Titan's Conan #9

 This Roberto del Torre cover for Titan's comics' Conan The Barbarian 9 got my hopes up that they were adapting Howard's "Tower of the Elephant." Del Torre IS returning for this story arc, but so far as I can tell, it's a brand new story. Howard fans will recognize the scene in which Conan confronts the elephant-headed alien, Yag-Kosha, and it is a much better rendering than Cary Nord's for Dark Horse, as accomplished an artist as Nord is. But shouldn't Kosha be green? I suppose it's the lighting. Anyway, it appears they are NOT adapting the story, so no one get their hopes up. Or is it possible that Conan and Yag-Kosha will cross paths again? Doubtful, this DOES appear to be a scene from that story--Kosha is chained to the throne, presumably by the evil sorcerer who has enslaved him.

Chuck Dixon's Siege of the Black Citadel

 

   Over this holiday season I read Chuck Dixon's rather slim new Conan pastiche "Siege of the Black Citadel", about Conan  as a sword for hire, leading an army of Kothian rebels against their insane emperor, and his "Black Citadel", a fortress guarded not merely by the imperial army of Koth, but by dark sorcery. If you don't know who Dixon is, he had a long run was the regular writer of Savage Sword of Conan, Conan's black and white comic magazine, back in the day. He wrote many good and memorable Conan yarns, often tending toward the gruesome, back in the late eighties/early nineties after Micheal Fleisher's long run. He's most remembered by comic fans for his creation of the Batman villain Bane, for DC comics. 

   This whole novel just feels like it could fit into an issue of SSOC; I can imagine it as just such as story, illustrated by Gary Kwapisz, Dixon's offtime collaberator. That's no criticism; it's something of complement, given that there hasn't been anything like the richness of Savage Sword, with its often incredible art, backups, feature articles on REH, pinups, etc. On the other hand, this was only a fairly good story that would make a decent SSOC issue, nothing outstanding, and would likely be run-of-the mill as Dixon's stories go, not one of his best. In fact, many of his SSOC tales outdid this one. 

   There is, naturally, a climactic battle between Conan and a demonic creature summoned from an alien plane by the Citadel's mage at the climax of the tale, as there often is.

   The one issue I did have with the story was with a character I sympathized with that (I'm fairly certain) was not intended as sympathetic; namely Ozmeth, the puppet prince who was foolishly left in charge of Black Citadel. He was merely a teen or preteen, and was horrified when soldiers got cooked alive during the battle. Ozmeth is later driven mad when he foolishly looks upon the demonic entity after being sternly warned not to do so. I'll assume he was killed along with everyone else during the final destruction of the Citadel, but by that point, his death would be more or less a mercy. 

 

   So that's about all I have to say about this book. A better than average book on Dixon's part, but nothing really great as Conan pastiches go. 

The Black Stranger, aka The Treasure of Tranicos

 "The Black Stranger" is one of the darkest and most disturbing Conan stories Howard wrote. It is nearly novella length. It's mostly about Buccaneers searching for the treasure along a stretch of Pictish Wilderness coast.  But at the core of the tale is the story of a corrupt nobleman, Count Valenso, on the run from a mysterious vengeful entity, the "Black Stranger" of the title. Valenso has joined one of two sets of feuding bucaneers, supposedly in hope s of securing Tranicos' treasure himself. But the true reason for his presence among them, which Valenso has kept secret, proves far darker. 

    The Count is accompanied by his young niece Belasa, and her younger (sister?) Tina, whom he treats with cold indifference. Apparently the two children are orphaned and are forced to live with their callous uncle, and are in among this rough crew of unfeeling adult males because they have no where else to go. Valenso makes it clear later on that he intends to sell both children into slavery or get rid of them. This element of the tale has an almost Dickensian feel to it.

   The most disturbing incident in the entire story occur when the Count is discussing with his men how to secure the treasure and survive the Picts, when the young serving girl, Tina, blurts out that she has witnessed a "black man" come ashore in a strange boat limned with blue fire. She was frightened and observed him from behind a ridge of sand. Valenso nearly goes mad, first with horror and astonishment, which then transforms to rage, as whips the poor bewildered child with insane fury, until her back is lacerated and nearly flayed, screaming for her to confess that she is lying. The child screams for mercy and insists she is telling only what she saw. Howard describes the faces of the other men as "uncaring as oxen", the awful scene of child brutality not moving them in the least. Belasa comes to Tina's rescue, as the rage suddenly desert's the uncle, and it is clear to the reader that he is now in state of terrorized despair. There is no question that nothing less than stark terror triggered his brutalization of the child. Needless to say, far from thinking Tina a liar, he believes her every word. 

    Now when I originally read this, it was a copy of the altered version retitled "The Treasure of Tranicos," and it was co-authored by L. Sprague DeCamp. And something didn't seem right. It is later revealed that the black stranger is none other than Thoth Amon, the Stygian sorcerer, and Conan's old foe. This didn't quite ad up. For one thing, Amon was DeCamp/Carter creation, and had appeared numerous times in the Conan comics. And also the Stygians (proto Egyptians) were dusky skinned, while Tina described the stranger as tall and "black like a Kushite." Knowing how Howard's original Conan stories bordered on belonging to the horror genre, and judging from Valenso's reaction to the news of the stranger's arrival, this being had to something far worse than a human sorcerer, either Stygian nor Kushite. 

  And thus proved to be the case. 

   It wasn't until many years later that I finally got hold of the original, unaltered Howard yarn, published along with other similarly dark Howardian yarns in the volume pictured above. When the stanger beats his drum within the woods, a wild storm wrecks Valenso's ship, leaving the men stranded and at the mercy of the indigenous Picts.  We learn from Valenso's lips that the stranger is actually a demon cast in a human-like shape, whom he paid a wizard to conjure up to destroy his (Valenso's)enemies, to gain him a position of power. But the corrupt noble tried to cheat the demon, and the dark entity slew the wizard that conjured him, and began pursuing Valenso to the ends of the earth. 

    Now that's vintage Howard for you!

    I won't say more, save---don't read if you don't want to know, slight spoiler---the stranger does get revenge on the count, and has a climactic showdown with Conan. Who unsurprisingly, is the one who recovers the treasure, and uses part of it to make sure the children Belasa and Tina have a secure furtue. One thing Howard makes disturbingly clear in this tale is the utter powerlessness of children, particularly (I imagine) female children among brutal and uncaring adults during the Hyborian age. And that, of course, goes for most of actual recorded history as well. 

Bar'aque Sharaq: Michael Fleisher's Deathless Villain

 

The Bob Larkin painting of Conan facing off with Bor'aque Sharaq. Sharaq was a re-occuring villain during Micheal Fleisher's long run at Savage Sword. He was a Barachan pirate who was captured and tortured by the Argossan navy to find Conan's whereabouts, and they gouged out his left eye in the process. After that, the disfigured corsair became obsessed with killing Conan.

All this happened in a story called "Temple of the Twelve-Eyed Thing," which ended with the titular creature flinging Sharaq to his apparent death out a tower window. But Sharaq survived, and reappeared off and on throughout Fleisher's run, on his quest for vengeance. The issue below is one of a two-part story featuring Sharaq. illustrating the climax, in which a demon from the netherworld reaches out to claim a sacrifice, but it's Sharaq he grabs, not the girl on the alter. It is at this climax that Fleisher cheats a bit, refering to Sharaq's "death-shrieks", as we learn in a later tale that the pirate survived the incident by making a bargain with the demon. He is eventually is able to escape the fiend's dimension, and resumes his quest for revenge. This tale was illustrated by Alfredo Alcala, by the way.

One thing that always bugged me about Sharaq is that Fleisher always had him slaughtering without a hint of remorse any innocent person who happened to get in his way, apparently to demonstrate how evil and ruthless he was. It's fine that Sharaq was so evil. What bothered me was the fact that these innocent people got killed. Worse, Sharaq never got his comupance. Each time Conan thought he had destroyed the corsair for good, Sharaq would always bounce back.

That is, until after an adventure with Snow Raven, one of Conan's many love interests, at the climax of which Sharaq was frozen in mystic ice. It was clear that the ice would melt, and Sharaq would be free, once Conan and Snow-Raven were far away. But ironically, this time Sharaq never showed up again. Fleisher's reign was at end at SSOC, and he later took over as the writer for Warlord at DC. Letters often inquired if Sharaq would be back, but he never was, not during Chuck Dixon's reign, or Roy Thomas's return.

Then again, if SSOC is returning, might it be that Sharaq might return as well?