King Conan (the Comic) is Dead

 Marvel's current run on Conan has finally breathed its last. There's been a lot of excuses for the recent sparseness of Conan comics, from Covid-19 to a lack of paper, but what I've always suspects to be the root cause is plain old flagging sales. Marvel's newest King Conan was always intended to be a mini-series, and even that has come to an end, and that's pretty much it for Marvel's Conan (for now, at least), unless you count Conan's regular appearance in Savage Avengers, and I don't count that. 

   Marvel attempts to wrap up the entire Conan story with this tale, while still leaving the door open for possible future adventures, and they do a decent enough job. While exploring the Western Ocean, Conan is ship-wrecked on a cursed island far out at sea, inhabited by the zombies of previous shipwrecked adveenturers. Marooned with him is Conan's reccuring foe and mortal adversary, the Stygian wizard Thoth-Amon, and there ensues a dramatic show-down. The mistress of the island is a displaced Meso-American Princess, who was once fell in love with an Aquilonian adventurer, who betrayed her and sacked her city, and now thirsts for revenge against all Easterners. She is bound by the curse to the island, until another unfortunate takes her place. She also commands great red apes and snow-tigers, both Hyperborian natives who she uses to attack Conan, and then tries to use Toth-Amon to blackmail him, until she learns the two are foes. While all this ensues, we're treated to flash backs in Aquilonia, of King Conan trying to get his son Prince Conn to go off adventuring on his own, like he did as a youth. There ensues a non-lethal sword battle between father and son, and at last Conan relents, and decides that he is the one who needs to go on adventuring again. Conn assumes the Aquilonian throne. Toth-Amon driven by his own lust for power, takes the Princess's place, setting her spirit free, and Conan paddles out further west, in the final panel reaching the coast of what is now South or North America. 

  And that's where the story leaves us. What will happen next? Conan never truly dies, because he's always revived every few years. That he only persists in Savage Avengers though, speaks volumes of how currently the trend favors super-heroes. it's a wonder Conan was brought back at this time at all. 

And I think I've split this post, because it will take too long to explore Conan's adventures in the Americas.