only last an issue or two. I will always love looking at John (or Sal for that matter) Buscema’s work but I actively dislike Ernie Chan’s style. Roy? He was middle of the road if I had to make a list of writers I liked back then. I followed artist and character more than him. This was before we got so many unneeded explanations for Golden Age story gaffes and inconsistencies at DC. His Wolverine story explaining the mask change if I recall correctly is the last Thomas work I will ever read without a review from a blogger with similar taste to mine.
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I always liked how Claremont scripted the change to the brown costume with Wolverine. (Given the panel breakdown, I assume Byrne had some input.) Nightcrawler asks why the costume change? Wolverine replies, “Why not?”
It was a costume change that refused elaboration. It was refreshing. Of course, in the movies you see outfit and hairstyle changes all the time, and no one comments on them. Which seems quite true-to-life.
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One “literary” joke from the Belit Saga involved Conan duking it out with a jungle-man who was clearly Tarzan. For most of the 20th century, Tarzan remained far more popular than Conan in any medium. Tarzan’s still better known today, but he doesn’t show up in many high-profile projects these days. I must admit that his 2016 live-action movie did somewhat better box office than Conan’s 2011 flick, though. Comics companies keep coming out with Conan stuff, but Tarzan adaptations seem less prominent. And Conan was slated for a prestige streaming series before a producer allegedly canned the project.
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It wasn’t a great story (the Wolverine mask) but it was about more than just the mask. It was more about showing how the Wein/Trimpe Wolverine in Hulk really has all the traits (healing factor, swiss-cheese memory, etc.) that “definitive Wolverine” does.
Thomas’ first plug-the-gaps story was, I believe, when he explained why Namor was wandering around the Bowery in FF 4 (https://atomicjunkshop.com/roy-thomas-and-the-hulk-were-both-in-new-york-in-april-1968/).
I like Thomas as a writer, including some of his retcons — with the obvious caveat that like anyone with a long career, he’s written some stinkers. Conan was not one of them for me. I was big on fantasy in my print fiction and I loved Thomas’ work on the Cimmerian.
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Despite the “Black Coast” title, the REH story “People of the Black Coast” is not a Conan story, it’s science fiction, and the human leads in the story don’t live through it. So when Roy says this one was “freely adapted,” it really was.
There’s no treasure in the original story, so that probably covers why that plot bit makes no sense. And I don’t think the nameless hero steams any crabs to death; I think that part’s a culinary inspiration from Roy.
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Conan the Barbarian was a must read in the 70’s. When most of the Mighty World of Marvel titles were dragging their heals our favourite Barbarian was flourishing. Unfortunately by #70 the standard dropped rapidly and personally I lost interest. There was the odd gem with Gil Kane taking the reins, but little else. Fast forward 30 years and the opportunity to acquire the early issues arose and off I went again. I created and currently Admin the largest Conan the Barbarian, Social Media group in the World and the character is as popular as ever, even more so. I much appreciate the efforts Roy, Barry and “Big” John infused into the stories I much enjoyed in my youth. It’s a bygone age, but why there are still those out there, including me, who enjoy a good yarn and a reminisce the saga will continue and long may it do so.
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Why do I suspect Roy Thomas was coming back from (or looking forward to) a vacation in Maryland when this was written . . . .
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and unbeknownst to us all Big John Buscema was drawing this comic just a coupla houses down from me in Setauket…ah those days. Het Tom I found alotta Silver Age Marvel here in Austria…in German though (!)
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Question, does Conan’s Hyborian Age stories take place before or after Ulysses Bloodstone’s Hyborian Age stories ( circa 8259 B.C. )? Ulysses Bloodstone has a Conan-like story in Bizarre Adventures Vol.2#1 ( December 2019 ) 1st story against a stranded Skrull sorcerer ( See profile at marvunapp.com — “Star-Spawned Sorcerer” or follow the link on the Ulysses Bloodstone profile ).
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Second Question, RED SONJA ( Wikipedia says ) is a sword-and-sorcery character CREATED BY WRITER ROY THOMAS and ARTIST BARRY WINDSOR-SMITH for MARVEL COMICS in 1973, PARTIALLY INSPIRED by ROBERT E. HOWARD’s character RED SONYA OF ROGATINO [ The Magic Carpet Magazine — January 1934 – “The Shadow of the Vulture” – is a historical fiction set in the 16th Century ] who twice rescues a knight named Gottfried Von Kalmach, so why does Marvel not own Red Sonja. DC Comics owns ADAM STRANGE who is PARTIALLY INSPIRED by JOHN CARTER OF MARS.
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According to the Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Conan’s adventures take place c. 10,000 BC.http://www.marvunapp.com/list/appconan.htmAs for why Marvel doesn’t own Red Sonja…that’s just the way the deal was made. Thomas wanted a character who was explicitly part of Conan’s world, not just “vaguely similar to”. If DC had set Adam Strange on Barsoom, and had him hobnobbing with Dejah Thoris, they’d have had to contend with the Burroughs estate.
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