The essay originally appeared in Glenn Lord’s Howard Collector (in 1972) before it went out of print, hopefully along with Blosser’s theory. In other words, according to Blosser, Conan is not a full-blooded Cimmerian. He theorizes that Conan’s father was from Cimmeria and his mother was from the Aesir. Also presented in this issue – and perhaps the strangest of all – is a speculative essay about Conan’s parents which was written by Fred Blosser. Then, there’s a reprinted sword-and-sorcery mini-tale called “Sanctuary,” written and drawn by Wally Wood. There’s another page of filler featuring “Stan’s Soapbox” and other news promoting different Marvel titles. There are two pages of letters from fans with responses from the staff. Unlike Conan the Barbarian #22, where an entire classic issue was reprinted, the bullpen put all sorts of filler in this issue. They certainly had to find a lot of filler for this issue. The artwork improves from this point, but I wonder if the splash and pages two and three were part of the missing pages and possibly quickly re-drawn by Buscema and Adkins just in time for the looming deadline. Where usually John Buscema’s sequential art tells a story without use of dialogue, this story is told through narrative with flashbacks from the previous issue which don’t conclude until the middle of the third page. But it doesn’t end there – with regard to the second page, there is very little background work and the inks are very thick. Conan’s profile covers much of Stefanya’s head and captions cover Conan’s head and arm. There is some texture and depth to the background, but the foreground is poorly composed. It is possibly the worst John Buscema splash page that I have seen and I don’t recall ever seeing a bad page like this from the legendary artist. But that’s the entire Conan story for this issue.ĬAPSULE REVIEW: The nine pages that are here aren’t all that spectacular. With the dead but bloodless creatures lying on the ground, the duo shares a kiss and then continue their journey east without further rest.Ī couple of kisses between Conan and Stefanya and humorous at times, this seems to be a promising develipment for Conan. Instinctively, Conan goes into berserker mode and fights the creatures with some help from Stefanya. Zoqquanor’s body is surrounded by a silver radiance, and grotesque goblin-like dwarves are creeping toward the sleeping wizard. He’s soon awakened by Stefanya to behold an eerie sight. He lays his lovely female companion on the ground, kisses her as she sleeps and covers her with a blanket. With his companion already asleep and Conan struggling to stay awake, the Cimmerian stops at some ruins to camp. ![]() Zoqquanor is strapped in the travois (which is pulled by Conan’s horse) and the pair begin their travels. ![]() Mentally he makes a note of an odd star-shaped birthmark above her hip. This way, they will avoid running afoul of any more spells of protection Zoqquanor may have placed on his lair (such as the giant stone golem from Conan the Barbarian #46!)Īs Conan makes a travois to carry the wizard’s body, he sees Stefanya changing her clothes. Determined to awaken her master from his condition, she convinces Conan that they should leave with the body immediately. Stefanya tells Conan that if her master dies, then she will die too – at least that is what she believes, attributing it to a spell she claims Zoqquanor placed on her. She has brought him before her master Zoqquanor, who lies in a death-like sleep on a slab of stone (See Conan the Barbarian #46 for all the details!) ![]() Set in the evening at the Border Kingdoms, we find Conan with Stefanya, the young woman he stumbled upon and rescued from a blood-crazed mob (another recurring theme in these Conan tales) while on his way to Phalkar.
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