BHOC: CONAN #100

This was the last regular issue of CONAN THE BARBARIAN that my younger brother Ken bought, his short-term interest in the character waning a bit at this point. I was never either a CONAN fan r regular reader, but I was interested in this double-sized issue #100 simply because it was a centennial issue. Already in my history as a comic book reader, I had come to understand that the centennial issues were special releases and typically contained an important story in the canon. Plus, they inevitably went up in value on the back issue market. Meaning that if you didn’t buy one of these babies when they first came out, you could expect to pay a premium price if you decided that you wanted it later. For years, I would religiously purchase any centennial issue that came out, regardless of whether I was at that point reading the title in question. It was just smart business.

if I’m correct, CONAN #100 was the second of the big oversized centennial issues that Marvel put out during this period, the first having been the much-coveted FANTASTIC FOUR #200. That book must have performed well, though, as up-sizing each anniversary release became a regular practice from here on out, and eventually spread to issue #50s, issue #25s and even insanely issue #12s as time went on. There’d also occasionally be oversized issues on a chronological anniversary, such as with UNCANNY X-MEN #137 which was the 17th Anniversary Issue. This approach really worked on me and my crowd as consumers, we were all innately convinced of the significance of such key releases and all too willing to shell out a couple of additional coins when one would drop. As opposed to FANTASTIC FOUR #200, CONAN #100 showed up at my regular 7-11 like clockwork, so whatever had snafued the earlier release had righted itself by this moment.

As had been most every issue for the preceding five or six years or so, the story in this special was produced by the team of Roy Thomas and John Buscema, with Buscema’s breakdowns finished by Ernie Chan. This was a well-oiled machine by 1979. The story adapts the latter portion of Conan creator Robert E. Howard’s prose adventure “Queen of the Black Coast”, which the team had begun some years earlier. That’s because, in the course of that story, Conan spends an extended period of time as a consort of Belit, the queen of the pirates, and since Roy was dedicated to depicting the entirety of the barbarian’s life chronologically, this meant that he needed to keep Conan in her company for an extended period of time. But now, we come to the inevitable end, and the demise of Conan’s great love.

The issue opens with the pirate ship Tigress entering the poisonous river Zarkheba, where Belit believes that a city rife with treasures to plunder can be found. It’s a perilous journey, and Conan and Belit spend part of the voyage talking about their individual belief systems and conception of gods and the afterlife–some solid foreshadowing, to be certain. Along the way, just so there isn’t a death of action, Conan gets to kill an enormous sea serpent that attacks their craft. And eventually, they come upon the ruins of a city, and spy the great winged creature who has made it their home.

Conan and Belit lead a raiding party into the ruined city, and do indeed come upon a horde of treasures to plunder. But while they’re doing this, the flying Devil-Ape descends upon the Tigress and destroys the ship’s supply of drinking water. As the waters of the river are poisonous, this presents a real problem for the crew. So the band split up, with Conan taking a bunch of men to search for an alternative water supply while Belit and the rest convey the treasures back to the waiting ship. As Conan and his guys search, they wander into an area rife with the Black Lotus, whose scent causes them to pass out and have hallucinogenic nightmares. Conan in particular has visions of the history of this place and of the winged Devil-Ape that guards it.

After Conan regains his senses, he’s attacked by one of his own me, M’Gora, who has been driven insane by the visions he experienced. Conan is forced to slay him, and he thereafter comes across the rest of the party, their bodies horribly smashed from a long fall into a ravine. Conan races back to the Tigress, but finds that the crew has been slaughtered in his absence, including Belit, whom he finds hanging from a yardarm. In a murderous funk, Conan takes up arms and proceeds to kill his way through the pack of hyenas who come out of the woods to devour the fallen pirates, then he takes up his sword to seek out revenge for Belit’s death upon the Demon-Ape. But the creature collapses a stone pillar atop Conan, which crushes him to the ground and knocks his sword from his hand.

As Conan thinks that he has finally breathed his last, he’s suddenly granted a reprieve by the sudden appearance of Belit–or her shade. Earlier, she had told Conan that even death could not keep her from his side, and she shows up to stab the Devil-Ape and to give Conan the necessary time to extricate himself and provide the killing blow. But it’s small comfort to the Cimmerian, who proceeds to set the Tigress aflame with Belit’s body on board as a manner of Viking funeral. So he’s back to being a solo adventurer from this point forward–though how he intends to get back to what passes for civilization in this era without a ship and surrounded by poisonous waters is a question that this story doesn’t bother to try to answer. The story definitely had the gravitas for a centennial special, but I have to admit that it left me pretty cold. I felt like Belit’s death just sort of happened, and the narrative was so focused on captions rather than interaction and dialogue that I found it a bit of a chore to get through. This was often my complaint with the Conan comics that I sampled. Roy was emulating the prose style of REH, but I wasn’t a huge fan of wading through oppressive blocks of flowery text.